Misha

Misha the Little Bear
Logo
こぐまのミーシャ (Koguma no Mīsha)
Genre	Comedy, sports
Anime television series
Directed by	Yoshikata Nitta
Written by	Shun'ichi Yukimuro
Music by	Shunsuke Kikuchi
Studio	Nippon Animation
Original network	TV Asahi
Original run	October 6, 1979 – April 5, 1980
Episodes	26

Misha (Russian: Миша), also known as Mishka (Russian: Мишка) or The Olympic Mishka (Russian: Олимпийский Мишка), is the name of the Russian Bear mascot of the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games (the XXII Summer Olympics). He was designed by children's books illustrator Victor Chizhikov.

Misha is the first mascot of a sporting event to achieve large-scale commercial success in merchandise. The Misha doll was used extensively during the opening and closing ceremonies, appeared on several merchandise products and had both an animated short film (animated by Soyuzmultfilm) and a television series (animated by Nippon Animation), all of which are now common practice not only in the Olympic Games, but also in the FIFA World Cup and other events' mascots.

In Russian, Misha is a short form for the Russian male name Mikhail (Michael), and Mishka is a diminutive of Misha.

This name, in any of its forms, is a common colloquialism in Russian for a bear, because it is similar to the standard name for bear медведь (medved). Also, most anthropomorphic bears in Russian fairy tales have this name. It is thought to originate as a euphemism for medved, which was tabooed because of magical thinking that letting out the "true name" of the dangerous animal may cause it to come and attack.Medved (which means "honey eater") itself is thought to be older Proto-Slavic euphemism for Proto-Indo-European *r̥kþos.

...
Wikipedia