Olympic Closing Ceremony: NBC fucks up yet again!

What I love about the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics is that it’s a television event the whole world sees at once. Unless you’re on the East Coast of the United States watching NBC. In addition to editing out selected portions and allowing the insipid Ryan Seacrest to host, they broke away before the big finale and the Who to show the pilot of a new sitcom where the big joke was a monkey in a lab coat. There’s a reason NBC is the last network. Even in those rare (once every four years) instances when they get viewers they manage to royally piss them off.

Don’t they realize that interrupting the Closing Ceremonies with a sitcom is the same as flashing a half hour pop up ad? And how many people like pop up ads? When was the last time you bought a product you saw on a pop up ad? On the other hand, how many products have you boycotted because you resented the ad? And how many websites have you stopped visiting because you got tired of the relentless pop up ads?

Whatever goodwill NBC had amassed with their Olympic coverage (and most of it was excellent) they completely squandered. They just reinforced the public’s perception that NBC is clueless. And it breaks my heart. Having spent the better part of twenty years writing for CHEERS, FRASIER, and WINGS it was an honor to be part of the NBC family. They strove for quality. They strove for class. They were the HBO of network television.

And now they’re WHITNEY, comedies with monkeys, and the new face of the franchise is Ryan Seacrest. The once-proud Peacock has been totally plucked.

On the west coast the ceremony was not interrupted by the sneak pop up ad for ANIMAL PRACTICE. I’m guessing they took a raft of shit so quickly backtracked. I feel bad for the producers. How’d you like this deal?

Thirty million people are going to sample your pilot!

Cool!

The only thing is – they’re all going to hate you.

Huh???

Personally, I didn’t see it. I set my DVR for the Closing Ceremonies. It recorded 3 1/2 hours and cut off before the finale.

Of the 3 1/2 hours, an hour and half was recap and Olympic highlights. They couldn’t do that separately? And because they had to show all that rehash they chose to cut out performances by The Kinks’ Ray Davies, Muse, Kate Bush, the Royal Ballet, and a new song by George Michael. One of the big emotional moments apparently was when all the volunteers were saluted. We didn’t see that either, along with some performance pieces that I can’t describe because well…I didn’t see them.

What we did get was more Ryan Seacrest shoved down our throats. Bob Costas couldn’t introduce the Pet Shop Boys? At one point Bob said something to the effect of: “Well, we have Ryan Seacrest here. This might be a good time to use him.”

As for the ceremony itself, another giant Super Bowl halftime show. Like I tweeted, they made a big deal of the Spice Girls reunion. It was their first reunion since 2008. Wow! Four whole years! Not exactly Dean & Jerry after twenty years. And how could they pay tribute to the great recording artists of Great Britain and not close the show with Lulu? Although, maybe they did. My DVR cut out. And I imagine if you were watching on the East Coast you probably turned it off when the cat jumped off the skyscraper in ANIMAL PRACTICE.

Please stick around and read the post meant for today. Thanks.