Full Coverage Of The 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony

With great fanfare, the 2012 Summer Olympics officially started Friday night. In the U.S., they didn’t officially start on TV until hours after they actually began, because NBC felt the opening ceremony needed “context.”

Our best guess is said “context” were the fascinating nuggets of information offered by Bob Costas and Matt Lauer during the Parade of Nations. Which is to say, NBC needed to take time to make sure its broadcast sounded as ignorant and arrogant as it possibly could.

We were all told all day throughout social media, on Twitter and Facebook, and on various websites (even this one) that NBC was doing a disservice to sports fans (and fans of Kenneth Branagh, I guess) everywhere by airing the 2012 Summer Olympics Opening Ceremonies on a five-hour tape delay. They were downright ridiculed for it. All that said, it looks like NBC will be having the last laugh, all the way to the ratings bank.

NBC drew a 23.0/40 overnight (a number used to measure viewing levels in the top 56 markets) rating for the 2012 Opening Ceremonies, marking the best overnight ever for a non-U.S. hosted Olympics ever, topping even the stunning Beijing ceremonies just four years earlier by 7 percent (21.0/34). It also topped the most recent Opening Ceremonies, from 2010 in Vancouver (though rarely are Summer and Winter Olympics compared to one another) by a whopping 15 percent (20.0/33).

It’s hard to imagine that the Brits would outdo the Canadians for “worst opening ceremony in memory,” but they found a way to do it. Slow, boring, disjointed, everyone at my viewing party was left yawning and we eventually were forced into a game of “Wits and Wagers” to keep from falling asleep.

The Opening Ceremony began with 10 minutes of a lovely pastoral scene from How Green Was My Valley. If only Walter Pidgeon had shown up. Shots of the quiet, boring scene were spliced inexplicably with random shots of rugby.

The fireworks during the Opening Ceremony were pretty great at normal speed on Friday. But let’s speed them up a bit and see what happens.

Yeah, this is pretty amazing. Could probably stare at it all night!

Best way for the host country to make an entrance during the Opening Ceremony? By making it rain with seven billion pieces of shredded paper, of course.* Great Britain does it up big.

Of course, if this was in America, those would be dolla dolla bills y’all, because U-S-A! U-S-A!

You probably don’t want to search for “Niger” on Twitter. It’s not a good idea, and if you saw it trending, you knew bad things were coming. Because it’s Twitter. Of course people are going to be stupid.

But hey, let’s take a look-see, shall we?

I was getting ready to dump on this dude and then I just put down my snarkin’ knife and pitchfork because I realized I was in the presence of the king.

And now, 33 short reviews of national delegations and their clothes.

Cameroon: Our outfits are a traditional print called “to hell with your television.”

Sometimes, you need a nice, clear, handy label so everyone knows who you are. Concise is usually best, but in a pinch, strap your three-line country name to your back and go paradin’.

YOLO, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. By which I mean “Yugoslav Oughtta Leave Out (some words next time).”

It rains a lot in England, obviously. This is apparently the only thing the Czech Republic was going on when they put together their outfits for the opening ceremony.

Everyone make sure to bring your galoshes! What do galoshes go well with? Shorts, obviously:

MUST FOCUS. COME ON, SHEILA, DON’T BLOW THIS. YOU GOT ONE JOB TO DO. BACK, FORTH, BACK, FORTH, OH THAT’S THE WAY WE WAVE OUR FLAGS.

Oh, crikey, flag. I wish I knew how to quit you.

You thinking about putting money on the Olympics this year? Of course you are. If you need a dark horse or longshot pick, think about doubling down on Austria. They should be pretty solid this year considering that Arnold Schwarzenegger really let himself go during his tenure as governor of California.

This means that sweet, sweet supply of HGH will now no longer be shipped directly to Schwarzenegger’s house in Malibu, but will be distributed among the populace of his home country.

Gadzooks, what a handsome bastard David Beckham is. He may not know that’s not a car, but a boat. He may not be able to perform basic maths (hullo British readers.) He may not even know where he is right now. It doesn’t matter, because David Beckham is basically the Minister of the Smugchequer, and could keep the Pound afloat through sheer unbridled confidence and smirking. (P.S. David Beckham has no idea where he is going. Please send the British Navy after him, as he will run out of gas before reaching the French coast.)

You may think you’ve seen leadguitarface before, but my friends, THAT is how you leadguitarface. This VERY NEARLY gives Bassface a run for his money.

For more on the Olympics, visit our dedicated 2012 London Olympics hub.

There were rumors going around before the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony that Mary Poppins would fight Voldemort. That sounded ridiculous, stupid and way too awesome than what usually happens, so no one really thought it would happen.

Then, an hour into the tape-delayed NBC show, sure enough: GIANT INFLATABLE VOLDEMORT!

The 2012 Olympics opening ceremony features recreations of some of the greatest moments in British history. Moments like ... uh ... this!

Truly, one of the greatest British moments: a scene from Victory Hugo’s literary classic Les Miserables ... about the French revolution.

The honor of lighting the Olympic Cauldron at the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games on Friday went to a group of young athletes nominated by British Olympic champions. While most thought rower Steven Redgrave (who carried the torch into the stadium), famed mile-runner Roger Bannister, Queen Elizabeth III or noted soccer enthusiast David Beckham were set to light the torch, organizers went a different direction. And it was actually pretty incredible to watch.

Here’s the cauldron, which consists of 204 individual petals representing each competing nation. Now let’s all be amazed:

If you would like to bet on a thing that requires you to know the peculiarities of the decision-makers within the 2012 London Olympics, boy, do I have a deal for you! You should bet on who lights the Olympic Flame!

The odds to light the Olympic torch heavily favor Steven Redgrave, who won gold medals in rowing at five consecutive Games and is considered Britain’s greatest Olympian. But that shouldn’t stop you from wagering on someone else, like David Beckham (who was passed over for one of the three over-23 spots on the British Olympic team), Queen Elizabeth, or Nelson Mandela (66-1 at SkyBet!), or Muhammad Ali (33-1 at SkyBet, and also ???).

Four years ago, Beijing opened the Summer Olympics with a dazzling performance of inhuman precision, the sort of clockwork perfection that can only happen when you have a nation of one billion people living under communist rule. With the 2012 Games upon us, London has the daunting task of matching Beijing’s spectacle -- a fool’s errand taken up by artistic director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire), whose vision seems to be “include everything British ever.”

Indeed, what London lacks in precision group drumming it will make up for with nods to British culture: British music, British literature, royal figures, and crumpets -- all of the crumpets! It will be either a grand tribute to England as the Games begin, or a hilarious Frankenstein of cultural history (“No, no, no! The 40-foot Voldemort is supposed to come out to the Sex Pistols’ cover of ‘God Save the Queen’! Don’t cue ‘Hey Jude’ until the 30 Mary Poppinses start descending from the sky.”) Regardless, the event calls for a drinking game.

There have already been games played at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, but the Olympics’ official start comes with each Olympiad’s Opening Ceremony, and that is yet to come. But for Britons and attendees, there isn’t that long to wait: “The Isles of Wonder,” as the 2012 Opening Ceremony has been dubbed, will begin on Friday at 9 p.m. local time in London at the Olympic Stadium.

Slumdog Millionaire director Danny Boyle heads the creative team for the Opening Ceremony, which will celebrate Britain’s history and feature chickens, sheep, mosh pits, a rain-producing cloud, the largest harmonically tuned bell in the world, the music of A.R. Rahman and a model of the hill known as the Glastonbury Tor, which many consider to be the place where King Arthur’s Avalon sat. Boyle told The Guardian he hopes the Opening Ceremony will reveal “how peculiar and contrary we are.” Given all those details, it’s hard to imagine it won’t, one way or another.