2010 Winter Olympics Open to Rave Reviews on Broadway?

Vancouver – No, these photos only make it look like you’ve just left Rockefeller Center after a day of skating to attend a Christmas Eve Broadway production of “Fiddler On the Roof.”  The 2010 Winter Olympics opened last night (Yay! We can finally lose lackluster Leno.) in Canada, which according to the lengthy tourism commercials viewers were made watch over and over again leading to the ceremony, is nothing like mid-town Manhattan. It may even be in the mountains.  The ceremony itself, produced with much fanfare by a “creative director,” kicked off the winter games last night and left us thinking, “Uh, can they bring back the little Chinese kids to lipsynch?!?”

There were several things that we found a bit odd about the televised event, excluding the difficulty with lighting the cauldron at the end.  They opened with the remake of the 80s charity anthem, “We are the World.”  Michael Jackson was the only original artist who was courteous enough to reprise his role but had to do it on film and not before Quincy and Lionel getting in line to line his daddy’s pockets.  Still, nice of him to show up, all things considered. This update was strange, to say the least - the strangest part being a Frankenstein-like-looking Vince Vaughn weaving about in the back row not singing.  Creepy. Kind of makes you want to buy it on iTunes if they would agree to not play the video in public.  Also, rap was included to modernize it, but it may as well have been in French for as much we could hear the way the tracks were mixed. If they were mixed.  Second, call us old fashioned, but we don’t typically feel like celebrating the same day someone has met an untimely death. We’re picky that way.  On to the ceremony itself!  Were it not for the uber-snazzy Azerbaijani team’s ski pants, we are sorry to report that the ceremony would have been a total loss for us.  It’s very politically correct to honor the native Canadians, but those people made the River Dance performers seem like the Bolshoi Ballet.  And before you criticize that such a comment is disrespectful to the Native American culture, think long and hard about whether or not if you had gotten up there and danced with them yourself, drunk or sober, if anyone in the audience would have even noticed?

As these opening ceremonies will always be about cheese, they should have just brought in Brendan Fraser to reprise his role as “Dudley Do-Right.”  He’s of Canadian descent. Or, can they please move the games to Wisconsin or Switzerland?