Sunday, February 21, 2010

NBC “Olympic Dreams”

Link 01 Logo 01A 
See the commercial here.

Synopsis: Through their soft-scripted, egocentric stories of lavish personal training, misdirected ambition, and Disneyesque, non-threatening patriotism, unrelatable media-manufactured athlecelebrities desperately try to convince Americans to tune in to NBC’s relentless coverage of the 2010 Winter Olympics instead of selecting one of the million or so more relevant and engaging entertainment options available to them.

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Try hitting a baseball, loser.

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“I’m not sleeping with him!  Omigod, can you imagine?  Like, ew!”

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“Mission Accomplished” banner still at the cleaners

Message: The Olympics is not a tedious, overhyped snoozefest.

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This almost makes up for rolling over to the Germans in WWII

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Come on, giant bowling ball …

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Rule of thumb: if you’re wearing a dinner jacket, it’s not a sport.

Subliminal Message: It was either this or 835 hours of Leno.

Product 01
Nothing embodies athleticism and grace like a human-shaped pile of rocks

Medals 01
This is what happens if you leave your medals on the railroad tracks

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Whatever.

Memorable Moment: Lindsey Vonn seeks the gold for hotness.

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Finally, a good use of our tax dollars

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Another 40 reps, and she’ll fit into that Sports Illustrated bikini

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Except for Ron Silver, this is so much like my dreams, it’s scary.

Disturbing Aspect: Carrot Top headlines the U.S. Team.

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Can you believe this kid grew up to be an obnoxious snowboarder?

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USOC geneticists have created the exact opposite of Johnny Unitas

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Unless you’re Jim Craig or Rocky Balboa, this is not okay.

Burning Questions: Is it morally wrong to feel like you know Bob Costas more intimately than your own spouse?  Was allowing the blandest nation on Earth to host the most tiresome sporting event in existence a wise decision?  Will Evgeni Plushenko ever shut the hell up?

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As it turns out, winter in Vancouver is surprisingly mild

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No one had the heart to tell him he was at the wrong Olympics

Overall Loathsomeness: 5.3

Mitigating Factor: The death toll remains at 1.

Posted by The Editor at 2:00 PM

10 comments:

  1. First, as long as there is a Summer Olympics, the Winter Olympics will never be the most boring, pointless sporting event of all time.

    Second, I agree 100 percent with bashing these self-congratulatory, "look what an awesome winner I am at the age of 25" Olympic "hero" commercials. Especially Bode Miller's "my parents just couldn't keep me down" loathsome trips down memory lane. Really, I don't think NBC's INTENTION was that we end up hating "our" athletes and chanting the name of whatever country is opposing the USA in the latest round of Curling.
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  2. Prediction: after NBC's ill-advised, profit-killing contract finally runs out, or NBC goes completely out of business (whichever happens first), U.S. Winter Olympic TV coverage will be parceled out to Lifetime (figure skating), Versus (hockey), and ESPN2 (all the other X-Games crap), where it belongs.
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  3. As a Canadian whose tax dollars ended up paying for all of this, I have a slightly better reason to be irritated; our athletes are slightly more obnoxious and we get stuck with the detritus after the month ends.
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  4. Sir, those are fighting words. No country in the world has more obnoxious athletes than America! Or fans, for that matter.

    U.S.A.! U.S.A.!
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  5. I agree. How DARE you, Dreaded?

    And even if you guys ever DO manage to reach our level of obnoxiousness, no country will ever do a better job of denying people health care than the United States. You idiots, with your single payer socialist silliness, will NEVER touch us on that one!

    U.S.A! U.S.A!
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  6. I think we need a woman's perspective here! Rachel Maddow just said that she likes every single thing about the Olympics...of course, she should have said except the commercials...except NBC's television coverage...except NBC's online coverage...except Evgeni Plushenko (had to agree with The Editor on that one!).
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  7. MSNBC has definitely become "your place for Curling" this month, hasn't it?

    It's still more entertaining than Morning Joe and the vapid, loathsome, content-free and Proud of It Willie Geist

    --John F Jamele
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  8. Thank goodness that you Americans are at least spared a Canadian 'institution': an ignorant, jingoistic blowhard commentator named Don Cherry; the man is loud, crude, obnoxious and a fan of the old rock'em-sock'em kind of hockey that used to drive my late father up the wall. He wanted to see people play hockey, not beat the tar out of one another. He's what I'm talking about when I talk about us having our shares of knuckle-dragging Neanderthals. (Also this idiot shilling for beer.)
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  9. You do realize that you have actual ads for the olympics thanks to Google Ads right?
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  10. Delicious irony. Google's ad robots evidently aren't programmed for satire.
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