Oh, those Olympic openings
An appreciation of the lavish productions that have kicked off the Games
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
On the first day from Pyeongchang, my TV brought to me:
• Ten (thousand) drummers drumming
• Nine (hundred) ladies dancing
• Eight skaters skating … FIVE Olympic rings! I’ll stop now. Everyone knows the Olympics’ opening ceremonies are way, way over the top. The parade of athletes in designer outerwear, the Busby Berkeley waves of smiling children dressed as snowflakes or teardrops, the literal explosion of fireworks high above the neon glow of the stadium.
It is pageantry on a global scale, one that makes an Oscars red carpet look like your middle school prom. A middle school prom staged in a gym, no less. And yet, I love it so. Back in the day (that would be the 1970s), an Olympics kicked off with songs, dancing, a few speeches and the filing in of athletes from nations around the world. The whole shebang took a couple of hours.
Since the Summer and Winter Games were held in the same calendar year, fans were treated to this spectacle twice every four years. Perhaps the broadcasts weren’t quite so lavish, so social-media ready as modern-day events, but in an era of limited entertainment options, everyone watched, and that sense of world-wide community was actually rather cool.
I was a senior at Pitt in the winter of 1979-80 (I am ancient, so what?). A TV addict even then, I was one of few students on my floor of Tower C to own a tiny television set. Friends would drop by, we’d catch “Benson” or maybe a soap.
That year, the opening ceremonies from Lake Placid, N.Y., promised a wintry extravaganza, and who knew the Games would deliver a Miracle On Ice? I remember watching the U.S. Olympic team march into the stadium, all in sherpa coats and cowboy hats. They assembled near the Soviet Union team, which was decked out in sable coats and matching chapeau: dark brown for the men, camel-colored for the ladies.
Even before the age of cruelty-free fashion, the Soviets radiated power and athletic superiority (not to mention wealth; sable is not among your cheaper furs). It would take a hockey semifinal game to turn things around. That, and speed skater Eric Heiden, who won five gold medals. Combined, the U.S. Miracle and Heiden accounted for all of America’s gold.
Fast forward to an overcast, somewhat-freezing day in 1988. As a Pittsburgh Press member of the Scripps-Howard team in Calgary, I was assigned to cover figure skating, bobsled, some other random stuff involving pandas at the zoo, and the opening ceremonies.
I was thrilled. No, seriously.
Everyone in the stadium found a plastic rain poncho at their seats, which would later make us part of a mosaic of Olympic rings and other symbols. Mine was red. When I got home from Canada, I stashed it away with a few other souvenirs and and didn’t look for it again until 2015, when I desperately needed it for a rainy Rolling Stones concert at Heinz Field.
Canada’s weeks in the Olympics sun kicked off with two hours of Calgary Stampede, men on horseback, inflatable dinosaurs and the vocal stylings of Gordon Lightfoot. With no cellphone or internet, I rushed to catch a charter bus back to the media center and filed a story with the now- that- I- thinkabout-it-it’s-kind-of-mocking lede: “Let the Games begin, eh.”
But there are true highlights to remember, including Muhammad Ali, battling Parkinsons and lighting the 1996 Olympic cauldron in Atlanta. On the lighter side, it’s not often James Bond (Daniel Craig) gets to skydive with the Queen of England into the 2012 London ceremony.
My (mostly) love affair with watching the big Olympics kickoff continued through the decades. Only once, when I was on an airplane headed to Los Angeles for a work thing in 2012, did I miss the TV broadcast. Of course, I watched it later.
The day’s highlights were projected onto a white wall overlooking the swimming pool at the Beverly Hilton, and while I did not manage to have a drink in hand, it was a pleasant way to watch beautiful people with drinks in hand watch the Olympics. Much better than, say, the 1992 Winter ceremony from Albertville, France.
That day in February marked the tipping point between mere spectacle and Cirque du Soleil, were Cirque du Soleil performed by characters from a Dr. Seuss book. There were women dressed as snow globes, acrobats on bungee cords and stiltwalkers from another planet wearing futuristic costumes.
Maybe because in 1992 I had a toddler and a 7month-old (meaning, I was in a constant state of sleep deprivation), I remember that weird opening ceremony, and not much else; I had to look at photos at work the other day to be certain I did not hallucinate the whole thing.
I am hardly the world traveler these days, but the past two Olympic opening ceremonies found me far from home. In 2014, I was visiting one of my daughters (that would be the 1992 newborn) in Berlin, Germany, during that city’s annual Berlinale film festival.
High atop the city in a hotel penthouse lounge, I hung out, with food and drink nearby, and an eye on one of the many large flat-screen broadcasts from Sochi. Film distribution deals were being discussed in a multitude of languages but the parade on TV was in English.
Two years later, we were visiting friends on Cape Cod, with the Rio Games in the background. When the parade of nations began, we all stopped to critique the outfits. Little-known fact: the fiercest Olympics competition is not on the ski slopes or the ice, but in stadiums across the world, where once every four years the U.S. sees if that Ralph Lauren gear stands up to scrutiny.
I have no set plans to watch NBC’s opening ceremonies broadcast Friday from Pyeongchang, South Korea. Coverage will be live at 6 a.m., but that’s a bit much to ask before a decent cup of coffee. Given there there will be more than 2,400 hours of NBC Olympics TV, via its various networks and platforms, we need to pace ourselves.
Remember, the DVR is our friend. Let the Games begin.