The History of Olympic’s Summer Mascots 1972-2024: DIStory Dan Ep. 96

Olympic Summer Mascots are some of the best, weird and wonderful professional mascots ever done, so let’s go down the long beautiful history of these truly unhinged characters.

New PODCAST @FUNFUNFUNPod

#olympics #mascot #costume

00:00 Olympic Mascot History Intro
00:43 Waldi 1972 Munich Games
02:04 Amik 1976 Montreal Games
03:16 Misha 1980 Moscow Games
04:44 Sam Eagle 1984 Los Angeles Games
07:03 Hodori 1988 Seoul Games
08:01 Cobi 1992 Barcelona Games
09:31 Izzy 1996 Atlanta Games
12:20 Syd, Ollie, Millie 2000 Sydney Games
14:02 Athena & Phevos 2004 Athens Games
15:24 The FUWA 2008 Beijing Games
16:50 Wenlock 2012 London Games
18:20 Vinicius 2016 Rio Games
20:00 Miraitowa 2020 Tokyo Games
21:20 Phryges 2024 Paris Games
23:03 SPONSOR
24:51 Dan's Olympic Recap & Hat

Edited by @pleasestopvlogging

[NathanSpies]

Olympics mascots are CRIMINALLY Underrated

[andrew_inc.]

Can’t believer Disney Dan forget my favorite Olympic


Mario & Sonic.

[korofel]

Izzy is so 90s it hurts.

But also I've seen it pointed out that Phryge looks like the anatomical structure of the clitoris which I SO can't unsee.

[AlexPerrine]

I think Sam Eagle Olympic mascot should be brought back for the 2028 Los Angeles games

[annekeener]

The Phrygian cap is actually an ancient symbol that the French Revolution adopted. Basically, when Roman slaves were freed, they were given a special hat called a pileus. During the Middle Ages, the pileus was mistaken for the similar looking Phrygian cap (which had different symbolism attached) so the Phrygian Cap started to mean liberty and independence where before it had meant intelligence, exoticness, and power. Then the French Revolution adopted a red version as their main symbol and Paris kept it.

[jose_erik]

There should be a part 2 of the Olympic mascots, but the winter ones, and also a special video with the Paralympians

[livelise]

The Sydney Olympics had a paralympic mascot too - Lizzie the Frill-Necked Lizzard.
Her frill is green and gold, shaped like our continent. She's supposed to be tough and full of attitude since frill-necks live inland out in the middle of the desert.

As an 8 year old, I was so happy to get the Lizzie beanie-baby toy in my Happy Meal that summer and took her everywhere.

[totorlling]

Now we need the Winter Olympic Mascots please!

[jaclynpabers]

The 2016 ones are really cool and they look like something from adventure time

[DDRWakaLaka]

i love Cobi so much, he looks like a character from Captain Underpants

[Gamergirl-lsto]

I really miss Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.
😔

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

Waldi was created by designer Otl Aicher, who was also responsible for designing the logo for Lufthansa! Waldi was based on a long-haired Dachshund named Cherie von Birkenhof. He was designed to match the colors of the Olympic rings, ergo, blue, yellow, orange and green. However, there were no black or red, which was a conscious decision by Aicher because those were colors related to the National Socialist Party's rule over Germany as they occupied much of Europe during WWII, thus they chose orange instead. While Waldi was the first official Olympic mascot, there were unofficial Olympic mascots before him. Starting with Smoky from Los Angeles 1932. Smoky was an actual Scottish terrier mix that appeared early on in the Olympic Village's construction, with some claiming he was born on the same day that work on the Village began on January 2, 1932 (Los Angeles 1932 were the first to have an official modern Olympic Village). He became the Olympic Village's mascot as he was extremely popular with all visiting delegations, posing with athletes and was given a blanket on which were pinned medals, pins and badges of many nations.

Both the 1968 Winter and Summer Olympics in Grenoble and Mexico City had unofficial mascots too, Schuss (a cartoonish skier; in alpine skiing, a schuss or schussboom is a straight downhill run at high speed) and Chac Mool (a pink jaguar; Chac Mool means "great jaguar" in Yucatec Maya and was based off a throne of a pink jaguar found inside the Kukulkan/El Castillo pyramid at Chichén Itzá) respectively. And while historically Amur/Siberian tigers have been found in Korea, they're not found in Korea today. Koreans chose a tiger because tigers are historically important in Korean culture. The tiger is viewed as the guardian of the Korean people, and the Korean Peninsula is said to resemble a tiger. Baekho, the white tiger, is described in myths and narratives as a divine imaginary animal that watches over the mountains and nature. In the myth of Dangun, the founder of Gojoseon, a bear and a tiger wished to become human beings. The bear turned into a woman by observing the commandments to eat only mugwort and garlic for 100 days in a cave, but the tiger could not endure the ordeal and ran off, failing to realize its wish. The bear gave birth to Dangun. Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics's Soohorang is the continuity of Hodori from the 1988 Summer Olympics, while the Pyeongchang 2018 Paralympics's Bandabi is the continuity of Gomdoori (two Asian black bears/moon bears) from the 1988 Summer Paralympics

[muppetsretrofan]

Sam Eagle, Syd, Ollie, Millie, and Miraitoawa are my favorite Olympic mascots! I love their designs; they are both cute and cool.

[MsPrettyWeird]

I was so obsessed with the Beijing mascots when I was younger lol

[FoxGalahArtStuff]

Miraitowa and Someity are easily my favourites! No freaking contest! I was very awestruck by how good they were in 2021 when I learnt about them!
Also fun fact about them, they are still popular after the Tokyo Games and still get posted about regularly on social media. Heck, they've even fortunately returned after the Tokyo Olympics lots of times and are still active to this day. In fact, their latest appearence is on September 22nd 2024 in a Tokyo Parasports Forward event! Mirasome is such a masterpiece and it deserves to be kept for all of eternity as a legacy of Tokyo 2020 and should expand as time goes on in new ways!

[celocarvalho]

Wait. I never thought that Vinicius was such a hard and strange name for US hahaha. You guys have Vinny right? Just add Cius hahahaha You did nailed it a couple times tho Dan, good job!
Vini and Tom are named after the songwriting duo Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim, the frontmen for the Bossa Nova music, they wrote many of the standards, most notably Garota de Ipanema that you guys love to play on elevators for some reason lol❤

[jawllypop]

Hope you do the Winter Games mascots in two years.

[jullyasonhadora]

Believe it or not, Vinicius and Tom got an official Lego set

[mathieuleader]

they should a race where all mascots compete with one and other

[Eternal_Moon]

It's a pity that there are so few fans of Olympic mascots... They are too interesting not to think about them!

BTW, can you make the winter games edition? 2026 games mascot got revealed this year, so I guess you have a lot to talk about!