The Brazil 2016 Olympic Mascots Are Either Rejected Pokemon Or The Result of A Terrifying Fever Dream

Most Olympic promotions never really make sense. It’s just the way it goes. Maybe the presence of elite sportspeople and millions of viewers from around the world makes event organisers snap under the pressure. “I’ve got it!” a top-level executive exclaims between liberal swigs of black market absinthe. “We’ll finish this prestigious sporting contest with an enormous nightmarish bear on ice skates crying a single tear into a pot of fire!” he says. “Perfect!” the others shout while presumably shooting LSD into their eyeballs.

But that was just the Winter Games. Though the Rio Olympics and Paralympics are still two years away, we’ve just been introduced to the new mascots this week. Though they’re still yet to be named, here are the two creatures they went with. One’s basically a rave version of Meowth and the other is a hallucinogenic artichoke that may or may not murder you in your dreams.

“I’m a mixture of all the Brazilian animals,” says neo-Meowth on the Olympics website. I was born out of the
explosion of joy that happened when they announced that Rio would host the Olympic Games, on 2 October 2009.”

“I’m a magical creature, a fusion of all the plants in the Brazilian forests,” says ol’ bud blue shrooms. “I was born out of the explosion of happiness when we found out that the Paralympic Games were coming to Rio, on 2 October 2009.”

Since then they’ve been hiding in the shadows. Waiting. Watching.

Rio 2016 mascots featuring a Lego Tina Turner. pic.twitter.com/o1Mu4KpYas

— Roberticus (@Santapelota) November 24, 2014

In fact, Hello Kitty and Bulbasaur come from a long line of Olympic weridos.

From left to right you have London’s cycloptic aliens Wenlock and Manderville, Athens’ answer to the Greensdale Community College Human Being, Moscow’s semi-respectable Misha the bear, and Beijing’s LeLe the only occasionally threatening female cow.

Other notable examples include the very 1996 Izzy.

And Sam, the ‘USA didn’t really get in the spirt of the games’ bald eagle.

Maybe having the cast of Adventure Time prance around a track for a couple of weeks ain’t so bad after all.