Olympics! Quick let's all talk about it before we forget. I didn't know how many pictures I was going to take of my TV while watching, but it turns out it was enough to make a group of pictures out of. I didn't get every highlight, there are other internet places to watch the crazy Australian Breaking dancer, for example. But let's see what I found interesting...
The first thing we need to mention is the Eiffel Tower and how cool that thing is as a visual centerpiece for the city of Paris. There're a few other cities with huge landmark things, and after seeing this for a couple of weeks, I think every city needs something like this. Not like, more towers exactly like this, just... something unique and unmistakable.
While spending money to make improvements to the city to host the Olympics, France converted the Eiffel Tower into a space defense laser platform. Now if the planet is attacked by aliens, we can blow them away! Over Paris, at least.
An important part of the opening ceremony is the lighting of the Olympic Torch, which is usually a bit different every time. It's always interesting to see who is chosen to light it. I'll save you the research and tell you it was 3-time Gold Medal track runner Marie-Jose Perec and 2-time Gold Medal in Judo Teddy Riner, both from France, of course. There was like twenty or so right before them and it was funny listening to the announcers try and keep up with the names as they passed the torch rather quickly.
The Olympic Torch this time was um... on a hot air balloon? That was a French invention, apparently. While pondering the mechanics of keeping a torch like that lit, yet not be um... dangerous, I found out it was not actually a flame, but lights on a clever water spray. They did that to be more "environmental" so I'm not complaining. It looked cool. They lowered it every morning and sent it back up at sunset.
You'll need to zoom in, but the showstopper of the opening was Celine Dion absolutely crushing a French song. It might not be as impressive without the backstory, but she is suffering from a neurological disorder and has taken a break from singing, to focus on her health. So seeing her back was kinda epic, singing on the Eiffel Tower under the Olympic Rings.
There was a really funny commercial for the show The Boys, which is a show about superheroes being um... bad. Here's the hero named The Deep, who is a twisted version of Aquaman, complaining that his fish friends are way better than people, why can't fish compete?
While swimming his long race, the announcers were video chatting with Bobby Finke's sister, Summer, and she totally busted him about his giant Lego collection. She was trying to be cute about how normal he was while not swimming. In this particular race, he won the Silver Medal, but later on he won a Gold Medal in a different race.
The biggest hype leading into the Olympics had to be Simone Biles. After she won the Gold Medal in the individual all-around event, she took out a goat necklace, you can see it on her neck. Of course, GOAT being short for "Greatest Of All Time." Everyone was always saying that about her, and even though she is really humble about it, she thought it would be fun to play along. Nobody can blame her for being so happy, she earned it!
Is this guy's father a doctor? If so, does that mean Doctor Doom's son is in the Olympics?! Somebody call the Avengers! To be clear, the announcers were pronouncing his name like "dome" but I found it funny enough to get a picture of it.
Armand Duplantis broke the Polevault World Record. The highlight reel isn't as good as watching it live was, so I'm glad I caught this when it happened. He missed his first two attempts, and on the third attempt he started clapping his hands to get the crowd going. As he runs, the clapping goes faster and faster... the roar was incredible! ...He clears the bar, and the place went nuts! So you really needed all the "build-up" before the payoff.
Making a surprise appearance during the Vollyball matches was galactic bounty hunter Samus Aran, from the video game Metroid! She can roll up into a ball, and she's tough enough to let the players hit her back and forth all day!
Even though it's over two weeks long, there are multiple events going on at the same time. It's like opening Xmas presents. If we stopped to watch each event one-at-a-time, it would take forever! Everybody open your presents at the same time. Sometimes they would split the screen to show lots of stuff at once, which was both cool and frustrating at the same time.
Special shout-out (pun intended) to the Apple commercial, that was played in almost every commercial break, for the entire two weeks. I must have seen this commercial a thousand times. There are robotic surveillance camera birds spying on people while dramatic music plays, and this one bird robot sits on this poor girl's couch, and she looks over and SCREAMS in coordination with a loud musical trill. After a while, it was instinct to hear this commercial start, and then grab the remote to mute this terrifying moment. Thanks, Apple. You really got the overplaying-the-same-annoying-commercial thing on lock.
I'm glad the US Women's Basketball team won the Gold Medal, but I feel bad for the French team player who missed the opportunity to tie the game, had this been a 3-point shot instead of a 2-pointer. You can see her foot is clearly ON the line. Maybe four inches back, and this game goes into overtime. That's gotta haunt her. I hope she can forgive herself and find some peace.
I saw this when it happened, but got a picture of it during the highlight reels. "Clark Kent" Stephen Nedoroscik takes off his glasses like Superman, and nails his pommel horse routine to secure a Bronze Medal for the US men's gymnastics team, which has not won any medals in a long time. As the rest of his team cheer and raise him in the air, the announcer guy says something like "I hope every person, at least once in their lives, gets to experience something like that." As the team was so happy. Total proof that you don't really need the Gold Medal to "win".
The closing ceremony was a lot simpler but filled with a bunch of weird stuff. Here's a famous statue of Nike, the goddess of victory. That statue is in the Animal Crossing game. And some kind of golden bug... guy? Ooooo. Art stuff, I guess.
There were lights on the seats, or something, that turned the whole stadium into a screen, which was kinda neat. I think I might have taken too many pictures of the closing ceremonies, maybe I could have taken more pictures of the events. Too late now?
This piano was suspended vertically, and the guy hanging below it was reaching up over his head to play it. It was impressive. If this was a Bugs Bunny cartoon, that thing would have certainly crushed the guy. I don't know if the opera guy in that circle was anybody famous or not, but he home-run'd the song he was singing.
You might not be able to see it, but there's a literal pile of people in the middle there. The biggest cheerleader-pyramid you've ever seen. Like that one Ant Man movie? Where they're hundreds of people piled up? Remember that? It was that. This was not quite the big finale.
Another thing that's not as good without the big setup, during the entire Olympics Tom Cruise had been spotted watching random events. It was all a big subtle build-up to him showing up during the closing ceremonies to Tom-Cruise-style wire drop from the sky in a big real-stunt.
He takes the Olympic Flag and puts it on the back of a motorcycle, which he rides out of the stadium, through Paris and eventually onto a cargo plane, which he then leaps out of.
So that part of it was pre-recorded, of course, in Hollywood Movie fashion, to advertise the next Summer Olympics which will be in Los Angeles, California. You know, where Hollywood movies are made. You won't be able to zoom in on this picture, but Tom Cruise in standing in the "W" and the camera slowly zoomed out to see the famous sign with the new rings added to it.
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Billie Eilish, and Snoop Dogg with Dr. Dre had a big beach concert in Los Angeles. Snoop Dogg had been like an unofficial mascot all around the Olympic events, so it was a little shocking to see him back in LA. Like, when did he leave? You could say he didn't stay in France for the closing ceremonies, but he kinda was still "at" the closing ceremonies, too.
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