When I lived in Atlanta (94 – 00) I had a lot of people ask me if my nick name (Izzy) came from the Olympic mascot for the ’96 games. It did not!
This stupid Olympic mascot actually “won” worst mascot of all times.
Whatizit Wikipedia Page
From: The best and worst Olympic mascots:
1. Whatizit (1996 Summer Olympics, Atlanta)With his lightning bolt eyebrows, big red shoes, Donny Osmond teeth and ringed multi-colored tail, Izzy appeared to have been designed by a team of kids with attention deficit disorder. His blobby body seemed to promote a sedentary lifestyle, not a the elite athletic competition that the Olympic Games represented. The Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games gave Izzy makeovers, but the damage was done. Bob Costas called the mascot “a genetic experiment gone horribly, ghastly wrong.”
Anyways, my nick name came from a D&D character I created back in 1988. Izzy was short for IzKen which was short for IzKendar. This name actually came from the anime series Star Blazers (wikipedia link) from 1979 – 1985. “Iscandar” was the planet that they have to travel goto to save the earth.
The Space Battleship Yamato returns to Earth on Dec 8th, 2199, 227 years after I was born to the day 😁 This post was made 191 years before that date 🤓
2020 Update: In 2013 Star Blazers\Space Battleship Yamato was redone completely, with minor changes to story, and called Star Blazers: Space Battleship Yamato 2199 (wikipeida) and is on Amazon here to buy or stream (2199 is season 1 & 2 and 2022 is season 3 & 4, links to by Blu-ray versions).
Jason (Izzy) Sherry's Blog 