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By day nine of the Sydney Olympic Games, the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) has moved to ban the appearance of the wildly popular but unauthorised Olympic mascot, Fatso the fat-arsed wombat. Here, Director-General of the International Olympic Commitee, François Carrard, SOCOG representative Liz Smylie, swimmers Kieren Perkins, Michael Klim and Grant Hackett, and an AOC official, Peter Montgomery, are questioned by unnamed journalists about the ban. Subsequently Roy (John Doyle) and HG (Greig Pickhaver) make a plea for the reinstatement of Fatso as the people’s mascot.
Curator’s notes
Given that Roy and HG’s mission is to make serious things sound trivial and the trivial serious, the AOC’s move to ban Fatso (aka 'the Battler’s Prince’) was a gift. Seen as a threat to the popularity (read money-making potential) of the official mascots Syd, Ollie, and Millie (aka 'Syd, Ollie and Dickhead’) and Alan Bond’s Boxing Kangaroo, for which the AOC had shelled out some $15 million in marketing campaign funds, the athletically challenged Fatso was creating problems by turning up on the winners’ dais under the arms of Australia’s gold medallists.
However, official disapproval only increased Fatso’s popularity with a nation that had not warmed to the three official mascots, who looked altogether too perky and Disney-fied for Australian tastes. Fatso, with his large soulful eyes and comfortably plump body, is not only decidedly non-perky but, when in animated form, given to leaving little greeting cards in front of people as a sign of his own disapproval. Ironically, Paul Newell, the inspired designer of Fatso, is a former Disney animator. The gold stick pins featuring Fatso that were presented to guests but never sold became the most sought after souvenirs of the Olympics.
At the conclusion of the event, Fatso was put up for auction with proceeds going to a children’s charity. Enthusiastic bidding saw the price pushed up to a final sum of $80,450 paid by Kerry Stokes, owner of the Seven Network.
