I totally want to be there when Ultraman takes these guys down

I’d like to thank the London 2012 Olympic committee for creating mascots that actually make me nostalgic for the Fuwa:

Surrender earthlings, or meet the claws of death!

As near as I can tell, these guys are apparently the result of cross breeding the Teletubbies:

With Ultraman’s archenemies, the Baltans:

The claws are the giveaway. You can visit the London mascots’ home page, where they are tweeting (sigh) and apparently menacing an innocent family, or read the press coverage here or here. The latter link, to a Guardian story and source of the photo above, is well worth your time. It’s about the Canadians savaging them, in far worse ways than I am. I guess the bliss from Vancouver has worn off already.

Also, god bless Wikipedia, which has, no joke, 3,700 words on the Baltans. This is why it’s kicking Britannica’s ass as a reference. Baltan photo from this site, which will give you an idea of how many people are willing to write long dissertations on Ultraman villains.

Previous mascot abuse on Imagethief:

• Hello Kitty meets the Power Rangers: Five Olympic mascots (November, 2005; the unveiling of Beijing’s mascots)
• Sado-mascotism (November, 2006; renaming of the “Five Friendlies” to the “Fuwa” for reasons to weird to go into – image links broken in this post)
• Mascot for the Beijing Psychedelic games (September, 2007; Paralympic mascot Fu Niu Le Le unveiled – still my favorite of the mascots, and don’t miss the truly trippy video)
• Gumby’s love child named Shanghai World Expo mascot (December, 2007; Atlanta’s “Izzy” was the other parent)