Now please do not mistake me. Be it known I am a huge Olympics fan and I have a plethora of positive Wide World of Sports-type memories. In fact, that show (now sadly defunct) had a huge impact on me when Nadia Comaneci won gold in ‘76. Not that I am old enough to remember that particular Olympiad...at least distinctly…SHUT UP ANYONE WHO KNOWS ME!
Anyway, the folks over at Wide World of Sports were actually the ones who commandeered The Young and the Restless theme song changing it to “Nadia’s Theme,” thereby creating a simultaneous two-pronged effect – cementing Nadia as a one-named icon, and influencing thousands of would-be pianists to learn those first eight melancholy notes. In addition to my own failed musical aspirations, and naturally like a million other little girls at the time, I likewise flirted with the idea of being a gymnast. Well, for one day really. My sister Goo* was always better at that kind of stuff. You know, the being active kind of stuff.
Earlier that year when Dorothy Hamill won her gold medal, my big sister Dre accompanied me when I went out and got the requisite Hamill haircut, much to my mother’s chagrin.
If I’m not mistaken, my mom still has that long, chopped-off ponytail of hair stashed away somewhere. Alas, this piece of history is a source of continuing conflict between Goo and myself because she is utterly convinced it was she who had the Hamill wedge; but I put it to you, gentle four readers, she must have banged her head doing one too many backbends into a handstand. The Hamill hairdo – twas mine. Despite occasional familial strife it caused, the Olympics always had a magical way of pulling everyone together. Growing up, the games were always a source of camaraderie and amazing national pride. During the Olympics we were all able to believe in miracles. And don’t get me started with the ‘84 games in L.A. Those were some seriously golden times. I remember one evening Joan Rivers talking about them when she was hosting The Tonight Show. (This of course was back in the days when she still had a modicum of sense of humor, her original flesh and was still a welcome guest of Johnny Carson’s.) At one point during her monologue, Rivers stopped attempting anything funny, became sincere and said something along the lines that being an American during the those weeks of Olympics was one of the most gratifying and patriotic times of her life, wherein everyone around her pulled together for a common goal. The games epitomized "brotherly love."
Indeed, we were all proud of our Olympic representatives. There was nothing else on TV at the time that could compete with the ‘84 Olympics. It was like Seinfeld only without the anticlimactic finale. Because unlike Seinfeld (where they really should have ended it with that beyond brilliant backwards episode – did I mention I am a fan of alliteration?), the ‘84 Olympics were anything but anticlimactic – from beginning to the end.
This past summer I saw a lot of various internet chat, blogs, articles, etc. suggesting the Beijing Olympics had the best opening ceremony in history. I’m sorry; while it was indeed impressive seeing thousands of performers break into synchronized marching and drumming, it wasn’t anything particularly new or imaginative. I mean, didn’t we already see a bunch of Filipino prisoners manage to do the same sort of thing last year?
That 4 1/2 minute video was about 4 hours shorter than the opening ceremony with the added bonus that we didn’t have to contend with the moronic ramblings of Bob Costas. And quite frankly I thought the guys in orange were more impressive because they had to do all of their boogying whilst not breaking into hysterics at the sight of that balding guy skipping around doing his Ola Ray impersonation. (Ola was the gal in the original Thriller video who pretended to have the hots for Michael Jackson, which obviously confused her so much that she ended up doing a sort of lackluster version of John Cleese’s silly walk.)
Needless to say, when I read all that online best ceremony stuff, I immediately remembered the ‘84 games. Sure some of the things may now seem dated but at the time they were incredibly inventive - especially compared to Beijing. Yeah, this year it was kinda cool when Li Ning ran around the top of Beijing National stadium but he was attached to a harness. Back in ‘84, Bill Suitor didn’t have no stinkin’ harness. Suitor flew into the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum on a jet pack! And yeah, Ning’s actual lighting of the cauldron was pretty spectacular but was it more so than when Cathy Freeman, a symbol of Australian Aboriginal unity, did so in Sydney 2000, standing under a blaze of fire, surrounded by water? Was it more astounding than Atlanta ‘96, when Muhammad Ali, in defiance of the Parkinson's that robbed him of his physical grace, stood gracefully and triumphantly in front of an overawed and emotional crowd who cheered him on as he ignited the self-propelling flame which exploded into the cauldron?
Those unforgettable moments notwithstanding, again the precedent was set in ‘84. Rafer Johnson, 1960 decathlon winner and first African American to carry the flag in any opening ceremony at those games, ran up ninety-nine steps to reach up and light a wick that sent flames shooting through the Olympic rings toward its final destination. Before this version, all the previous lightings were dealt with in more or less the same fashion, with the final torchbearer standing alone atop a stage and then just tapping the torch down into to the cauldron like the Blue Fairy zapping Pinocchio on the noggin. Hell, even the Olympic fanfare that we all know and love (or at least forced to love since it comes on in advertisements about five months before the games even begin) made its first appearance during the ‘84 games. You may think it’s been around forever because it sounds so definitively Olympian but, in fact, it was written by none other than John Williams. Yes, that John Williams. The same guy who composed the music for Star Wars, Jaws, Close Encounters (pretty much any Spielberg or Lucas production), created that Olympic theme specifically for the ‘84 games. Conversely, Beijing’s musical contribution seems to have had less of a lasting effect than William’s, perhaps because any effect it might have had was overshadowed by the fact that they forced a cute little girl to lip-sync to a lesser cute girl’s voice.
Comparing the closing ceremonies, I must say 1984 still comes out on top. Beijing started very promisingly but then swiftly became annoying in length and even slightly nauseating in structure. For example, why were there a bunch of men (inexplicably dressed as those football-playing, Oompa Loompa-wannabes from Dino De Laurentiis' Flash Gordon) continuously moving up and down that weird beehive thing?
But truly nothing was worse than the English contribution to the show.
I apologize to anyone in or around the UK who may happen to be reading this, but come on. That was just a pathetic effort any way you look at it. Maybe Boris Johnson’s attitude pervaded the rest of the English portion’s psyche. He was that portly albino that was handed the Olympic flag since London is hosting the next summer games.
Perhaps it’s just me but, as Mayor of London and as a representative of the United Kingdom and considering he was appearing in front of a global audience for the first time, you would think ole Boris might have treated the event with an ounce more protocol. Nah. Boris clearly eschewed decorum in favor of dishevelment. He must have been in a hurry since he had evidently just rolled out of bed and simply couldn’t be bothered to tuck in his shirt or brush his hair. You just totally expected Boris to break into a very thick cockney accent, turn to Mayor Guo Jinlong and ask, “Oi, you wanna get a pint after?”I guess you can’t blame the English creative team’s collective attitude after that. But wow, there was just so much there that was just so not good. Fine, I get the double-decker bus is symbolic of England. (I guess the Union flag, Big Ben, Tower of London, London Eye, Stonehenge and even Beefeaters were all too unfamiliar symbols.) But why turn your double-decker into some sort of weird and creepy hairy thing that looked as if it required immediate mulching?
And fine, maybe Leona Lewis is a big star over there but I gotta say, having some girl, unfamiliar to a vast majority of people, gyrating...er...singing next to a rapidly-aging Jimmy Page (about whom, sad to say, a lot of youngsters these days are equally unfamiliar) was perhaps not a memorable artistic move. I’m also not sure why one would think an alleged former Satan-worshiper would be at the top of the list of people to best represent England. Furthermore, I think it was an ill-advised move for Page to represent in the manner he chose. I mean, if you didn’t know who he was and you just saw this old geezer reciprocating a young girl’s gyrations on public transit, you’d run over to him and either instinctively spray him down with mace or kick him in his led zeppelins. Even David Beckham looked embarrassed to be involved. I think he thought people might not notice he was there if he didn’t bother to exert too much energy into kicking the soccer ball out to the audience, which is why I think he may have managed to send it out a whopping two feet. Perhaps he just couldn't see over the bus' hedges.
Now compare the chia bus of ‘08 to the space ship of ‘84.
Yeah, the 1984 Olympics ended with a SPACE SHIP!
It was so real to so many people that to this day there are sites where you can find people arguing its legitimacy. Funny, I would have thought the appearance of the Captain Eo-lookin' alien at the end bit would have pretty much ended that debate. Yes, that part was admittedly goofy, but the music and majesty of the event was, nonetheless, nothing short of amazing. No question, the closing ceremonies of the ‘84 Summer Olympics soundly trounced those of 2008. More than that, I say the entire 1984 Summer Olympics experience was better that that of ‘08. Perhaps in my next excessively long tirade, I might even manage to compare the actual athletic events!
To those who would say the 2008 games were the best, I say they started off ok but went downhill faster than a giant slalom skier. Forgive me for mixing my Summer and Winter Olympiads. Must be the residual Thanksgiving tryptophan making me more than unusually goofy. Oh and also please forgive my goofy metaphor. I’ve been watching a lot of City Confidential reruns and if you’ve ever seen that show you know goofy metaphor-making is their favorite pastime.
*I'll speak to Goo about coming up with a better blogging alias.
