Saturday, February 23, 2002

Aussie TV show a hit - except with Canadians

By CHRIS STEVENSON -- SLAM! Sports  SALT LAKE CITY - Forget the gold medal hockey game.

 Never mind the figure skating.

 The hot ticket here for a lot of folks is a chance to sit in on a taping of The Ice Dream, the nightly, irreverent, satirical, cynical and, unless you might be a Canadian curler, pretty amusing look at the Olympics.

 The show, hosted by Australian comedians H.G. Nelson and Roy Slaven (simply known as Roy and HG) for the Seven Network down under, made its debut at the Olympics in Sydney. It became mandatory late-night viewing for people at the five-ring circus. You have to love watching Roy and HG cut down the pompous folks in the Olympic movement who take themselves way too seriously.

 Ask anybody who was in Sydney about The Dream and they'll tell you it was one of the highlights of the 2000 Games along with Victoria Bitter beer and Fatso, the Lard-Assed Wombat, The Dream's mascot which wound up being hoisted in the air from the podium by numerous medal winners.

 The show was such a hit it was transported here where it is taped each night in a small corner of the Seven Network's setup in the International Broadcast Center.

 The Ice Dream, taped before an audience of only about 50 people a night, arranged on bleachers, is a huge hit.

 It pulls in about 900,000 viewers in Australia; huge numbers for a show that doesn't start until 11 p.m.

 It's taped on a set made to look like a ski lodge with a bison's head looming over a fireplace with an Australian flag draped beneath it.

 Roy and HG make their entrance and take their place behind a table littered with mounds of pizza and bottles of Victoria Bitter beer.

 The audience goes nuts.

 A camera on a boom slides in just in front of the table and for the next hour, Roy and HG have at all their favourite targets: the International Olympic Committee, Americans' eating habits, ice dancing and, on this night, curling.

 For the Canadians in the audience, it's a humbling experience.

 This is the backbone of Roy and HG's show: they take tapes of events and supply their own commentary, coming up with their own lingo and nicknames.

 "We now go to the Canadian-Norway curling match, already in progress," intoned HG, "it's been underway for five hours."

 The first shot is of Canadian skip Kevin Martin and the others leaning on their brooms, talking and laughing.

 The next shot is of Canadian third Don Walchuk delivering a stone, crouched low on the ice coming out of the hack.

 "Here is Walchuk," said Roy. "He does like to get down low. He likes to sniff the stone. He's known as the Stone Sniffer."

 According to Roy and HG, "the house" also has a kitchen and a backdoor.

 "The thing about curling," said Roy, "is if you are not playing the Germans, you are going to have a good time."

 As they watch a stone creep along the ice, they observe: "it's like an iceberg, you can only see one-eighth, the other seven-eights of the stone is submerged."

 They cut to a shot of Canadian coach Jules Owchar, flipping through some papers.

 "Even the Canadian coach has given up watching this one," they say.

 Norway winds up taking a deuce, but the picture of Martin shows him laughing and leaning on his broom.

 "The Canadians don't care," said HG, "they know they are loved."

 The special guest this night is Australian freestyle skier Alisa Camplin, who won gold in the aerials, the second Aussie to capture a gold in the Winter Games.

 She's given a chance to shamelessly plug herself for endorsements.

 "I could use a car," she said. "I had to sell mine to come here. I could also use a holiday."

 "No problem," said Roy. "How about a state named after you?"

 "A street would be good," said Camplin.

 Ice dancing is lampooned mercilessly, particularly the Swiss brother-sister team of Eliane and Daniel Hugentobler, a union "of the love that dare not speak its name," said HG.

 They are shooting to get the Osmond family dentist on to talk about that family's famous teeth.

 American eating habits are a big part of the show's diet.

 There's a bit where they pit two Americans against each other in an eating contest, inhaling huge hamburgers chased down by sundaes.

 The finale is one of the contestants running to the bathroom and hurling into a sink.

 When asked to describe the essence of American food, a large American man says it tastes of freedom.

 "Freedom," said Roy. "American food never fights to get out, never has to fight for its freedom."

 A DVD and videotapes of The Dream from Sydney is available at Seven Network's website, www.i7.com.au, and The Ice Dream will be available in the near future.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

2002 Games News Coverage