Izzy lives! And he still doesn’t get any respect

It was a shame, really. About Izzy. He was the official mascot for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta and remains, without question, the most unpopular mascot of all time. Atlanta Olympic planners wanted a big, lovable stuffed-toy thingie, like H.R. Pufnstuf. A muppet with mojo. A Teletubbie.

They made a big blue sperm instead. Big. Blue. Sperm. They rode him out of town on a rail. Muhammad Ali chased him with that Olympic torch. The javelin throwers and Olympic archers had a field day.

I was curious to find out what happened to Izzy after the Games. It took some sleuthing. I checked skid row. I examined the pictures on milk cartons. I got a tip that something big and blue had checked into the VA hospital, but that was an old smoker from Buford.

It took a conversation with one of the Disney mascots outside the Magic Kingdom to find Izzy’s trail. Old Goofy said, “Gawrsh, yeah, I’ve seen the rascal. He came through here about a month ago, looking to get on with the mascot crew. We got a howl out of that. Tweetie Bird laughed till his darn giant head fell off. Last we saw, Izzy was headed back up I-75 toward Atlanta. Looked pretty low.”

I finally found Izzy. He had a lean-to under an overpass up at Malfunction Junction. He was living on Vienna sausage and honeybuns. Chewing kudzu to get his roughage. Eating whatever his little blue T-Rex hands could scavenge.

Up close and personal, I asked Izzy how he felt about the 12 years of disgrace and humiliation since the Atlanta Centennial Olympic Games.

“Been pretty hard,” he said. “But I ain’t complaining. I’m a man. I’m not an animal. The city of Atlanta is still doing fine, people are still moving here. The Olympics survived —- I didn’t destroy all the Olympic Games to come, at least. Life goes on. Obla-di, obla-da.

“Sure, I’d do some things different. I’d like to try it again looking like a supermodel, maybe. Like Heidi Klum. People wouldn’t look at me like a big blue sperm if I resembled Heidi Klum.

“I’d like to try it again even looking like a Hummer or something. I think more people in Atlanta woulda liked me if I looked like a Hummer. Or a highway paving machine. But I ain’t complaining.

“It’s been kinda hard, out here on the road.

“I drifted up north for a while, you know. Worked in a coal mine. Miners didn’t like me, though. Thought I’d bring bad luck underground, make the mine cave in or something.

“I tried nightclub comedy, did a little stand-up. Everybody laughed … but I learned pretty soon they weren’t laughing at the jokes.

“I worked on one of them salmon boats. Looking back, it all seems pretty strange. I mean, imagine a big blue sperm pitching sockeyes and cohos and pinks and Chinooks down in those big icy boat bellies. Working the slime line. I reckon you could say I sort of stood out. Like a big blue sore thumb. Other fishermen didn’t like me much.

“Speaking of big blue thumbs, I tried hitchhiking. Kept getting stranded. I reckon nobody wants to stop and let a big blue sperm in the car.

“Sometimes I’d wait by the road for days, rain pouring down, sun scorching hot. One time buzzards circled me. Sometimes I didn’t have nothing to eat but tumbleweeds and old tires. Had to boil part of my own tail one time for soup, just something to stay alive. I taste like crud, by the way. But you don’t notice if you wash it down with enough Sterno.

“Am I jealous of those cute little Chinese bunnies and pandas and koalas and Raggedy Anns they’ve chosen for mascots at the other Olympic games?

“Oh hell, yeah. Nobody gave them mascots an awful name like Izzy. Nobody made them look like a big blue sperm.

“Still, I had my day. My shot. I’m in the record books. Izzy. Atlanta Centennial Games, 1996. Right there by Eric Rudolph and Billy Payne.

“You can look it up.”

> Charles McNair is an Atlanta-based novelist, business writer and book editor at Paste Magazine.