Fatso the Fat-Arsed Wombat was an "unofficial" mascot of the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics created by Sydney cartoonist Paul Newell with Roy and HG from the Australian Channel Seven sports/comedy television programThe Dream with Roy and HG, which covered the event that is a wombat with a lazy, cheerful expression and comically pronounced rump, and that usually appeared on The Dream broadcasts, sometimes as a life-size stuffed toy on Roy and HG's desk. Fatso was a spoof of the official Olympic mascotsOlly, Millie, and Syd, whom Roy & HG disparaged as "Olly, Millie and Dickhead". He was nicknamed "the battlers' prince" and proved to be more popular among Australian fans of the duo than the official mascots. Fatso appeared with Gold MedalistsSusie O'Neill, Grant Hackett and the Australian men's 4×200 metre relay team on the winners' dais. He consequently appears on an official commemorative postage stamp of the Australian men's 4×200 metre relay team in the arms of Michael Klim. During the Olympics, the Australian Olympic Committee attempted to ban athletes appearing with Fatso to stop him upstaging their official mascots. The ensuing public relations disaster forced the president of the AOC, John Coates, and the director general of the IOC, Francois Carrard, to distance their organisations from these attempts. In keeping with Fatso's role as a protest against the commercialisation of Olympic mascots, only two Fatsos were officially produced: one for use in the studio and the other for use in the athletes' village. At the end of the Olympics, one of the Fatsos was auctioned for the Olympic Aid charity, selling for A$80,450 to Seven Networkexecutive chairmanKerry Stokes. Fatso is currently housed in a glass box in Kerry Stokes' North Sydney office. A number of unofficial Fatso toys and memorabilia were sold by merchants without authorisation from the producers of The Dream. A statue of Fatso appeared as part of an official Olympic memorial outside the Sydney Olympic Stadium, commemorating the volunteers who worked during the Olympics. The Fatso statue was vandalised in late September 2010, then stolen sometime before 8 October 2010.
