Olympics Mascots of the Future

Long time readers know that Ferrebeekeeper has a keen (albeit understated) interest in mascots.  They are the heraldic beasts of our corporate times…and, like the present, they represent a peculiar synthesis of what is endearing, banal, zany, and oppressive all wrapped up together.  The royalty of the mascot world are Olympics mascots, although admittedly they come from hardscrabble roots and they don’t reign for long (I am sorry I was only two years old when Schneeman came and went at Innsbruck—but maybe we can get in the wayback machine and visit that goofy goofy snowman one of these days).  A couple of years ago we blogged about Soohorang the overly-simplified white tiger of Korea, and it was a pleasure to see this bland beast spring into action.  What with all of the excitement back in February though, I failed to show you a peak at the future.

As you have probably guessed, this is a long-winded way of introducing the 2020 Olympics mascots.  The 2020 summer Olympics will be held in Tokyo, Japan, the epicenter of the land of mascots.  Japan has learned a thing or two since they brought us Sento-kun, Nara’s disquieting deer-child of magic and ridicule.  For 2020 the designers looked deep into the web and brought us some of the things the internet loves best: cats and nerdy futuristic technology.

Here are the mascots of 2020.  They are so new they do not yet have names, but I really like them.  The blue tomcat in the suit from that Tom Petty video is the Olympics mascot, and the pink kitty with the retro-future cape and the red eyes is the Paralympics mascot (by the way, congratulations to all of the proud strong athletes of the 2018 Paralympics).

I really like these Tokyo mascots: they are just the right amount of futuristic.  Thank goodness we are not replaying the whole Wenlock and Mandeville fiasco. Just looking at these spacecats makes happy eighties synthesizer noises go off inside my head.  The cats look really friendly and they have clean bold lines (without being too scaled back like poor Soohoorang, who barely exists because of the unholy collaboration of digital designers and management committees).  In fact, these guys look like somebody with some pencils might have sketched them out before reaching for Illustrator.  I also like the white, navy, and magenta color combination.  It seems like they came from a clean contest instead of one that Vladimir Putin tampered with.  Speaking of which, that post was from 2014: how come we didn’t learn anything then?

But back to the future mascots… With their hover suits and feline arrogance, there is an element of the Great Gazoo in both these cats (for young people, the Gazoo was a patronizing gnome from space or the future or something who was always tormenting Fred and Barney during the final post shark-jump seasons of the Flintstones). Additionally, there is a lot of Pokemon and Neopets in these cats.  Here are the finalists from which the two winners were selected.

It seems like the Japanese really love cats, and I am right there on the same page with them.  White cats wearing spacesuits are particular favorites since we had a family of white cats when I was growing up (although I don’t remember if they wore spacesuits or not).  My grandparents had a white cat named Pharaoh who was one of the real characters of my youth.  Pharaoh’s sister Lily was one of my favorite cats too and she would sleep on my feet sometimes and purr in my arms when I was 9, although she died far too young, killed by a cruel and indifferent motorist (as will happen to all of us unless they hurry up with robot cars). Oh…I made myself sad. Fortunately these mascot cats will not be let outside before 2020 (plus they are deathless cartoons) and I am excited to learn their crazy names and backstory.  Most of all I am excited to see them in Olympics action: 2020 can NOT come soon enough (if you know what I mean).  We can put all sorts of disreputable stuffed head branding dummies in the past.

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