Friday, July 26, 2024

Next time bring the Manningcast.

Make L.A. the greatest Opening Ceremonies coverage ever.

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• Bonjour! It's Olympic time again! Once more I set out to document how much of each NBC broadcast is devoted to events, ads, and –reluctantly – fluff. Tonight we start with the Opening Ceremonies (the OC), where we see…

  Wait a minute. We're not even starting with the OC. Instead, we're starting with Steven Spielberg standing in front of a green screen and telling us stories about the Games. Is it a bad sign that the first five minutes of two weeks of coverage is fluff? We shall see.

• It's our host, Mike Tirico, and he's joined by… Peyton Manning and Kelly Clarkson? That's an odd combo. Will Eli be here, too? I can think of a lot of events that would be improved by a Manningcast. Mike tells us that the OC will be a floating parade going down the Seine River, ending at the Eiffel Tower. Should be interesting.
• Snoop is here! Mike is interviewing him because the D-O-Double G got to hold the unusually-shaped Olympic torch. Make your own jokes. There are a lot of celebrities in this opening segment. Arianna Grande and Cynthia Erivo are talking about their upcoming movie, "Wicked." Is that the OC? Nope! It's fluff!
• Finally, it's the OC. I think. It's a pre-recorded segment of a man running into the empty Olympic stadium, realizing he's in the wrong place. But fortunately Zinedine Zidane is there to take the torch from him and run it through the streets of Paris then down into the subway. The subway car grinds to a halt in darkness. How French would it be if this was because there was a strike? But no! Instead Zidane hands some skateboarding kids the torch, which they then take through the Catacombs to Paris' underground sewer system. Music from Phantom of the Opera plays while a mysterious man in a boat takes the children up the river. Nothing creepy about that!
• Now we're on the river, waiting for the water parade to start. People are lining the river everywhere, and I've got to admit, this is a really cool idea. Each country will sail down the river in their own boat as fountains installed in the river perform a Bellagio-like show as they pass. First up is Greece, as is tradition. But wait! I was mistaken! Each country doesn't get its own boat. The boats after Greece have multiple countries. Even Germany has to share. You know they're trying to figure out how to take over the rest of the boat.
• The Open-Water swim event is supposed to happen in the Seine, but right now it's too dirty, says Mike, and could infect swimmers with E Coli. France has had seven years to clean this river and they couldn't get it done? Maybe the kids in the rowboat riding out of a sewer was a sign of things to come.
• Over to some golden steps next to the river, where a leggy singer is hidden by a bunch of men holding pink feathers over her face. Who could it be? Lady Gaga! I wasn't expecting that. She sings the whole song in French. Does she do well? I guess so. I don't know what she's saying, but she's at least in tune. This number has a '60s can-can feel to it.
• Let them eat cake! A woman on the banks of the Seine is wearing a big, pink dress that looks like a cake. I'm guessing she's part of the official proceedings and not just a spectator, but it's Paris, so you never know.
• Meanwhile, the Phantom is running the torch across the rooftops of Paris. Seems like a fire hazard. And he's masked, so if he burns the city down we'll never know who he was.
• Speaking of can-can dancers, now there are 50 of them lined up doing a dance on the riverbank. And who is flying over them? The Phantom, carrying the flame via zip-line over the Seine. He lands near Notre Dame. A masked man carrying a flame near Notre Dame? Is that a good idea? Now Notre Dame "workers" are taking a break from their repairs to swing Circe-de-Soleil-style from their harnesses while the Phantom runs through the Louis Vitton factory. Who knew there would be product placement in the OC? The Phantom continues to run until he reaches the factory where they mill the Olympic medals. Each medal contains a tiny sliver of steel from the Eiffel Tower. Hopefully not the load-bearing part.
• The hunchback makes a brief appearance, ringing the bells of Notre Dame for the first time since its fire five years ago. It seems like we should watch this longer, but NBC has commercials to run.
• The Phantom makes a short stop at a performance of Les Mis before watching a heavy metal band play behind a wall of flame and in front of windows full of beheaded Marie Antoinettes. Then an opera singer rides a wooden boat while singing Carmen. Acrobats on the top of poles do their best Mad Max: Fury Road impression as they sway back and forth to the melody. Meanwhile, in the Paris library, a bunch of colorfully-dressed patrons pick books off of the shelves and proceed to destroy them. Clearly no librarians were consulted for this segment of the OC. The patrons run through the city while the gimbaled-camera spins around them. Then they get to an apartment where the three, two men and one woman… start making out, then close the door so we can't see. Pretty racy, but I guess "menage a trois" is French.
• The Phantom finally lights something with his torch and thankfully it's not Notre Dame. He sprints through a traditional French marching band to set off some sparklers on a bridge. Then a hip-hop singer in a gold dress performs while the fireworks go off. Could I spend some time Googling her to get her name? I could, but let's be honest. I'm never going to hear from her again after tonight.
• Phantom: still running. Now through the Louvre. With a lit flame. How long before some idiot tries to recreate this? I'm guessing two weeks.
• Back on the river, Savannah Guthrie tells Hoda Kotb that the next boat "rolls on." Boats don't roll, Savannah. Unless it's the Poseidon Adventure.
• Another weird thing: there are giant heads in the river. Fathead-style billboards of various fine-art women are peering out from the river at the passing parade. They look beheaded. Was that intentional?
• Uh-oh. The Mona Lisa is gone! The Phantom discovers it. Surely he'll get blamed and spend the rest of his life in a French dungeon. That's how this would end if it was French cinema.
• The Phantom heads to the Musee D'Orsay where he enters a fantastical stop-animation world that looks like every bit of avant-garde French cinema ever made. And then… Minions? Are they French? I mean, they speak in gibberish, so maybe. Turns out it's the Minions who have stolen the Mona Lisa. They have it on their submarine, which they accidentally sink by puncturing it with javelins. Mike tells us that Illumination, producers of the Minions, is indeed from France. That actually explains a lot. The Mona Lisa is now floating in the Seine, getting coated with E Coli as we speak.
• It's time for some French rap! A guy who looks like a half-energy Pitbull growls his way through his song. Could I spend some time Googling his name? I could, but let's be honest. I'm never going to hear from him again after tonight.
• A bridge across the Seine is now a fashion runway. The fashions are just as ridiculous as you'd see in any fashion show. NBC is cutting back and forth between boats full of athletes and the runway bridge. Peyton is talking about the athletes. Kelly is talking about the fashion show. Is it just me, or does Peyton sound annoyed?
• It's literally raining on their parade! Mike tells us that it hasn't rained at an OC since Helsinki in 1952. Don't slip, fashion models!
• Finally, the US boat is about to come down the Seine, but first… Beyonce? She's introducing the US team to music. It's not a bad segment, but it's definitely fluff. Anyway, back to the river, where the US gets their own boat. Why? Because we're awesome, that's why. Kelly –surprise!– loves Beyonce.
• The Phantom is back! He's tumbling and break-dancing down the runway. He hasn't set the city on fire yet, but there's still time!
• And now, France! It's the biggest boat. They promptly surrender to the German boat. NBC goes back to the American boat, because who cares about the French?
• Let's get back to some weird stuff. A flaming piano floats down the Seine on a boat that looks like a rock. A singer whose name I won't Google (see above) belts out John Lennon's "Imagine" which Mike calls a "new staple of the Olympics." All we need is for that boat the go up in flames and this new tradition will die in a fire. Kelly is crying. Me too. But for different reasons.
• A man wrapped in an Olympic flag, I'm going to call him the Silver Surfer, is riding a chrome-plated mechanical horse down the river. After a short commercial break, the horse in now real and on land. I would have liked to see how that happened, but NBC didn't have time because they had to devote two minutes to Beyonce. Thanks NBC. Anyway, the Silver Surfer is now bringing an Olympic flag to the Trocadero. Hopefully the Phantom won't set it on fire. This is a long walk with this flag. Seems like he could have stayed on the horse a little longer. He finally makes it and hands it off to the gendarme who raises it up a flagpole where all of the crooked IOC money salutes.
• Everyone stand for the Olympic anthem! The money song! But you know what? That shot looking down the Trocadero to the illuminated Eiffel Tower? It's pretty spectacular. There are some things money can buy. A choir of Frenchmen sing a song that literally no one knows.
• Thomas Bach, chairman of the IOC, welcomes France and their suitcase full of corrupt money. And now the Phantom reappears! To set it on fire? REVOLUTION! Probably not. Zindane takes the torch back. Will he give it to an archer who shoots an arrow over the Eiffel Tower setting it on fire? Oh, that would be so cool. Zidane hands it off to… Rafeal Nadal. A Spaniard? Do they only have one athlete in France? Now the Eiffel Tower is getting its own cool light show. Lasers everywhere. If you were looking for a positive side to the rain, those lasers really pop with all the moisture in the air. I wonder if the IOC will start requiring future sites to build a 1,000-foot tower for their opening ceremonies.

  Nadal is taking the torch up the Seine. Is he stealing it? Dirty Spaniards! No, this is part of the plan. Now he hands it to Serena Williams, who is riding on the boat with him. She passes it to Nadia Comenic who passes it to Carl Lewis. Again, is there only one athlete in France?

  Finally a French tennis player gets the torch and hands it to Tony Parker, who jogs it through the Tuileries Garden. He gives it to a French handball athlete. Handball is awesome, but I'm not Googling her name either. Now they're handing it to different person every few steps. This is the parade of French athletes that no one has ever heard of, but Mike has all their bios. Finally, they hand it to a 100-year-old man in a wheelchair who was a cyclist. He hands it to two other athletes I won't Google and they head to a hot air balloon. They light the base around the balloon and it rises… slowly at first, but then about 200 feet in the air. I'm assuming it's on a cable to keep it in place, but it would be kind of cool if they just let it float away.

  Back at the Eiffel Tower, it's Celine Dion! She's up on the first deck, just under the Olympic rings. Wasn't she sick or something? She sure doesn't sound like it. She belts out some song in French and the celebrity-ridden crowd watches in well-deserved awe. A cameraman getting a shot looking over her shoulder down to the Trocadero has just recorded the most spectacular thing he will ever record. If you weren't watching this live, you should really look it up. It's at 2:58 in this video. Seriously, just look at that. Kelly is crying. Again. Is there anything on tonight's show that has NOT made her cry? We've heard way too much from her and not enough from Peyton. Bring on the Manning-Cast!

• Let's wrap it up with Mike, Peyton, and Kelly! Look! Kelly is crying about Celine again! How about you Peyton? He likes watching the athletes. These are really like two different universes.

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Say... whatever happened to the Mona Lisa? The last time we saw it it was floating the E-Coli-ridden Seine. That seems like a big plot hole. Oh well. I'm sure the IOC has money to cover it. On to the Games!  

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