The Sydney Olympic Mascots were a group of characters that were designed to represent the 2000 Summer Olympics, which were held in Sydney, Australia. The mascots were named Olly, Syd, and Millie, and they were meant to embody the spirit of the games and the host city. Olly was a kookaburra, a native Australian bird known for its distinctive call. He was chosen to be the main mascot of the Sydney Olympics and was portrayed as a friendly and energetic character. Olly's vibrant feathers and playful personality made him a hit with children and adults alike. Syd was a platypus, another unique Australian creature.

POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Syd was a platypus, another unique Australian creature. He was characterized as a laid-back and easygoing mascot, reflecting the relaxed vibe of Sydney. Syd's blue color and star-shaped belly button added to his whimsical charm.

'Olly' mascot costume for promoting the Sydney Olympic Games

Object No. 2001/84/287

This costume of the Sydney Olympic Games mascot, 'Olly', was manufactured in 1997 to promote the coming Sydney 2000 Games. Costumes for two other Sydney 2000 mascots, 'Millie' and 'Syd', were manufactured at the same time. The correct handling and characterisation of these costumes is explained in an instructional video ('Instruction video for dressing, care and characterisation of the Olympic mascot costumes', Conrad & Co. and Black Sheep Productions, 1997) that is also in the Sydney 2000 Games Collection. Along with the Syd and Millie costumes, the Olly costume reflects part of the visual theme for the 2000 Games. In 1998, SOCOG launched its family of three mascots for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. These characters - an echidna, kookaburra and platypus - would "inspire, entertain, inform and embrace people in a friendly, welcoming style that would encapsulate the spirit of Sydney" (Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Image Guidelines, SOCOG Image Department, 1998). They would also serve more practical functions of promoting and adorning merchandise, and appearing on banners, signage and other decorative material for the Games. Each mascot would also be patron to several Olympic sports. Sydney graphic designer, Matthew Hatton, developed the suite of three mascots in 1997 as part of an official competition. His intention was to create characters that would represent the earth, air and water, and would encapsulate the spirits of Sydney, the Olympic Games and the new millennium. The resulting characters, 'Syd', 'Olly' and 'Millie', became integral to the visual theme of the Sydney 2000 Games. Syd, a platypus, was a dynamic athlete who embodied the Australian character and represented the environment. He was patron of environmental programs, including Green Games 2000, a major environmental initiative for Sydney 2000. Olly, a kookaburra, was custodian of the Olympic rings and symbolised the ethos and history of the Olympic Games. He was a representative for current affairs and general information. Millie, an echidna, was mastermind of new technologies and represented hope and optimism for the new millennium. She was an advocate of the internet and education. Together, these three figures served as highly profitable icons for Sydney 2000. The Sydney 2000 Image Department monitored and approved the creative use of the Olympic mascots on official merchandising. Its 1998 publication, 'Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Image Guidelines', specified the correct size, colour, pose and background for each mascot, and included brief character profiles, personalised footprints and signatures.

Summary

Object Statement

Costume consisting of head, body, feet and leggings, Olympic mascot 'Olly', Olympic Games, Sydney, 2000, mascot designed by Matthew Hatton 1997, costume made for SOCOG by Studiokite c.1997.

Physical Description

Costume consisting of head, body, feet and leggings, Olympic mascot 'Olly', Olympic Games, Sydney, 2000, mascot designed by Matthew Hatton 1997, costume made for SOCOG by Studiokite c.1997. The costume consists of a cast foam head covered with synthetic fur and stretch fabric, a body with wings made from foam and synthetic fur fabric, feet cast foam covered with tan fabric and a pair of tan coloured leggings. There is a bag for the shoes and a large bag for the entire costume to be stored in.

PRODUCTION

Notes

Olympic mascot, Olly, designed by Matthew Hatton for SOCOG in 1997. This mascot costume was made by NSW company Studiokite who made small 1/4 scale versions in plastacine to interpret Matthew Hatton's drawings. Patterns were made for the foam. and the heads were carved from blocks of foam rubber. The stretch fur all came from hair technology in the US. Made for SOCOG c. 1997

HISTORY

Notes

Used to promote the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games Made for and owned by the Olympic Coordination Authority/Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, and donated to the Powerhouse Museum after use in the Games.

SOURCE

Credit Line

Part of the Sydney 2000 Games Collection. Gift of the New South Wales Government, 2001

Acquisition Date

Copyright for the above image is held by the Powerhouse and may be subject to third-party copyright restrictions. Please submit an Image Licensing Enquiry for information regarding reproduction, copyright and fees. Text is released under Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivative licence.

2000 Sydney Olympics mascots

In January 1997, SOCOG unveiled its trio of mascots a platypus named Syd, an echidna named Millie and a kookaburra named Olly for the 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics.

The names of the mascot trio are derived from the Games Syd for the host city, Millie for the year and the new millennium, and Olly for the Olympics themselves.

The three mascots are based on animals that are unique to Australia, and their selection and coloring represent land, air and water. Their colors are also consistent with the colors used in the Sydney 2000 logo.

The mascots were designed by Matthew Hatton, an Australian graphic designer and illustrator. As with to other Olympics, the mascots are introduced by a story or legend about how they came to be.

As a severe summer storm swept across Australia, three young animals a platypus, an echidna and a kookaburra found themselves forced out and away from their homes. Frightened by the lightning and thunder, the three escaped to the same protected hollow, huddling together for safety.

Just then, the storm stopped and the clouds parted, revealing 2,000 stars scattered across the Australian night sky. The constellations include the Southern Cross.

Informing the three young animals of their arrival at Millennium Park, the Spirit of the Southern Cross asked the trio to serve as mascots for a grand, global celebration an event called the Olympics, which meshes peace and friendship with sports and culture.

Each was given a name and an Olympic attribute as well as the mark of the Southern Cross.

Coming from the waters was the platypus, which was named Syd for the Australian host city of Sydney. Described as dynamic and a natural leader, Syd is to embody the care and concerns of the environment as well as represent the character of Australia.

From the land came the echidna, which was named Millie. The smart and savvy animal is to represent the new millennium and the hope and optimism that accompany the year 2000.

And hailing from the air was the kookaburra, with its name of Olly saluting the Olympic Games. Olly was called to be custodian of the five Olympic rings and the ethos and history that they represent.

Together, the threesome serve as worldwide symbols representing the Australian environment, Australia as a nation and Olympic ideals during the 2000 Sydney Summer Games.

The mascots

Syd the platypus

Named after the host city of the 2000 Summer Games, Syd the platypus is said to live in a burrow along the water banks of Millennium Park.

Described as a team player and a natural leader, Syd is the dynamic member of the mascot threesome, and sometimes doubles as a cheerleader.

Syd is the mascot who champions the environment as well as fair play in competition. Not surprising for a platypus, his favorite sport is swimming.

Millie the echidna

Millie the echidna mirrors the hope and optimism of her namesake the new millennium. Like Syd, Millie lives in a burrow beneath Millennium Park, but her stylish digs arent as close to the waters edge as Syds.

The hip, modern-minded Millie boasts the brains and technological skills of the mascot trio. The techno-whiz mascot is a natural teacher with creativity, looking to educate people through sports.

The optimistic young female is said to excel at sports that involve strategy and accuracy, such as archery, gymnastics and fencing.

Olly the kookaburra

From his home atop the tallest tree in Millennium Park, the chat-happy and always-friendly Olly draws his name from the Olympic Games.

His personality described as gregarious, honest, enthusiastic and friendly makes him the perfect fit as a mascot to be custodian of the five-ring Olympic logo.

The unselfish mascot is speedy and given to flying about to collect and communicate information. A natural comedian who isnt above practical jokes, Olly can also laugh at himself.

MORE READING ON OLYMPIC MASCOTS

History’s Greatest Olympic Mascot Is Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat

The 2016 Olympic Games are underway in Rio de Janeiro, and despite all the problems, there’s one thing Brazil has done exactly right: creating forgettable Olympics mascots. This time around it’s Vinicius, a yellow catlike creature who has the qualities of several Brazilian animals combined, and Tom, the mascot of the Paralympic Games, who has the qualities of a tree.

Like the best Olympic mascots of yore, Vinicius and Tom are well-suited to plush toys and licensing deals and will be completely forgotten within a year. There are no obvious missteps here, like giving Wenlock and Mandeville cameras for eyes in surveillance-camera-ridden London in 2012 or whatever was going on with Atlanta’s Izzy in 1996. Vinicius and Tom can look forward to a happy future of slowly shedding fuzz at the bottom of toy boxes for the next few years before joining Waldi the dachshund, Amik the beaver, and Hidy and Howdy the polar bears in peaceful oblivion. But there’s one mascot you can’t buy in plush form: Fatso, the fat-arsed wombat, the battlers’ prince*, the bane of the Australian Olympic Committee, and the hero of the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Fatso was dreamed up by Australian comedians John Doyle and Greig Pickhaver, who had hosted a radio show since the 1980s called This Sporting Life. On the show and its various spinoffs, Doyle appeared in character as ex-athlete “‘Rampaging’ Roy Slaven” and Pickhaver played “H.G. Nelson,” an announcer, as they skewered sports and sports coverage. In 2000, they were hired by Australia’s Channel Seven to host a program called The Dream with Roy & HG, where they provided nightly Olympics coverage featuring straight-faced nonsense commentary, like their gymnastics coverage discussing how well competitors executed moves like the “Hello, Boys!” and the “Crazy Date.” But their greatest achievement by far was Fatso. The official mascots that year were a duck-billed platypus named Syd, a kookaburra named Olly, and a spiny anteater named Millie; the kindest thing you could say about them was that they weren’t Izzy. Roy and H.G. dubbed them “Syd, Ollie, and Dickhead.” They’d been chosen via a process designed to select any animal except the stereotypical kangaroos and koalas, a fine idea that was somewhat undercut when the Australian Olympic Committee introduced its own licensed mascot, the Boxing Kangaroo. Enter Fatso.

Fatso was exactly what his name implied: a wombat with an anatomically implausible butt. Like spiny anteaters and duck-billed platypuses, wombats are native to Australia; unlike the monotremes, wombats don’t look like a horrible mistake of evolution. Fatso, designed by former Disney animator Paul Newell, was simultaneously a rebuke to the entire idea of official mascots and their cash-grab merchandising and, incidentally, a much better mascot than the real thing. Fatso was cute. Fatso had personality. Fatso was memorable. “People take him to their hearts,” Nelson said on the show. “He talks to people around the world. The little guy stands for all that is good and decent about people overcoming hardship. He’s the battlers’ prince.*”

Fatso’s first appearances on The Dream were animated. While Roy and H.G. rolled footage of bad athletic performances, Fatso would appear at the bottom of the screen and, in Roy’s words, “let the big arse do the talking.” Once the show had a plush Fatso manufactured, things started getting out of hand. Australian athletes took Fatso to the medal podium with them, angering Olympic officials, who reportedly sent a written request to The Dream’s network asking them to keep the wombat away from medal ceremonies. Not surprisingly, this hit international news, leading to a press conference in which stone-faced International Olympic Committee members denied he’d been banned.

It seems the trouble was with Australian officials, not the IOC—when journalists asked Australian swimmers Michael Klim and Grant Hackett why they had brought Fatso to their medal podium in the first place, Australian Olympic Committee official Peter Montgomery stepped in and told the press, “It’s a matter of some commercial sensitivity at the moment and I would prefer not to answer the question.”

But Fatso’s fame could not be contained. Roy and H.G. loaned him to foreign newscasters for guest appearances, and the men’s marathon competitors were greeted by a banner reading “Fatso! Fatso! Fatso!” For the final episode of The Dream, Roy and H.G. staged a diving competition in which plush dolls of Syd, Ollie, Millie, the boxing kangaroo, and Fatso plummeted off a high-dive platform.

Fatso won, of course. And unlike so many other Olympic heroes, the fat-arsed gold medalist never tried to cash in on his fame. (No doubt he was aided in this endeavor by the IOC’s lawyers but still.) Only two Fatso plush dolls were ever made; one was auctioned off for charity after the Olympics, and Roy and H.G. kept the other. But although he never embraced commercialism, Fatso did eventually become semi-legitimate. Outside of Sydney’s Stadium Australia, where the games were held, a statue of Fatso was erected as part of an official monument to Olympic volunteers. The statue was stolen in 2010, but Fatso, the fat-arsed wombat, will live on in our hearts forever. Or at least longer than Izzy. *Correction, Aug. 8, 2016: This post originally misidentified Fatso as “the battling prince” and misquoted H.G. Nelson as using the same nickname. He is “the battlers’ prince.” “Battlers” is an Australian term for the working class, contrasting Fatso’s fans with those of white-collar official mascots Syd, Ollie, and Millie. Read more of Slate’s Olympics coverage.

Packs sport Olympic mascots

In the spirit of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, Melbourne, Australia-based Bonlac Foods introduced bags of portion-packed processed cheddar cheese sporting Aussie characters Syd, Millie and Olly playing Olympic sports.

Each 150-g (5.29-oz) bag includes six 25-g (0.88-oz) thermoformed/filled/sealed packs of Bodalla-brand cheese filled on a Unifill TR86 SC tf/f/s machine from Elopak (New Hudson, MI). Filling of the high calcium and vitamin cheese is done at 17 cycles/min, which produces 102 portion packs/min.

The 300-micron (11.81-mil) film used for the pack is supplied by RPC Cobelplast (Lokeren, Belgium). The structure includes polystyrene/ethylene vinyl alcohol/polyethylene. Seven-color gravure printing is done by a firm in Germany.

The tf/f/s machine, when equipped with a different mold, is also used for Bodalla Fun Cheese, Toy Story 2 shapes based on the movie's characters. That version was launched in September, 2000.

Meanwhile, the Olympic Mascot Cheese was introduced last year and will be available throughout Australia until the end of October, 2000. The Olympic cheese six-pack retails for $2.89 ($1.59 U.S.). Valerie Donlon, Bonlac's manager of corporate communications, says the product is sold in the refrigerated dairy case with a 12-month shelf life.

Graphics for both the individual packs and the outer bag carry the Olympic host country's indigenous Syd, Millie and Olly (short for Sydney Millennium Olympics) characters playing Olympic sports such as water polo and synchronized swimming, as shown in the accompanying photo. Packs feature one of 12 different designs. Copy on the outer pack promotes the easy peelability of the portion packs, while also saying that 5¢ per pack (3¢ U.S.) will assist Australian athletes competing at the 2000 Olympics.

Millie was a echidna, a spiky mammal found in Australia. She was the only female mascot of the group and was presented as intelligent and resourceful. Millie's pink color and her ability to curl up into a ball made her a memorable character. The Sydney Olympic Mascots were created to engage and entertain Olympic fans, and they succeeded in capturing the attention and imagination of people around the world. They appeared in various forms, including plush toys, cartoons, and merchandise, and became popular symbols of the Sydney Olympics. Overall, the Sydney Olympic Mascots were a fun and memorable addition to the 2000 Summer Olympics. They showcased the diversity of Australia's wildlife and added a touch of whimsy to the games. Olly, Syd, and Millie will forever be associated with the Sydney Olympics, serving as a reminder of the unique and vibrant spirit of the event..

Reviews for "A Closer Look at the Different Personalities of the Sydney Olympic Mascots"

1. John - 1 star - The Sydney Olympic mascots were a complete disappointment. They lacked creativity and were unappealing to both children and adults. The choice of characters, an echidna, a kookaburra, and a platypus, was confusing and seemed random. Their design was also lackluster and unmemorable. Overall, I found the mascots to be a poor representation of the excitement and energy of the Olympic Games.

2. Emily - 2 stars - I was really looking forward to the Sydney Olympic mascots, but they fell short of my expectations. The echidna, kookaburra, and platypus were not relatable or recognizable to people outside of Australia. Additionally, their designs were overly simplistic and lacked charm. It was difficult to connect with the mascots on an emotional level, which is essential for successful Olympic mascots. I hope future Olympic hosts can come up with more engaging and universally appealing mascots.

3. Michael - 2 stars - I found the Sydney Olympic mascots to be underwhelming. The echidna, kookaburra, and platypus felt like random choices with no real connection to the Olympic Games or Australian culture. Their designs were basic and uninspiring, failing to capture the spirit of the event. The mascots lacked the charisma and playfulness that are typically associated with Olympic mascots. Overall, I was disappointed by the lack of creativity and thought put into the Sydney Olympic mascots.

4. Sarah - 1 star - I was truly unimpressed by the Sydney Olympic mascots. The echidna, kookaburra, and platypus were an odd combination that just didn't make sense. Their designs were unappealing, and I found them to be forgettable. It's a shame because Olympic mascots should be fun and memorable, but these mascots were nothing more than a missed opportunity. I hope future Olympic hosts can come up with better mascots that capture the imagination of both young and old.

The Enduring Appeal of Vintage Sydney Olympic Mascots