NBC knows a good thing when it swims past them. Taking advantage of Olympic Golden (Medal) boy, Michael Phelps, they’ve struck a deal to carry the 2009 World Swimming Championships and the U.S. National Swimming Championships for the next three years.But that’s just the start.
Although it hasn’t been announced yet….
Michael Phelps has also signed to star in the spinoff of THE OFFICE. Tentative title: THE OFFICE POOL.
And he will recur on 30 ROCK as Liz Lemon’s new shirtless assistant.
Phelps also will be the underwater correspondent on SNL’s Weekend Update, the new host of THE BIGGEST LOSER: FAMILIES, and KATH & KIM will now become KATH & KIM & MIKE.
Additionally, he's the voice of the car on KNIGHT RIDER.
Schedule permitting he’ll be filling in for Ann Curry on TODAY and will hold briefcase number 8 on DEAL OR NO DEAL.
And finally, SUNDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL will have a new co-host for their halftime show (because they only have nine already).
You laugh and say, how could Michael Phelps do all these things? Even Ryan Seacrest doesn’t have that much of a workload. Regis used to but had a heart attack. You’re right. It’s super human. Which is why Phelps will also be joining the cast of HEROES as the guy who can be in nine places at one time.
Five years from now he’ll be performing four shows daily at SEA WORLD, Florida, second on the bill to Shamu.
I love this town.
Tomorrow: My Fall Movie Preview. Don't pre-order your tickets just yet.
15 comments :
And, of course, he'll be appearing in the upcoming season of Heroes as, well, himself.
Strange.
I would've thought he'd star in every Law & Order from now on as himself.
On "Criminal Intent" as the guy who defrauded the other swimmers by taking performance enhancing drugs.
On "SVU" as the child who's been forced to swim and been given "helpful vitamins" by his partens.
And on the regular one as the guy who destroyed his own body with doping.
Seriously. FOUR SECONDS. Must be the suit. Yeah right.
Of course he'd be a natural for the reprise of Mission Impossible:
"Good morning Mister Phelps..."
Oh no, my verification code is "nidwd." I should have known they'd catch me eventually.
Sebastian, Phelps agreed to "supertesting", a much more rigorous procedure than other athletes face. In addition, his samples will be stored forever to be tested again when more advanced tests are available.
I actually thought the best swim I saw was Jason Lezak's anchor leg in the 4x100 freestyle relay. He spotted the world record holder a half-second head start and still ran him down. With just 25 meters to go the commentators were talking about America "holding on to second place."
graham:
Oh alright then. So he's doped but it just hasn't been proved. Good to know.
At least he's not wearing braces like the Jamaican female athletes. Who weren't supertested. And who's samples will also be frozen and transported to a secret location for future testing.
Let me put it like this: if somethings looks like sh*t, feels like sh*t when you pick it up and tastes like it when you put it in your mouth I guess you have to be glad you didn't step into it.
Or better: the millions the IOC, the companies who sponsor Phelps and NBC make through him will all be on bank accounts before anything will be tested positive. That's the beauty of this system. Just put an asterisk next to his name. Or delete him for the record books.
In the meantime any swimmer with half a braincell knows what to do on the road to London. And buying a new swimsuit is just one thing on their list.
Now that NBC has had a brief reprieve from the bottom of the ratings, they'll do anything avoid going back now that the olympics are over.
sebastian... you really have to do research before just making accusations. The biggest change in swimming over the last few years has been the use of underwater super slo-mo and computer modeling. What they are doing now is finding out exactly how far apart to keep your fingers when you stroke, what position to hold your body, how you should kick. They are reinventing the way the strokes are swam and they are also spending more time underwater on the push offs. They've changed the basics of the sport, so breaking records by a lot isn't that amazing.
But then again, it much easier just to accuse everyone of things. What are you cheating on. Must be something if you've had any success at all.
I heard arguments like this back when I watched my first Olympic games.
Back then it was Florence Griffith Joyner who had the superior "training methods".
Of course it's always easier to accuse somebody than to prove it. Proving it takes years, especially in an environment like this, where the IOC creates the perfect surroundings for keeping everything under the rug. Including 77 applications for demonstrations of which 77 have been denied by the chinese CP.
I know it's easy to rant. But again: if the system has always been infested with abusers how is what I say not just common sense?
Anyway, who cares. The masses want heroes. They get them. I am just not willing to accept all this blindly. I am kind of glad our athletes didn't win (almost) any medals in the bird's nest. Too many bad eggs, including Ursain Bolt. It's just baffling how somebody can jog the last 20 meters in the semi-finals and nobody ask him to just get the hell out of the stadium when the last time somebody ran that fast his name was Ben Johnson, TWENTY years ago, and when this guy ran half a second slower half a year ago.
I know. It's all "magic" and "training methods".
But the most ridiculous doping case must've been the german show jumper who applied almost the same creme to his horse due to which the german team lost their gold medal in 2004. It's astonishing how people just don't learn.
You know Lance Armstrong wasn't tested positive either and we were all angry about that because our highly talented Jan Ulrich always came in second. Until he got tested positive.
Disclaimer: I'm german.
After 6 Olympic games I am sorry but I have lost all my illusions about clean sports. I mean if you can become the governor of California having been a steroid using freak I think pretty much everything has been said.
Oh wait. I know. He hasn't been tested positive so I shouldn't accuse him of that.
Let's just stop arguing about this. I have my beliefs, you have yours. If you can enjoy this - be my guest. I'll stick to sports which don't benefit from doping that much. Like Snooker. Or darts. Or golf. Or whatever. Maybe poker.
Sebastian:
I'm surprised you weren't aware that Poker's own Doyle Bronson was just recently stripped of his World Championship rings. Turns out, traces of growth hormone, EPO and horse tranquilizers were found in his whiskey-on-the-rocks.
Was to be expected. I mean they play rounds of H.O.R.S.E. every week man!
And Jon Daly is a total gambling addict! Look at this guy, he's so bloated I think he must be on all kinds of illegal performance enhancing glucose chains!
;-)
German.
Well that explains why you're so eager and willing to libel a man without evidence.
Over here we have this little very non-German concept: "innocent until proven guilty." We all remember what Germany had, including some great Olympics, like the 1972 Munich Massacre,and the Nazi Olympics of 1936.
As for California's Governor, you're welcome to have him back anytime. Yes, I know he was Austrian, but then, so was the Fuhrer.
But I'm with you on your tastes-like-shit analogy. I used it on your posts. Yup. There's that taste all right.
I totally agree with Sebastion. I coached three Olympic athletes in the early seventies. So I have some first-hand experience. The win-at-all-cost attitude in sports has made sports a joke.
Many of the fans have the same attitude. Their tiny, boring lives hang on the outcome of games preformed by dillitante athletes with the loyalties of a gnat. Their 'heros' jump ship at the drop of a wallet. It's a shame that just making a 'good effort' isn't sufficient to garner respect anymore.
And Sebastian is right - if it looks like a duck, walks like a dunk and quacks like a duck - what are the chances it's not a duck.
Wow. Your source is WIKIPEDIA?!? You must be a true scholar.
Enough ranting. Peddle your paranoia someplace else.
Back to Ken's column for me.
I don't know why I even bother to answer to an insult by some anonymous guy but if you are unable to use Wikipedia as a link collection to official sources (e.g. searching for "vacant" on the page and then following the footnotes) linking to official IOC documents in PDF-format, then I guess you should return to watching Judge Judy and Dr. Phil.
Or to use a nice anology: countries were invaded on less compelling evidence. (and before my special friend D brings it up I know that the Nazis staged polands invasion into germany *snicker*)
It's not paranoia. It's being totally disenchanted. Off the top of my head I could name you half a dozen german athletes who got caught for doping. I grew up loving the Olympics but the IOC is turning more and more into a money making machine creating the perfect surroundings for fraudulent behavior, despite all the things they claim to do against doping. Add to that the Tour de France and Baseball (which I used to love the last couple of years, enjoying corked bats and oversized heads in the recent ones, being german mind you) I pretty much lost all sports I love (except Basketball with Dirk Nowitzki) to doping.
But ok, sorry for bringing it up on a post about a guy who won 8 gold medals. I guess he has to start quaking before I'm allowed to say anything.
It's official! The news just came out of Burbank this afternoon. Olympic champion Michael Phelps will star in NBC's new version of "Man From Atlantis," playing the aquatic hero originally played by Patrick Duffy in the 1970s.
Post a Comment