Okay.
Are we ready?
Perfect.
That makes us official.
That's like the official sound.
I love it.
It felt official.
I've never done that before.
I felt like I did a pretty good job for my first time.
I felt like I nailed it.
Okay.
So my first question is, can you just say and spell your first last name?
Brian.
B-R-I-A-N.
Adam.
A-D-A-M.
And then what is your position here Adam?
I'm the president and owner.
So what inspired you to create Olympus mascots?
So I didn't create Olympus mascots.
Olympus mascots was created at some point back in the 1960s.
We had a call from McDonald's.
We were at the time producing apparel.
Aprons and hats for McDonald's that was worn by their crew.
And they asked us if we could make a Ronald McDonald jumpsuit.
So a clown's jumpsuit.
We made one of the first Ronald McDonald costumes ever.
And then they asked us to make a purple gumball, a birdie, a grimace, hamburger.
And that's how we got into mascots.
And then, so I have a little bit of insight and knowledge.
But you did the Bucky Badger documentary, right?
You made a video for that.
Yes.
So you previously played Bucky Badger, is that correct?
Correct.
Yeah.
When I was in college, I was the mascot.
The beloved mascot, Bucky Badger at the University of Wisconsin.
And then, how did that inspire you to continue that legacy into this, a little bit, and stuff like that?
You know, it was already going on and stuff like that.
But you were breaking a unique perspective into it, right?
So I worked here for a while before I went to the University of Wisconsin.
So I grew up around mascots.
Always loved making people laugh, making people smile, having a good time.
And that's what inspired me to become Bucky.
And I bought Olympus in 2005.
It allowed me to continue to enjoy that fun part about creating mascots or being mascots.
So I totally butchered that response.
But I know I can always redo them.
A little bit more about Bucky.
What makes Bucky such a great mascot?
Bucky represents the University of Wisconsin.
Sorry.
Bucky not only represents the University of Wisconsin, he also represents an entire state.
A fun-loving character, easy to laugh at, looks a little silly, a little top-heavy, but has a really good time.
And then, in general, in your opinion, what makes a good mascot design?
A good mascot design depends on what the intended usage is.
It depends on what you're trying to derive with it.
So a great mascot design might just be a really cool looking product if you're trying to launch a new product.
If you're representing a sports team or university, you want to create something that fans old, young students, kids can all get behind, get excited about.
So you want something not too scary, you want something not too crazy, you want to also create a mascot.
If it's for a sports team or a university where the performer can interact with fans, can run up down bleachers,
or something that's not so large and cumbersome that they can't perform in it.
And then, cricking if I'm wrong on this, but this Olympus is basically the biggest mascot producing company in the US.
Yes, Olympus is the largest manufacturer of mascot costumes in the US.
And then, about how many and you don't have the specifics that have to go into this, but how many companies do you have to work with?
Like, how big is this, I guess?
If I guessed, we've probably done 25,000 to 30,000 mascots through the years.
We work with hundreds of customers every single year, pro sports teams, collegiate sports teams, minor league baseball teams, restaurants, brands,
all sorts of different characters represent everything down to even elementary schools.
And then, like, your masc are using these a lot of times, but I don't think people represent, like, these are basically hand produced.
Like, you have people sewing these, those aren't machines creating all this stuff, like, people are creating these.
Yeah, each mascot, yes, there's not a machine where you press, hey, make a buck.
You can't press the make a bucky button.
They are the stripes and bucky shirt are hand sewn together.
If Geico Gecko has an expression in his face, that's hand painted on.
The eyes are glued on and often hand painted.
Horns are manually attached by our talented team members here at Olympus.
It is truly a manual labor.
If you walked around the production area, you would see their tools, our glue guns, scissors, airbrushes.
It's not overly sophisticated.
We're really just relying on some talented artists that can create some really cool things.
And then, what is in your opinion one of the oddest mascots that you had produced here?
So, we've produced body parts.
I can recall a kidney we produced for, I believe it was for a type of cancer awareness.
We've produced drumsticks, mosquito sprays.
The interesting one was for a, I believe it was a Wheaton College down in Illinois.
We produced a mastodon, which was actually a two person mascot.
So, someone was the front and someone was the back.
So, I wanted to be kind of curious how that tryout went, trying out for the front of the mastodon
or to be the rear end of the mastodon for your school's mascot.
But that was certainly a unique one.
And I think a lot of people would be surprised how much it has evolved over the years.
Like, you're starting to get down to mascots, like, blink, you know, like, move certain parts of their bodies
that you didn't think would be able to move and stuff like that.
How technologically, you know, evolved as a Scot.
I mean, Bucky Badger's head over the years was originally made out of paper mache.
So, almost like an old school art project.
Then, we, back you formed it.
It was created out of a carbon fiber.
What was it?
Fiberglass. Thank you.
Then, Bucky was created out of fiberglass.
It was really heavy when I was performing as Bucky Badger.
It had weighed 25 pounds.
Carbon fiber comes out.
Now, we make Bucky's head out of carbon fiber and took maybe 10 pounds of weight out of that head.
So, there's always, well, the mascots are still made by hand.
There has been incremental improvements in the materials people are using and the way we manufacture them.
And then, of course, you're not going to be detailed.
But, like, some of the stuff is, like, top secret.
Like, you're working with brands that, like, you know, want to keep this under wraps.
And, you know, it's like, you know, government, like, secret service sort of thing, right?
Absolutely.
We're working on a very high-profile project right now that I can't tell you about.
Team members are required to sign NDAs for this interview.
We've actually hidden some of the components, so you can't see them
because we need to keep those big product launches, those exciting new unvailings.
We don't want to be the one that spoils, and, oh, the brewers are adding a fifth sausage
and it's going to be a chorizo.
We want to make sure that the brewers can announce that when that was announced a couple of years ago.
And, you know, when I learned that Opus was around and stuff like that,
and they, you know, they go national and stuff like that,
but I was really surprised about how many costumes and mascots you actually create
in Wisconsin.
Yeah, it's our home state. We love it.
So we do, if we do Bucky, we do Bernie Brewer, we do the Brewers Racing Sausages,
UWM's Pounds, Marquettes, Golden Eagle, all sorts of fun characters
for the pro and collegiate sports teams and then countless high schools,
and, yeah, it's pretty great.
Yeah, I think that's, we've got chance to interview some of them.
Some of them are, the high schools are my favorite ones because the kids are just like,
you know, you got some of these goods that, you know,
are shy or verbally have issues, not issues, but, like, really have trouble, you know.
Expressing themselves, but once they get into a mascot,
it costs me over and out then, like, they're a totally different person.
Yeah, yeah, you can put on a brand new persona.
You can meet a person that's pretty cool to see when a, when a performer,
when a mascot allows a performer to come out of their show.
And then as a former mascot performing yourself,
what do you look for in a costume?
Like, what, you know, makes a costume a good sporty form?
I mean, if you're a sports mascot, you want a, a mascot, a costume that's functionally, sorry.
For a sports scenery university, it's important to be able to have some function,
to be able to run, to be able to, you know, not have gloves that are too big
so you can use your hands, so you can catch a ball, so you can high-five a kid.
So a lot of it comes down to the functionality of the mascot.
There's certain things people don't think about.
Brewer's chorizo, the racing sausage, has a gigantic sombrero.
The sombrero is so large, because you want to be able to see it inside the stadium,
but it wouldn't fit through a standard-sized doorway.
So we actually have a removable brim for one of the Brewer's chorizo,
so when it does go to different events where it needs to come inside,
it can actually fit through a door.
Otherwise, you'd have no way of being able to get the, the chorizo through a door.
Yeah, because a lot of times you're getting designs that, you know, aren't started from here.
Like someone else will give you a logo or something,
telling you to turn this into a mascot. How difficult can that be?
I mean, so the, you know, more often than not, we're given something to start with.
The school logo, a pre-existing mascot, they want to improve upon it, or just an idea.
And then what we have to do is we have to figure out how to create a functional character
that somebody can wear.
So if I look at Tony the Tiger on a cereal box, if I made, if we made his dimensions
the way they made the cereal box, it would have been four-foot wide shoulders
and an 18-inch waist. So no, no human can fit inside of that costume.
So we have to create it to human dimensions while still ensuring that Tony the Tiger looks like Tony the Tiger.
And then, personally, what does this company mean to you?
So, for me, Olympus is all about the team members we have here.
We do certain things like we share 20% of our profits with our employees,
and try to support our employees. We have loan programs for employees.
Basically, we want to create a rewarding workplace for the team.
We have 250-ish total employees, and for us, if we can support them,
allow them to have a career, a place where they work, where they're proud of,
where they like what they do, where they're compensated fairly, and they have a chance to grow.
To me, that's what's special about Olympus, and that's what Olympus means to me.
And then, one thing that's come up over and over from everyone I've interviewed so far is just the team aspect of this place.
How important the team is and how great it is in designing needs and making it.
The mascot can't be created by an individual.
I mean, it really requires a team, someone that knows how to fabricate ahead,
someone knows how to design a character, need talent and seamstresses that can do patterning.
We have printers and cutters that are printing and cutting the fabrics.
The custom fabrics we use to create the character.
So, I bet you each new mascot, if we're starting with a new character,
maybe 15 different team members may have a part in helping bring that creation to life.
Is there anything that I didn't ask or bring up that you want to make sure you get across?
No, I don't think so.
I mean, Brittany's amazing. I don't know if you've talked to her, but she's done this forever and just got some great stories.
Brittany helped create Ronald McDonald's latest look.
I mean, she flew around the world for a while.
Test-fitting Ronald's in all sorts of different countries.
She would actually take their measurements, chest size, in-seam, out-seam, waist size,
then custom tailor, Ronald's tuxedo and jumpsuit to each of the individual Ronald McDonald performers
throughout the world.
Anybody other fun?
Nothing comes to mind.
Thank you so much, sir.
That was great.
You bet.