The Olympic mascot Waldi is so vividly remembered after all these years because the manufacturers paid attention to sensible ingredients during production. So even fifty years later you can find copies in excellent condition on Ebay, hardly faded, for which you have to invest a hundred euros and more. But Waldi’s longevity is not just a question of the material. What distinguishes him from other mascots is his philosophy, the understatement of a self-confident short-legged man. The Olympics is not just a sporting performance show, the 1972 Games were also a stage for turf wars between world powers. At the Olympic Games in the shepherd nation of Germany, placing the Munich dachshund as a mascot, the typical pet of a Munich citizen, was a stunning idea and an expression of the zeitgeist. At that time one could actually hope that the martial and terrifying would soon become obsolete.
You can see how much times have changed when you look at Waldi’s successor. In 2014, for example, at the Winter Games in Sochi, Russia, a hare, a well-trained snow leopard and a somewhat stocky polar bear called the polar bear officiated, which was true because the polar bear polarized. In the souvenir shops it was sold out quickly. The ultra-right brute rhetorician Vladimir Zhirinovsky had long since decreed that the fat bear was “lazy”, and the well-trained President Putin liked the snow leopard better anyway. However, with the high temperatures in Sochi, it quickly turned into a thaw leopard.
The closing ceremony in the Olympic Stadium in Sochi with the three mascots rabbit, polar bear and snow leopard.
(Photo: Imago)
In any case: a political issue now, these mascots. They are allowed to have something imperious, which is why bears like to be hired. Also in Moscow 1980, Calgary 1988, Salt Lake 2002, Pyeongchang 2018, members of the extensive bear family watched over the Olympic and Paralympic Games, in 2000 in Sydney a spiny anteater, in 2010 in Vancouver even a ghost bear. Tigers, wolves and Great Pyrenees were also in demand. In the meantime, larger groups of mascots often appear because: If you can sell one animal, why shouldn’t you be able to sell three?
Countless mischas, the mascot of the Summer Olympics in Moscow, cavort on the lawn at the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Moscow’s Lenin Stadium. A misha portrait is formed by people in the stands.
(Photo: Associated Press)
The Munich dachshund was a lone fighter, the next unique selling point was Waldis, which was created by the young artist Elena Schwaiger, under the supervision of the design giant Otl Aicher, of course, and according to clearly defined guidelines for color and shape, for example: “Head and tail in sky blue. ” At the beginning of 1972 two million copies had been sold in more than a hundred countries, the SZ headlined: “Olympia-Waldi als Goldesel”, but the yields were manageable. At least compared to later, 1984 in Los Angeles, when the Games entered their current high-commercial era. Experts from the Disney studios were on hand to design the mascot, resulting in the bald eagle Sam, comic creature and national animal in one, a high-flyer trimmed for full marketability. The color scheme followed the unspoken principle: giant beak and monster feet in yolk yellow.
Waldi was only the second mascot in Olympic history, “Shuss” roared out of the scenes in Grenoble in 1968. Not a biathlete, as the name suggests, but a little skier. Few of the mascots are deeply remembered, especially the creations from the more recent past are lost in their web of requirements: be merchandise-compatible and somehow have to serve the national feeling that is once again so important and, at the same time, please remain attractive to a young audience. This is how analogue-digital intermediary beings have often emerged recently, suitable for the stuffed animal shelf and for computer games, overloaded with meaning. In Beijing in a few weeks, for example, the panda Bing Dwen Dwen will start its service, wearing a full-body shell made of ice that resembles an astronaut’s suit and, according to the official website, will be “a tribute to the embrace of new technologies for a future with infinite possibilities” target. Huge ballast on the shoulders of a simple panda.
Bing Dwen Dwen, the mascot of the Beijing Winter Olympics 2022.
(Photo: Ju Huanzong / Imago)
One cannot say that nothing useful would have come after Waldi either. Cobi, for example, the aforementioned Great Pyrenees from the 1992 Summer Games in Barcelona, a pretty cubist work of art by the designer Javier Mariscal. Bulky, not a warmth of the heart at first glance, but then arrived at the people, in Barcelona and the rest of the world. It could of course be that this has something to do with the time in which he competed. 1992, when the wall was just gone, the world actually seemed to grow together. It looked like everything was going to get better. In contrast to the present.
Hostesses with a soft toy variant of the mascot Amik during the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.
(Photo: Imago)
Or in 1976, when Montreal competed with a heraldic animal that belongs to Canadians like the dachshund to Munich. Amik was a beaver, a beaver is also on the 5-cent coin and in the old coat of arms of Montreal. The beaver is patient, works hard, and its fur was an important commodity. The mascot beaver from 1976 did not have a full-body shell made of ice, but it had something of the self-deprecating charm of its predecessor Waldi.
Which, by the way, is not only fondly remembered in Munich, but worldwide. You meet him here, you meet him there. In Lausanne, for example, there is a shop in the Olympic Museum where you can also buy the most remarkable mascots of the past, reissued of course. Good old Waldi – tail and head in sky blue – doesn’t have to hide on these shelves either, from any bear or tiger.