Monday, July 28, 2008

Fuwa Kyu

I’ve blogged before on the Fuwa, the five gay-looking mascots of the Olympics.  I just read this WSJ article on the characters which had me laughing out loud in a few places.

Ultimately, five cartoon figures (an Olympic record) emerged, representing a fish, a panda, a Tibetan antelope, a swallow and the Olympic flame. Their two-syllable names, when lined up correctly, combine to spell out “Beijing welcomes you” in Chinese.  … Beijing residents created their own Fuwa—a duck, a dragonfly and a taxi—whose names spell out “bastard” in Beijing slang.

A taxi.  Christ that’s funny!

When they were unveiled to American audiences during the halftime show at a 2006 NFL Game, Joe Bryant, a blogger at Footballguys.com wasn’t impressed. “Why do the Olympic mascots have to look like some mutant Pokemon / Telletubbie thing,” he wrote. “What’s wrong with a bull dog or a cougar or a sweat shop worker for a mascot?”

So true.  All Olympic mascots are stupid (which is the whole point of the WSJ article), but these are especially dumb.