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.
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