Tender Roni

Growing up in Upstate New York in 1980, you saw Roni, the Olympic raccoon, everywhere. And then you saw the little bastard on pins, stickers, t-shirts, and signs for years afterwards. I'll bet there are still some Roni window decals crustified on the doors of my old school. I think that the idea of an Olympic mascot is a bit strange, perhaps an attempt to get little kids to enjoy the Olympics.

Olympic mascots are supposed to go away after the games are over. No one wants to see Heidi and Howdy again, right?

I don't even know if there's a place for mascots outside of the venue. When Neve and Gliz were rolled out, someone typed a gag-inducing, yet impressive 19-page press release. Um, yikes.

Still I have to put those cute li'l Italian marshmallows up there as one of the best mascots. They're certainly cute as fuck. I also like Schuss, dubbed "a little man on skis", from Grenoble in '68 (the first official mascot) and Cobi from Barcelona in '92, because I feel like he's laughing at the humans.

I'm not a huge fan of Amik, from Montreal '76, who looks like a furry turd (sorry, Bruce Jenner and beavers everywhere). Izzy from the Atlanta Olympics was an overblown nightmare.

Suddenly I've become the Mr. Blackwell of the Olympic mascotting world. I'll stop now.