Atlanta, by nature and geography, is a city of boundaries. ITP or OTP? Fulton or Dekalb? Lenox or Phipps? Was it wrong or right when we let that gorilla watch TV?
But the spirit of Atlanta is unity, singularity, solidarity and strength because of our diversity. It’s lemon pepper and chicken wings. It’s the Journal and the Constitution. It’s Antwan Patton and André Benjamin. Bones and The Varsity. The Plaza and the Fox. Bankhead and Buckhead. It is the Cyclorama and the “Squidbillies” episode about the Cyclorama. When Atlanta comes first, all other differences do not matter.
And that’s why we need to bring back Izzy, the set-up-for-failure mascot of the 1996 summer Olympics.
Izzy’s only real shortcoming was being completely ahead of their time. And really, that’s on us.
The 90s were not the heyday for new mascots. After the Phanatic and the San Diego Chicken, we, as a nation, definitely slacked off in that area. We probably felt like we had succeeded and could move on to more important or serious things. But what is more important or more serious than the opportunity to represent our unique and multifaceted culture to the entire world through one, singular, six-foot-tall creature?
But how do you do that, exactly? How you you distill the culture of a city like this into one furry costume? How do you combine all of our disparate parts into something that resonates around the world?
The answer, at the time, was this Frankenmascot of marketing executives’ opinions. You can practically see the art director’s exasperation in Izzy’s own eyebrows. The national and international media didn’t get it; talked shit about Izzy every chance they got. And then one of our own, Mike Luckovich, made fun of Izzy in our hometown paper, our daily operations manual, the Atlanta Constitution. Izzy wasn’t included in the Opening or Closing Ceremonies. Izzy was a victim of bullying from his own clique. The people who should have stood up and said something didn’t. And what happens when good people don’t fight back? Their weird mascot vanishes, never to be heard from or seen again.
Atlanta is a city that, if anything, acknowledges failures out loud and pushes forward, hard. And just as there is no phoenix without a fire, there is no Izzy redemption arc without a rock bottom.
Here and now, in 2024, I think Izzy would receive a much more polite welcome, honoring the hospitality the South is supposedly known for. In a time where we appreciate the esoteric and the abstract, and embrace Gritty, The Stanford Tree and that hideous abomination Mr. Met, I think we could give Izzy the chance they deserved. Because while Izzy may not directly represent much about our city — the Civil Rights Movement, President Jimmy Carter, Magic City, the world’s busiest (and most intuitively laid out) airport, Coca-Cola, the So So Def billboard, Fontaine’s, Killer Mike and Ted Turner — Izzy represents something you can’t categorize. Something you need to see to believe. Something that somehow shouldn’t work, but instead works just fine, thank you very much, and if you don’t like it, there is a Delta airplane waiting to take you, non-stop, anywhere else you’d rather be.
So Izzy, if you’re out there, think it over. We’re not perfect, but that’s part of what makes you one of us.