WASHINGTON — The Minions have made an appearance at the Olympics...yes, you read that right.
The characters were shown to broadcast audiences during the Opening Ceremony piloting a submarine underneath the River Seine while thousands of athletes floated by.
Who created the Minions?
The section of the Opening Ceremony featuring the Paris-based animation studio Illumination’s Minions characters nodded to French writer Jules Verne’s 1870 adventure novel “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas” and began with a visual reference to actor and filmmaker Georges Méliès’s influential 1902 short film “A Trip to the Moon,” also based on a Verne book.
The appearance of the animated movie mascots begs the question: Are the minions French?
The answer is a bit more complicated than a simple yes or no.
In lore, the Minions have been around for thousands of years, meaning they predate France as a country. But, in reality?
The Minions were created by French animation studio Mac Guff, which was later acquired by Illumination Entertainment, an American animation company under Universal.
Specifically, according to the New York Times, the Minions were created by a man named Pierre Coffin.
Coffin also improvised the high-pitched gibberish dialogue spoken by the characters, and the voice stuck.
Because their dialogue was written by a French man, the Minions actually say a few phrases in French that add an extra level of humor to those who speak the language.
Some notable examples:
“Tu es bella comme una papaya” is a mix of French and Italian that means “you are beautiful like a papaya.”
Another is:
"Tu pu dé bra," which when translated to English means "your arms stink."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
