Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat

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Side view of "Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat" as he appeared on top of a pole outside Sydney's Stadium Australia.

Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat was an unofficial mascot of the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics created by Sydney cartoonist Paul Newell with Roy and HG from the Australian Channel Seven sports/comedy television program The Dream with Roy and HG, which covered the event.[1][2] He took the form of a life-size stuffed toy wombat with a lazy, cheerful expression and comically pronounced rump, and usually appeared on The Dream broadcasts on Roy and HG's desk.

Fatso was a spoof of the official Olympic mascots Syd, Ollie and Millie, whom Roy & HG disparaged as "Ollie, Millie and Dickhead".[3] He was nicknamed "the battlers' prince" and proved to be more popular among Australian fans (and some visitors who viewed the program) than the official mascots.[4] Fatso appeared with Gold Medalists Susie O'Neill, Grant Hackett and the Australian men's 4×200 metre relay team on the winners' dais.[1][2] He consequently appears on an official commemorative postage stamp of the Australian men's 4×200 metre relay team in the arms of Michael Klim.[5] During the Olympics, the Australian Olympic Committee attempted to ban athletes appearing with Fatso to stop him upstaging their official mascots.[2] The ensuing public relations disaster forced the president of the AOC, John Coates, and the director general of the IOC, Francois Carrard, to distance their organisations from these attempts.[1][6]

In keeping with Fatso's role as a protest against the commercialization of Olympic mascots,[3] only two Fatsos were officially produced: one for use in the studio and the other for use in the athletes' village.[1] At the end of the Olympics, one of the Fatsos was auctioned for the Olympic Aid charity, selling for A$80,450 to Seven Network executive chairman Kerry Stokes. Fatso is currently housed in a glass box in Kerry Stokes's North Sydney office.[6] A number of unofficial Fatso toys and memorabilia were sold by merchants without authorization from the producers of The Dream.[7][8] A statue of Fatso appears as part of an official Olympic memorial outside the Sydney Olympic Stadium, commemorating the volunteers who worked during the Olympics.[6] The Fatso statue was vandalised in late September 2010, then stolen sometime before 8 October 2010.[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Fatso the Wombat Online: THE Unofficial Fatso Fanclub, Pandora Archive, National Library of Australia, archived 2000-11-20
  8. ↑ Fatso the Wombat Online: THE Unofficial Fatso Fanclub Tee-Shirt order form, Pandora Archive, National Library of Australia, archived 2000-11-20
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.

External links

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