Do Go On - 9 - Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony

Episode Date: December 23, 2015

We all remember where we were on the 15th of September, 2000. Right? Obviously we were all watching the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympics! Relive the magic of Nikki Webster, Bootmen and horse whisperers. Even if you didn't watch it, you'll still enjoy Jess, Matt and Dave reliving it all.Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] the show and get rewards like bonus episodes:www.patreon.com/DoGoOnPod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Melbourne and Canada, we got exciting news for you. And we should also say this is 2026. Jess, what year is it? 2026. Thank God you're here. Right now, I'm in Melbourne doing my show with Serenji Amana, 630 each night at the Cooper's Inn Hotel, having so much fun. We'd love to see you there. Canada, we are visiting you in September this year.

If you've somehow missed the news, we are heading up Vancouver, Calgary, Montreal and Toronto for shows. That's going to be so much fun. Tickets for all this stuff, I believe, are online. And I'm here too. Welcome to Do Go On, the show where we talk about something interesting, and I am going to attempt to do that. My name is Dave Warnocky, and I'm here with that Stuart. Hello, Matt.

Hey, Dave, yeah, the interesting thing, I guess that's a subjective term. In my term, I think it's objective, because I always find it interesting. Ah, all right, I'll take it all back. Let's start again, from the top. From the top. Well, let's welcome Jess Perkins into the show. Hello, Jess. Boy.

Well, that's not from the top. That's kind of from just below the top. But that's okay. Hey, Jess. Hi, mates. How are we? We? Well, I can't speak for Matt.

Obviously, he's... I've already tried to speak for everyone and tell him that this show's interesting. And he's already told you off for that. So don't speak for him now. But I am bloody good. Matt, yourself. No, I'm bloody good too. You could have spoken for us all then.

Yeah, I'm pretty bloody good as well. All right. Go team. Okay. That's one thing we've got... All right. Are we just, are we going to jump straight in? I'll just jump straight into it this time.

Let's just do it. No bloody chit-chat. No-chit-chat. No-chit-chat. Really well. No-chit-chat. Here's a chit-chat question. Just before you get into that, talking about no-chit-chat,

what have you been up to lately? How's the family? The family are all very well. Anne and John Perkins are doing well. Anyway, no chit-chat this week. No chit-chat. Straight into the show. What happens is we each take it in terms to research a topic

and then report back to the other guys about said topic. This week it is Jess your turn to regale us with a tail. Oh, I didn't know you're going to regale us. That's cool. I'm a little bit... Matt, you had Red Cordial something this morning. You're really hyperactive.

I did have... I had a flat white. My sixth flat white. Ever? No, not today, ever. Do you remember a few weeks ago we went out for lunch after... It was like your first ever flat white? That was his first one.

That was like two weeks ago when you had six flat whites. Yeah. I'm on board. From one to six. I'm really happy for you. I've still never had a flat white. Anyway, no chitch chat this week. No chitch chat.

Straight into the... I was going to say I'm a little bit nervous about this one because you'll either get on board or it's going to be a long, long podcast. So this one is genuinely subject. I think that's kind of the rule of podcasts. I think it's still interesting, but it might be more interesting to me for nostalgia reasons and you'll understand why. And also... Ship to shore? I've learnt my lesson from the Beatles episode where I went to...

and now I've made it very specific. Like, I've tied it to one single day, one single evening. The credits to ship to shore. I can guess this one because it's, it's nostalgic, and it's very personal to you and it's one day. I wouldn't say personal to me. Was it your 13th birthday party? Yes, it is.

We went to Smorgies. It was great. No, we're not doing my 13th birthday. We always start with a question. Okay. Ready to answer. I've got two questions. Unconventional, but we'll allow.

No, no, no. I'll go with the more obvious one, and then if we need to, I'll narrow it down. What do you think is the biggest sporting event in Australian history? In history or like annually? The 1991 AFL Grand Final, where Angry Anderson played Bound for Glory in the back of the Batmobile. That is exactly what I'm talking. No, that's not what I'm talking about. But it's a nighttime, you said it was a nighttime thing.

It's a nighttime thing. Kathy Freeman running in the Sydney Olympics? You're super close. Just the Sydney Olympics? Again, very close to one night. The opening ceremony. The opening ceremony. An unforgettable night in my chapter as well because I had gastro and I watched the whole event vomiting into a bucket every five minutes.

Because I got chicken pox for the Olympics and my dad took my brother up to Sydney to watch to go to the Olympics and mum and I had to stay home because I had chicken pox. I missed to the Olympics. You were going to go to the games. We were going to go. He took my brother and my brother's friend and they were in the Brazilian cheer squad for some volleyball and they were at all these events and I missed it all. Isn't that brutal?

This is a moment of my childhood. I think I was at a party that night or something. Teen backyard party. So not a party for that event. No, no, I didn't see it. But I do, I remember hearing about it. Have you seen any clips of it since? Yeah, I think I've seen Nikki Webster on a rope or something.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I like, Nikki Webster had a hit song called strawberry kisses. She did. Which is also my name for my nipples. Well, we've just found your coffee order. What are you talking?

Is that a genuine... He's lifting up his shirt for those at home. He's showing us his nipples. Wow. I can confirm. Not one, but two strawberry kisses. I'm dying. How seriously you said that?

You're an idiot. We will be tweeting a photo of these nipples after the show. Hopefully, Matt is on board for that. Oh, yeah, no doubt. You can see the strawberry kisses for yourself. Maybe we should tweet a picture of them to Nikki Webster. Check out these strawberry kisses. She's probably right back.

She probably would. She's quite sad. She's not giving me. No. Didn't she, she's, is she on Dancing with the Stars or something at the moment? No, is that Tessero Owen? Terry Owen. Bindi.

Bindy. Bindy Owen is on Dancing in America. Oh, really? Wow. And Nikki was years and years ago. Right. Okay. Like a long time ago.

I've merged them into one person. Yeah. And look, one super being. Fair enough. So we all remember then where we were. Where we were, the night.

On the 15th of September, 2000. Is that the date? Wow. The 15th. So. And Kathy Freeman, she, oh, you're going to go into this. But she, I think she had a role in lighting the flame or carrying the flame or something. She did.

Because that's so funny. They're like, big secret. Oh, who's going to be the one who lights the big cauldron? Oh, who is it going to be? And people like, actually, they talk about it, like, people care. I don't think anyone does, but the commentators will be like talking up like, it was a secret. Oh, my God.

Yeah, yeah, it was a secret that, like. Is it going to be Pat Rafter? Is it going to be Shane Crawford? It could be anyone. Is it going to be Yvonne Gulligong, Crawley? Corley. It could be Callie, but it could be Dawn Fraser. It could be anyone.

Oh, my good. I know. It could be Patrick McCubbin, risen from the dead, the Australian bush artist. Surely it's not going to be... Frederick McCarman. Surely it's not going to be... How do you? Famous Triptitch painter.

Surely it's not going to be a current athlete like Kathy Freeman or Andrew Gaze. Was Andrew Gaze a current athlete? He was a... Yeah, he carried the flag. Well, there you go. Big moment for 10-year-old me, who... You're a basketball player? Basketball player, big Andrew Gaze fan.

He's a top guy. Great bloke. He seems like a good dude. Top bloke. He used to do the footy tips on the... the Channel 10 news, always very hilarious. He'd followed up by throwing a basketball over his head or something, so good. Very good.

Really like, I know what I'm talking about, then you just shot a hoop. Yeah. I was watching clips from the Olympics as research, and I got like onto an Andrew Gaze one because I love Andrew Gaze. And they were interviewing before they went into the stadium. And like, they knew he was going to be carrying the flag. And they're like, oh, have you prepared? He's like, mate, they haven't told me anything.

They just gave me this lany. You told me to put it around my Gregory Peck. It's like Gregory Peck. Hagger's rhyming slang. So good. I was talking about rhyming slang the other day. I was hanging out of my uncle and he's a rhyming slang fiend. Yeah.

But every now and then, after a few drinks, he'll forget how it works. Like the other day, he's at a bunch of, he wanted to ask me to pass him a bottle of water. And he said, and he wanted to say pass me a Tucker's daughter. which was an Ian Moss classic song, good rhyming slang. He said, hey, Matt, can you pass me a Tucker's water? It doesn't work. Doesn't work. You've really, you've got to...

You've literally said the word, the actual word you want to say. Yeah, so that's no good. What a Tucker's daughter. Yeah. It sounds offensive. It does. Yeah, if you were not sure which bit was the rhyming bit. Yeah, your bloody Tucker's daughter.

You're like, whoa. Oh, boy. Oh, other good ones he uses I feel like having a Chris Mew Which is an obscure NFL player, I think Is that for spew? For spew? Yep.

Then there's the classics. Everyone knows like, Hit the Froggin Toad? He says hit the Froggin' Road. No, he doesn't. My dad says frog and toad. Was there... Get you on the old dog and phone.

Pardon? What does dog rhyme with? Fog. Oh, Root. Get you on the fog. On me. Jeez, I feel like an idiot. Oh, boy.

The cheese and misses. No, cheese and kisses. Is that Mrs. That's Mrs. Yeah. Got to ask that, you know, that's a Bogan thing where they have to, um, there's this bogan thing and I found it like any, any guy who wants to delay making a decision about something, they'll say either, well, better, better pass it through the cheese

and kisses or, uh, the, uh, the minister for finance. Every time I just want to tell them to fuck off Yeah It's like don't blame them And don't make them sound like You're making them sound like they're the bad guy Yeah Totally

You know that kind of reminds me like Because when I was in like high school especially If I didn't want to go to a party I didn't want to go out with certain people My mum would be like Just say I told you You could go She would want to take the blame

Mom would be like I'll take the blame Blame me I'm the bad guy What a legend They teach you that in some jobs as well like if it's just like just pass it on to someone else. If a customer's angry at you, you say, look, I'd love to help you out, but the boss is just really strict on this.

Exactly. Which is smart because it just means, like, yeah, look, I'm not angry at you, but this boss that I don't know. What a jerk. Anyway, what are we talking about? The Sydney Olympics for the year 2000. And the winner is? Too specific?

No, no, it's great. Because there's a lot in there. It's a big event. And it's kind of hot. holds up. Like, if you watch the clips now, you can, some, I mean, it's all, any of the Olympics opening ceremony. I know they say this every year, but at the time, they say, that was the best one ever. They still say it of Sydney. I was going to say that, they still say it's the best one. Really? That's interesting. Internationally or just, because I feel like Australian

no, not even just an Australian thing, like the, the head of the Olympics. No, I was going to say set bladder, but he's the, what was his name? But he said, because Atlanta was the Olympics before. And I think traditionally at the end, they would say, this is the best Olympics ever, and at Atlanta, he said this was a pretty good Olympics. Ooh, brutal. But no, still, to this day, it's still credited as being one of the best.

And there's a few... Sorry, Jesse, you've just gone from the best to one of the... Oh, no, sorry, the best. A bit of a slip there, but that's a good... Thank you, no, no, good pick up. It was... It was the best. It was an Olympics. Thank you for coming to an Olympic Games. Good night.

That's the thing, like, it was a good Olympics, but The ceremony has still been said It's one of the best. The best. Jesus. I think it's just a habit. It actually held a few records. Like it was...

For being the best. The best. Yeah, what records? So, it was the first Olympic cauldron lit into water. That's very specific. No, there are better ones. Has that happened since?

Yes. We were the first country to light water on foot. God, I love our style. Was it our Olympics that there was a big weird pause, though, that they had to wait 15 minutes or something? Four minutes. Well, it felt like a long time. I'm sure it did for Kathy Freeman, standing there.

Standing there. It started to rise, and then there was like a computer error. There was a glitch. Oh, wow. And it's still called one of the best. That's why it's one of the... If that had nailed it, it would have been the best, Matt. Four minutes.

That's a horrible mistake at a key moment. But it's okay. So they just... I don't... I don't forgive me. forget like you, Jess. Okay, well, that was obviously... I mean, I never saw it, so I didn't know what happened until now, but I'm furious.

My 17-year-old Matt's pretty pissed right now. Heads will roll. Okay, that was the wrong record to start with there, because I've got you angry already. The longest wait for a computer glitch in Olympic ceremony opening history. 240 long seconds. It was... Usain Bolt could do the 100-meter sprint 24th and maybe 25 times in that. pound five world records could be broken.

It threw off the entire international community. That's why the USA blame that Olympics for not going as well as Atlanta. That four minutes really threw off. That's why it's one of the best and not the best. Exactly. Can I go on with some other records? Please do go on. Some other records that they got.

So, okay, maybe not, there are records, but just like there was a few first, like it was quite revolutionary in terms of the opening ceremony. So they were the first ones to use... Revolution. Come on. Come on. Matt, let's take this seriously. Sorry.

Fucks. First use of suspended performance. I had like people flying through the air. First use of suspended puppetry, fire breathers. It was the largest stadium to host the opening ceremony with 110,000 people. It's a lot of people. It's a lot of people. The previous was Los Angeles in 1932 with 105.

That's quite a big gap. So yeah, largest crowd as well, which was 114,000. Not really sure how that works, considering it holds 110. It was just really dangerous. Maybe the people, there would have been a few thousand on the field. Sorry, that was closing ceremony, but it's probably the same place. Yeah, I think it's the most biggest fire hazard in Olympic history, considering that the water was even on fire.

I think that stadium's now got to, it's had its capacity reduced, because I'm pretty sure it's only 80,000 can fit there now. wonder what happened there. We'll just put in a few trestle tables. Yeah, maybe that was it. Fold out chairs. Yeah, that's right.

You know, you know how it is. Okay, so the opening ceremony, right? It had a cast, how many people, how many performers do you think they were? Well, there must have been 4,000, because if the capacity's 110 and there are 114,000 people there. But there's also athletes in the parade. Yeah, yeah.

This is just the performance. They're not included in it. Two and a half thousand? I'm going to say, yeah, a couple thousand. A couple of thousand performers across the entire... That's a ridiculous amount. That's a lot, isn't it? Maybe a thousand.

400. 1600. 1600. And a thousand. 12,000. That is a lot of people. I don't understand. That's how many people took part in the ceremony.

Was that a record? That seems like it could be a record. That's a lot of people. 12,000. Now I'm assuming that also sort of includes... It says took part in the ceremony. I'm going to assume that. that includes, like, the officials and stuff like that.

Can I revise my guess? Think about musicians. I'm thinking it's going to be 6,000. He's had red cordial. No, Matt, it was 12,000. That is ridiculous. All right, let me have one last go. 9,000.

Your closest guess, yeah. Your closest guess, yeah. Your closest guess. Holy moly. That's a lot. of people. It just seems like a lot. And all these people training full time to get this happening.

I don't know. But I don't remember them being volunteers. Like you did it for the prestige of big prestige for being in the ceremony. Well, let's be honest, we were giving them something to do. Yeah. The volunteers in this thing. My worry would be. I don't know.

I think you're not, if you're volunteering for that, you're probably not like the world's greatest dances or you're not the world's best cello player. If you're like, yeah, I can play cello. Okay, well, the musicians, I'm pretty sure, were orchestras. They were pretty good. Yeah, I don't think that were volunteer orchestras. But just people in like fish costumes, but they're not great. The athletes were all volunteers.

They're all doing it from their own accord. Can't believe it. In a way, they kind of are. Unbelievable. In another way, they're doing it for money. Yeah, and glory. Wait, no, the Olympics is unpaid, is it, or is it paid? The Olympics don't get paid.

No, but I think you get paid your country. It pays you to train full time. But the Olympics doesn't give you it. It's not like you don't win gold so you don't get a hundred thousand dollar check. Isn't it amazing that the Australian government spends millions on paying athletes to be in the Olympics? Like, what a weird way to spend money. It is a bit weird. But then I was thinking about the Olympics and it's kind of, it's one of very few.

I can't really think of anything else like it that brings pretty much the entire world together. Do you know what I mean? Like there's not a lot of things. we just all do together. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of really nice. Is it nearly every country? Just, well, yeah, I think so.

I mean, every year it changes. Australia is one of two countries that's been to every single Olympic Games. But interesting fact is that on two of those occasions, they came as in a team merged with New Zealand. Really, the opening occasion is this? The second and third, I think. Oh, wow. We were blended together

Yeah, yeah, for a couple of... So there's only one country that's been there every time on their own, I think, and that's someone I can't remember right now. And that's a fact. I would guess Greece. I was going to say Greece. I don't think it was Greece, but I think they might... Anyway.

Wow, that's pretty cool. That's a good little tidbit. Yeah, that's a tidbit. It's probably a little less than a tidbit because it was missing some of the key facts. That's right. We've guessed. we've guessed. So I've broken it into the segments of the ceremony itself.

So there was like different themes for each part. And I'm going to, we've got to go through them. They're very visual. So I'm glad that we're talking about them on a podcast. That's great. Just a good call on my part. Just imagine 12,000 people in fish costumes, apparently. Well, yeah, that's coming up later.

But first, first, the way that we opened the ceremony was with one lone rider. A guy on a stock horse And the horse just like Fangs it into the middle I think that's a technical term Horses fang it, right? Oh Yeah, yeah

The horse's name was ammo He's a lone rider Pum Bum bum bum bum bum bum Fong Loan I can loop it but Just keep going

Just sing that underneath the whole time Okay So there was a A Lone rider It's an Aussie stock horse The horse's name was Ammo Oh, I wonder if Ammo's still around I think Ammo might be, ridden by, well, Ammo would be quite old by now

Stock Horse That's like stock just sort of means your basic thing, right? Well, this particular horse was a performer horse Like this horse, knew what he was doing, you know? He's a showbie's horse Just sort of picture him like, Dancing Alarm. He just ran out as like a normal horse.

An Academy Award nominated horse. Well, he was written by Steve Jeffries Now, Steve Jeffries and his horse Ammo, they recreated their Olympics entrance during the 2002 Australian stage production of the man from Snowy River. Jeffries and Ammo had quite a career together. That's illustrious.

Yeah, and he was, this is Steve Jeffries. He's an expert horse whisperer. Did you get that from his website? Steve Jeffries... Basically, he's... He trains horses. That's all horsewispers means. But does he claim to be...

A horse whisperer. A ammo. But that's thing. A ammo. Ammo. Oh, we're just going to fang it out. And see. That's definitely a quote on quote. Is that also from the website?

We read the script. I actually, it's a little bit disappointed because I did click on what, like, Horse Whisperer means. And really, it's just a method of training. Well, that, it's not as wanky as it sounds. An interesting thing there was, I was playing Gary Newman. Oh, no, who was I playing? Steve Jeffries.

Steve Jeffries. Gary Newman's, who I always assume everyone is. playing Steve Jeffries, a horse whisperer. But funnily enough, Dave was playing ammo also a horse whisperer. That's right. Or a whispering horse. That's a cool band name. Steve Jeffries and the whispering horses.

That's not bad. I like that. That's not bad. Right, okay, so this is going really well. Okay, no, it's good. So they fanged it to the middle. So he rides out into the middle of the stadium. Just one man on his horse.

And is everyone else in the crowd like, I was promised 12,000 performers. I've paid $400 to this ticket. But at this stage they're kind of like, what's going on here? It's going on here, right? And then the horse rears up, and then Steve cracks his whip, and 120 other writers appear. They're all holding flags, and they come riding out, and they're riding in these beautiful formations. And there was music by Bruce Rowland. It was a special Olympics version of the theme from the man from Snowy River.

I can't hear the difference, but it's an Olympics version. You know, the horse brisper is like, turn it down. Turn it down. I can't talk to my horse. He can't hear me. Hello, hello. Turn it down. For God's sake. I can't bloody yell over the music. I'm not a horse yeller. Steve, Steve, where are you?

He's such crack in the whip. Nah, that's not helping. Steve, where are you? I forgot if you're on my back or not. So that's an especial. Yeah, most of the whispering is still on your. I'm right here. It really helps now that you can get like those Bluetooth ear pieces. So he just puts out of the horse's ear.

He's like, get a ammo. Just riding on your back here, mate. Just let you know I'm still here. But even if Ammo is in the stable and he's still in the kitchen, he's like, Ammo, look, I'm just having, just finishing him a cup of tea. Give us another four minutes. Yeah, I'll be there in five. Thanks, mate.

Good on you. Right, so then they... There's a lot of horses out there. There's 120 horses. The Olympic version of the men from Snowy River is playing. They're all holding... flags, like they've got white flags with the Olympic rings on it, and then they form the Olympic rings moving.

Oh, that's pretty cool. And they're moving. Yeah. That's cool. Matt, you're impressed. Oh, yeah. Oh, my words. Do you know how many whispers you have to say to get that to happen? How we're going around in a circle. Oh, what's that other one? What's that other horse? I thought I was the red ring. And then this...

And then a giant banner drops painted by a Sydney artist Ken Dunn. Ken Donne. I was going to say, I knew I was going to fuck that up. And the sign just said, g'day. Hey, welcoming the whole world. Well, he's... Gazey, gooday.

Kandah is very, very famous in the artistic community for not having much respect for his work. It's very, very popular among the public, but the artistic community is never respected Kenton's work. Great. Is that partially because he'll sell it, like, he sells it to T-T-T-Tows and everything. He just, like, gets it out there everywhere. Tism, you know how I like to bring Tism up? You'll get Tism and Nazis into every... episode.

So Tiz, I'm in a Melbourne band from the 80s and 90s and today. Well, they're not from today. They broke up about 10 years ago. But they had an EP cover that was a Ken Done-style koala injecting a syringe into its eyeball or mouth. Anyway, there was a syringe in. Ken Done sued successfully. And they had to, like, one day after they put it out and it stores had to recall them.

Ooh. Yeah. And then they changed the name to. recalled due to legal advice or something like that. But then I think that Ben had just the tiny corner, Ken Dernstall writing Tizm, and he said no good. So then they had to release a third. They recalled a second one.

I don't know, maybe they weren't approved for that second one. And then the third one they had was Shannad O'Connor ripping up a piece of paper that said Tism on it. Cool. And that one was okay. She was cool with that. She was not offended. that.

Wow. Which was taken, I realised, recently from her hosting spot on or performance spot on Saturday Night Live in the 90s. Anyway, sorry about that. That's okay. We're not talking about the 90s. We're talking about the year 2000. Wow. G'd say, so futuristic.

121 horses. This still sounds like the future. The year 2000. It does, isn't it? It was 15 years ago. So it says, giday. Yeah. So we're bloody, we're in it now.

We're doing it. Is the crowd erupted now? The crowd's going absolute bad shit. I think it's the technical term, they're losing their goddamn minds. So then we move on to the second segment called Deep Sea Dreaming. And who has directed all of this? Various people are responsible for each segment. There's like a, I did have a list, but I didn't think that would matter.

There's not one artistic director. No, there's, well, I'm sure there's like a body, yeah, it's probably one. But each sort of new segment had a, team of people. It was like concept by this person and choreography by this person. It was like a huge effort. It's pretty massive and they must work on it for a very long time. Were there a lot of, like, the thing, the few things of these that I've seen over the years, different opening ceremonies, it's always commentators having to explain. And they're like, and the horses represent freedom in Australia. Is it a lot of that? There's so much of that.

I wonder if you're in the crowd, it's obviously impressive, but you're not hearing that commentary. Or getting that bird's eye view of it, which you kind of need for a lot of the things. You probably can't see a lot of it. A lot of it, yeah. If they zoom out and you zoom out, oh, altogether they all make the Olympic rings or the map of Australia. But if you're there, you're just like, oh, this horse is going round and round. But so the Commonwealth Games were in Melbourne in 2006, I believe. And because I'd been sick and missed out and going to the Olympics when I was 10,

my dad took me to the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games when they were in Melbourne. I kind of to make up for it. I got to go to a lot of events in the Commonwealth Games, but especially the opening ceremony. And like the, it's not the same as the Olympics, but the atmosphere is just ridiculous. And, like, it's, I think you get, like, the best of both worlds. Like, watching it on TV, you can see, like, the, it's well filmed,

but then being there and seeing, like, everybody in the audience having, like, those little flashing lights and stuff looks amazing. I mean, sweet buzz. Sweet buzz. Sweet buzz for 16-year-old Jess. 10-year-old Jess, pretty pissed. Yeah. Pretty piss.

Anyway, um... So stage two. What I really like about this opening ceremony is probably the same as all of them as well, though. I feel like they've just sat down at a table with like Butch's paper and coloured textures and said, all right, what's Australian? And they've just like gone through it and they've covered everything. Like everything that's like stereotypically Australian, they've done it. People are just drawing it live or they've brought it out pre-drawn. No, I feel like this is how they planned it.

Oh, I planned it, right. Steve Irwin was still alive at the time. Did they get him involved? He was not involved. Any crocodiles at all? Any live crocodiles? No live crocodiles, no. Just the live horses.

The crock whisperer. All right, we're going to just fang into the middle. On the count of three. No, not bite. Fang. Oh, no, it's, oh. Look, I can see how you got confused. Oh, no, the horses.

And then, uh, Oh, no, Nikki Webster. It sings the horses. On my count, we're going to take a Michael, Michael Chang, Michael Chang, Fang, into the corner. That's my right. Like a Michael. It's very good.

Michael Chang is to fag it. Anyway, okay, deep sea dreaming. Now, if you don't have the commentator while you're watching this, you don't know that this segment celebrates Australia's affinity with the sea. Oh, which we are girt by. Ocean. We are girt by sea. So they turned the whole stadium floor into like a beach.

Like they projected like sand onto the... That's cool. Which is pretty cool. into the stadium and that's where little Nikki Webster comes skipping out. Oh, this is her debut. This is where Nikki shines. So she's wearing that pink little sundress and... How old is she at this time?

She was 13. Okay. I was very jealous of her at the time. So she's this tiny little person and she just comes out into the middle. Again, there's nobody else on the stadium. She's just there by herself. Oh, so it's just projections on her? No, she...

Yeah, projections of sand and she comes out. And she walks out. and uh... fangs it out she fangs it out oh, Nikki there's a guy riding on her back

a Nikki whisperer so she goes out and she uh she's pretending she's acting like she's sun baking right and then she falls asleep and she goes into like

this little oh no she's gonna get burnt then she gets really badly sunburnt um so she's a redhead too isn't she should have very very

yeah she was strawberry blonde. She'd be burnt in seconds. Yeah, yeah. Big time. Anyway, so she's... Luckily, it's night time. So now there's a dream sequence.

She's dreaming. And so there's all these performers coming out as sea creatures. So it was a tribute to the Great Barrier Reef. You know, they're like, well, it's Australian. Great Barrier Reef, let's do it. Put in some fish. It sounds like an American has produced the opening ceremony so far. What do I think of Australians?

Horseback. The phrase, gede. But at least those are things that other. other countries would recognize. There's some references later where it's kind of like, nobody knows what you're doing, guys. Hills hoists? It's funny for us, not far off.

In fact, I think there were Hills Hoist. I think we were. So it's pretty great. And so then Nikki Webster gets hoisted up into the air. Hills Hoisted. Into the air. A little known fact that it's the only Olympic ceremony to feature a giant Hills Hoist.

Just a record. Somebody runs out, attaches some cords to a child. No, they just peg it on. She gets pegged. She gets flung up into the air. She fangs it up into the air. If you're... If you're...

If you're... Playing the part of the bag. If you're not Australian, Hills, it's like our outdoor clothesline. Yeah. Just so you know, because otherwise... Hills Wists are... This joke won't get old.

That's so good. Only for the listeners. For us, very funny. I cannot wait for it. the gaze whisperer, Andrew Gaze. Now, just start waving the flag.

Hold the flag. Hold this bit. Okay, good job. Put around you. No, gazee was whispering to the flag. Yeah. Oh, what I'm going to do?

It's going to do a big 360. I'm going to flap you from one side of the other. All right. So, Nikki, she's suddenly in the air. She's suddenly in the air. She's doing flips. She's,

and there's enormous jellyfish and, like, giant fish and all these amazing creatures. She's having a good time or she's scared. Oh, she's having a great time. She's swimming and throw. Was there any? Was there any of these sort of hands? No.

Thank you for doing a visual gag. Well, thanks for calling it a gag. She was like, she was swimming and she's doing flips and it's pretty cool. Yeah. Very jealous, right? So then she's joined by all these other... You're still jealous. I'm still jealous of Nikki Webster, but I probably shouldn't be.

She's had a weird life. But she was, what, she's cast out of obscurity into this role. Kind of. She'd been performing since she was like five. I did a bit of research on Nikki Webster. and she'd been in like a few stage productions and stuff like that. And then she auditioned for the role and got it and then just went nuts from there. I remember everyone was talking about, who's this little girl?

Yeah, she wasn't like, you know, on neighbours. She wasn't that well known, but it wasn't just her first time. First radio. Her first whisperer. It wasn't her first whisperer. Okay, cool. So then she's swimming along and then there's like a dozen other swimmers in, bright green wetsuits and they're fake swimming through the air just in case you thought they were

actually swimming and they had a big projection of the Australian swimming coach Laurie Lawrence just like yelling like hey guys but so they haven't let him he's not in the air he's projected he's projected they wouldn't trust him on a wire no well he's he's the coach you know he's not going to be just in the pool you can't coach from within the pool can you think anyone would know unless the commentator said oh that's Laurie, blah, blah, the coach. Again, the Australians would have. And who is it in the audience?

Australians mostly. Yeah, Laurie was big time back then. Was he a big time? It was a household name. So they had that. So then the next segment was called Awakening. And this was to... Is that Nikki done?

She done now? No. Okay, pardon me. Oh, Nikki comes back. That sounds so creepy. The Awakening was to acknowledge the Australia's Aboriginal past. And so like an Aboriginal elder guy. Niki Webster through the stage.

And, okay, if you're going to get anybody to narrate this part of the show, Aboriginal... Is it... Look, I... There's probably a few good options, but I'm guessing Ernie Dingo. Ernie Dingo. I was going to guess John Howard. No, Ernie Dingo. So they're just like, who can't have I?

We got this bit about Indigenous Australians. He's got a great voice. Great voice. It's a great voice. And I saw a crocodile Dundee two a few weeks ago. He was on TV, wasn't it? And he was a super babe. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I didn't realize. He was like a sexy man. Now I think of him as like an oldish guy, but he was. But 35 years ago, he was. Yeah. Is that how old that movie is? No. No, it would be maybe 25 years old, I think.

Oh, it's got to be mid-80s. The first one. Mid-to-late 80s, the second. I'm talking about the second one. The second one was... Oh, God, okay. Well, that's... I think it's late 80s.

I don't know, but anyway. Yeah. Either way, I think we're... Either way, the dingo is a babe. Bit of a bloody babe. The dingo is a baby. The dingo ate my... Nah, I couldn't quite.

Dingo's got me. Dingo's got me. He's a baby. No, all right, let's move on. That was an example of how not to do rhyming slang. Thank you, Matt. Good, good. So now we move on to nature.

So this is stage four. Stage 4. Okay. Nature. Kind of blends in nicely because the awakening was just kind of, there's not a lot. It was a short segment, just a bit of a dance segment. Then nature where they talked about like the outback. And so it had all these fire performers like jugglers and fire breathers.

Does that happen in the outback? Well, because what they would do was representing a bushfire. Oh. So there was literally hundreds of them walking across. Yeah, through carnival folk. Yeah, carnival folk. So they were symbolising like a bushfire taking over, and then all these people dressed as Australian distinctive wildflowers came out,

and it was kind of like burning and their new life. Oh, very good. You know, so they had the Golden Wattle, which is our national flower, which I'm sure you know. Yes. Oh, I know. I'm aware of that. And the pink heath is Victoria's floral emblem. I don't think it was... That's a great fact there, thank you about.

Yeah, good one. The Waratah, which is a state flower of New South Wales. They used that one a bit. Sturt's Desert Pea, Water Lilies, and Eucalyptus flowers. All very Australian. Classics. Beautiful. So, like, they've covered, okay, so far they've covered, like, indigenous, nature, fish.

What's next? What I hate to think? What's next? This segment is called Tin Symphony. Timphany. Timphany. And that is about European. settlement.

Oh, right. And panning for gold. Panning for gold. I thought it was just going to be like a bush band, like someone's with the lager phone, which is the bottle caps and the thing. So it starts with the arrival of James Cook with bicycles to represent his ship, the endeavour. I'm like, well, hang on.

You probably could have made a ship, but okay. Bicycles? Yeah, they had like these weird bike things. I felt like that someone wanted to use those, so they put them in. Yeah, absolutely. So I'm not surprised at all. Okay, so that's Cook. So they've got like all this Irish jig music

and all these performers are dressed as Ned Kelly. Again, it's like, hmm, Australia, Ned Kelly. But not just Ned Kelly. That's quite a time. They're dressed as Sydney Nolan's Ned Kelly. Right. Get an art reference in there as well. And they're all holding guns that have like fireworks coming out of.

It's quite a time jump from Cook to straight to Ned Kelly. Straight into Ned Kelly. We don't have time for... No settlement. None of that. Is it a huge jump? It's like, when was Ned's time? That's 18, so maybe a hundred year jump?

Yeah, it's like 100 years. Oh, not quite 100 years. When was Ned around early 18s? No, mid. Mid. And when the first fleet was 1788. Is that right? That is a bit of a jump.

It is, but they just, they just don't have time. You know, it's the long show, but you've got a lot to pack in. Look, actually, to be fair, they've just given the Aboriginal people like a two minute segment and that was 40,000 years. So, pardon, please, please forgive me. And that involved Nikki Webster for some reason. Being guided for some. They didn't get the prop budget.

They just kind of danced. That is incredible. Yeah, 40,000 years. I didn't like that's very interesting. If they're done it to time scale, the Captain Cook bit to now would have been about approximately four seconds. Anyway. This was like a, I think this would have been a really confusing part.

part of it for anybody who was an Australian, even people who are Australian. Like, there was all this, all these symbolic items of the Outback, like Corrugated Iron and Stormwater tanks. Stormwater tanks. Some of them had, like, umbrellas that looked like cogs. So as they, like, turned the umbrellas, it was like, it was like, well, it's not particularly... What is that, to symbolise our love of shade?

Industrial growth. Yeah, cogs. Cogs were an invention of the, of, an Australian, I think. In the Outback? Yeah. Yeah. No, actually, cog, some. I'm thinking.

Coggs was the nickname of the drummer from Powderfinger. I knew there was an Australian connection. And that's what they were getting at. Yeah, like, Powerfinger, anyway. Two very separate facts there, that, man. Yeah, the Cogs thing's definitely not true. Okay, so we got a million Ned Kelly. Yeah.

Celebrating that murderer. Just shooting their firework guns. And then they somehow construct a shed in the middle of the stadium out of Corrigo Lion sheets. Is it big? I know what's coming now. A Victor lawnmower. Yes. Yes, because what happened was, like, they had all these, like, people, like, chucking out these boxes that were supposed to be, like, sheep.

But then the boxes are moving because there's people inside them. The boxes are, like, flipping around. And then they all get out, and they're in, like, Hawaiian shirts and hats. Hawaiian shirts. The symbol of this great Australian land. They get out their lawnmowers and form the Olympic rings. Again, in law. Hold on, I can't tell if you're joking.

No, I'm dead set serious. They mowed the lawn. In the Olympic rings. Yep. And this is the best ever opening ceremony. Yes. They're awful. It sounds terrible.

It's an opening ceremony. They're all awful. They are. That's the thing. They're bad. Why are the people... They're lame. Why are people lawn mowering?

They're rocker steadfids with a huge budget. Oh my God. Yes. That's a perfect way to put it. Because we... We're the only country in the world that has lawns, apparently. Yeah, we are proud of the dumbest things. Yeah, yeah.

But that's also how we're choosing to represent ourselves. Yeah. Like lawn mowers. That's what I mean. It just seemed... Because Matt made the joke about Victor lawnmower, and then two seconds later you're like, and then they're mowing the lawn in the shape of the Olympic ring.

I couldn't tell if you'd take it to... No, as soon as she said the shed, I knew it was going to be Victor lawnmower. The things that we always go on about, and these were probably all represented. De Lawnmower, the hills hoist, Lamingtons, Vegemite,

sheep's back, and Ned Kelly. I think you've already mentioned all of those, apart from the Lamington. I don't think they went down the food route of Lamingtons and... Everyone look under your chair.

There was a Lamington and a Vegemite scroll. You get a Labyrinth. Oprah's there. Now, this next segment, when I first read it, I was like, I can't say this on the podcast because it sounds hella racist. What are we up to?

But it ties together. Arrivals. Okay. Which isn't the Olympians arriving. This is like migration to Australia, right? This is to embrace our multiculturalism. Okay. Right?

So you might understand why this sounds awful. They skipped over the genocide then. Is that fair to say? Yeah. Well, yep. We're not only looking at the positives. No time. No time.

We're on a time constraint. It would have probably been a weird thing to celebrate. So they basically had like each continent reflected in a float. So all these floats come out. And so it was to say like all these continents, all these places coming together in Australia, we're multicultural, right? So they chose different colours for each continent. Each continent, okay. Okay.

So African continent came out first and they were wearing black costumes. Are they African people? Yep. Okay, okay. Well, maybe they're genuinely African people. See, it's fine because it makes sense at the end, but the first couple don't sound great. Then the Asian immigrants represented... Yeah, by yellow?

Yellow. Okay. So we're kind of going, ooh, what's going on here? But they were led by the Chinese lion dancers that were bright yellow as well. Then Europe was introduced by the colour of green and then red for people from the Americas. Red Indians. The Northern America? Just says the Americas.

So they combine sort of two continents there, north and south. Well, you know, because they have... only want to have five because it's the colors of the Olympic rings. Oh, okay. Spoiler. Pardon me. Exactly. So originally I was like, what?

And I was like, oh, okay. So the Olympic rings, that's fine. Who's blue then? Blue is the Pacific Islands. Oh, Pacific Islands. So they get their own. And Australia? And Australia?

Well, no, because we are Australia. So we're saying that like these are all the places coming to Australia. This isn't even so much about the Olympic Games itself. It's sort of about Australia's culture. So they see them as the big groups. So they, did you say just China had its own one though? Or was that representative of all of Asia? It was all of Asia.

Asian immigration. I just added in, oh, you said Chinese dragons. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or if I, yeah, okay. Yeah, that's cool. And then they kind of all come together, the idea being that they're now creating like the Australian continent. And do they make a map or something?

I think they might have. Yeah, I think they did. And there was like all these children dressed in the Olympic colors and they made the shape of Australia. while Nikki Webster performed a song Under Southern Skies. While Lee Kernigh... I've had it stuck in my head for several days.

I don't think so. I wouldn't be surprised if you wrote it though. It was written by Slim Dusty. Slim Dusty. So, do you find it funny that we, on things like that, we're so proud of our migration and our multiculturalism, but just day to day. And people like ever, everyone will be watching it.

The people who watch and enjoy those things, like, yeah, that's right. Australia. We're proud of it. We'll give everyone to go. hey fuck off we're full Absolutely

I know The next day It's like Fuck off Ghana We're gonna win the marathon Yeah Yeah true Yeah

We'll beat you Yeah That is weird I used to really be like Like she's like Yeah Come on the Australian person

And the thing For some reason It's a weirdest thing That you'd Like I don't know this guy What do I care If he wins or not

Yeah I just want the best person to win And they all try their best Yeah So now Nicky Wevers Has made her return

She's some Great Southern Sky Southern skies. Great song. Great song. Is it great? It is actually quite nice. Does it mention the Southern Cross? Under the Southern Skies? Yes, because they're, again, they use some kids to form a large representation of the Southern Cross and they're holding lanterns. Now, the next bit was my favourite bit, but in retrospect, it would have been so strange.

Not only to people from, not from Australia, but also Australians. So do you remember all the part where Adam Garcia was tap dancing. Oh, vaguely. There was Boot Man. I remember the... Boot Men, the movie hadn't come out yet. So this is even out of context for Australian audiences. It's like a weird promo.

Yeah, it was like... Did Boot Men get a budget because people were impressed by this? No, it was coming out... Well, it must have come out in the following months because they said, Boot Men, upcoming film in the commentary. And this was in September. So it must have come out. Has like Film Australia just paid for a big ad or something?

I don't understand how it happened. Is Adam Garcia the one from that American movie about Bar where they're... Coyote Ugly. Is that him? Yes, yeah. Yeah, and that was so... And he was also on dirty laundry this year. He's done a few bits and pieces.

He's been like judges on Dancing with the Stars and a few American shows and stuff like that. Like he's had a pretty good dancing career. And his boot meant his thing? I don't... Well, no, he was just... He was in the movie. He was the star of the film. Right, so it starts with just him in the middle of a stadium, just tap dancing by himself.

And then what happens is he rises up and there's like two tiers of dancers, all in like flannies and work boots, like bootmen. But that wouldn't have made any sense to people because I hadn't seen boot men yet. So they're just like, why are these tradies dancing? But it was great. And then they even had people with like grinders to a rhythm. Sparks going everywhere while they tap dance. and they're all wearing safety goggles, and then there's people tap dancing down the aisles as part of the audience.

It all sounds like it is beyond parody. You could not make fun of this. Well, it sounds a lot like that episode of The Simpsons with the Gay Steel Mill. Yeah. Yes. But they're all dancing, and there's like sparks and stuff. We work hard, we play hard. That's exactly what I'm imagining.

Yeah, that's pretty much what it was. So that was a little bit strange. I love, like, a butcher, mask. and sort of stereotypical things being portrayed by dance. It's the best. It's so great. Billy Joel's film clip for Uptown Girl. They're all playing mechanics,

and then all of a sudden they're low-clicking and strutting around. It's so good. So great. Imperfect choreography. Yeah, yeah. And these guys are in like the wife beat of singlets, and they've got Flannies tied around their way, so they're wearing Flannies shorts,

like they're bearded big men, and they're like tap dancing away. So the Bogan's at home are like, I just don't know how to feel about this. I mean, it's blood. Bloody beautiful, but I don't understand. He looks fantastic. Oh, the taps, they're bloody great. Oh, the sparks from that sore, my God.

Very strange. And then it goes into the Sydney-2000 Olympic band. Right, so it's a marching band. I like a good marching band. How many people do you reckon we're in the marching band? How many people? How many members in the band? 12,000.

2,000. Two. It required six conductors. 2,000 musicians. So there was a thousand musicians just from Australia and a thousand from other countries around the world. That's cool. So they brought in other people. What a great symbol.

Six conductors. And all the band members wore dryzer bones, like specific made drier bones. Fuck off. I know. Really? Yeah, but they were like white with like blue and white striped sleeves. And then I looked into it. So they made, dry-as-a-bone made 2,000 jackets,

coats for these people. All the, the 120 stockmen at the start were all wearing dry-sbone. And every single medal, what are they called? The medal presenter during the entire games were wearing drier bones. Can you imagine? How dry the stadium was. So it was also summer. You don't need to be wearing a drier bone.

So dry-zabone has just picked up a sweet contract. Yeah. They just made 3,000 of them. They're not cheap. They're not cheap, but imagine the publicity for that. Long leather jackets. That would have been around the time of The Matrix as well, right? Oh yeah, that's right.

Yeah, I don't know if they're quite as fashionable. Now, this is a little interesting fact. I was going to save this sort of to the end. But this marching band, this Olympic band, was the only live sound created that night. So every other song, Nikki Webster, miming. What about the tap dancing? The taps were pre-recorded.

How funny are taps that are pre-recorded? What? So they're just jumping around? They're not quite in time. It's the funniest thing. No, but I think the first part where it's just Adam Garcia, so it's only him that you can see, I'm sure that was, well, that must have been live, because how do you tap perfectly to him?

Well, he's Adam Garcia. Yeah, true, so maybe. He's in coyote ugly. I wouldn't put it past it. I wouldn't. He's bloody great. He's bloody perfect. I have no idea who that is, but that's okay.

Even the Sydney Orchestra who performed all the music were miming the whole time. Oh, what's the point? Isn't that ridiculous? Because it was to combat the, because they were worried about like wind. It's very difficult to perform in an open. It's not built for sound. Yeah, it's not built for that. But the 2,000 band members are live.

They were live, which is pretty cool. So that's a little fun fact about that and about dry boats. Even the horse whispering was pre-recorded. Yeah. Okay. Ammo, I believe in you. So now we get to the parade of nations, which is the longest and most boring part of any Olympics.

If you're like Australia or Azerbaijan or something that comes out first, you've got to wait. Not when you're the host country, though. Exactly. We came out last. That's right. Come out last. But does Greece always come out first?

Is that cool? Oh, yes. That's interesting. Greece comes out. It's an Olympic tradition because it was the birthplace of the Olympics. So they've got to wait. a long time. Just hanging out.

But they're all partying up on the internet. They always look like they're having fun. Yeah, they're always dancing around and they've got cameras and on the phone. You're hanging out with your mates, I guess. Yeah, there's always footage of them like on the phone. There was footage of Kieran Perkins on the phone. And if you're like, if you're a swimmer,

it sucks because you're all events of that week. But if you're a track athlete, you'd be doing drugs and getting drunk and whatever. That's probably why they thought, because that's what my, my mum was saying there was talk that, like, They definitely wouldn't pick a swimmer to light the cauldron because too much pressure. They'd be competing the next day. But like, Kathy Freeman only competed 10 days later. Right.

So they're still like, oh, might not, but it was her. Spoiler alert. That four-minute delay. Yeah. So a few fun facts about that parade. Parade fun facts. Good luck. Did not think I'd be hearing that phrase when we started this episode?

There was a record at the time, I think it's been beaten since, of 199. nations competing in the 2000 Olympics. It's quite a lot. Oh, let's go through them. The only missing IOC member being Afghanistan, which was suspended due to the Taliban's regime, which prohibited practicing any kind of sport. Oh, it makes sense. Don't worry, guys.

So we banned them. No, I think. But they'd ban sport. Suspended. Oh, they suspended themselves. Well, yeah, they didn't really want to, they were like, no sport. Yeah, so they're saying no sport. And then the Olympics were like, yeah, we'd ban you anyway.

Exactly, pretty much. We don't need you. The most remarkable was North and South Korea entered as one team. Oh, wow. They came into the stadium as one team, but I think they still competed separately. Yeah, but they call themselves like the People's Democratic Republic of Korea. Yeah, they had like this. And then it's like the Republic of Korea.

They had this specially designed flag just for, just to walk in together. But they had the same flag. Yeah, like they all came into the stadium as one team. That's really sweet. They designed a flag. just for that unification. That's really, really surprising. Isn't that?

I think it's kind of nice. And that was under the old, what was his name? Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Il. The illest. That's kind of cool. He's the one who like, like all their papers say they win every event back home, right? Yeah, I think so.

We're just dominating you guys. Well, we are killing this Olympic thing. And there was also four athletes from East Timor, who marched into the parade. They were just, because they, they, East Timor wasn't a country yet. Oh, right. That was still in Australian territory or something? I'm not sure what they were before that.

But they were allowed, so they had no National Olympic Committee because they had no, like, country. So they competed under the Olympic flag. They were just like individuals, which is pretty cool. And then my favourite part, I think this is my favourite part, John Farnham, Olivia Newton-John. Oh, together at last. Dare to Dream. Song written specifically for the occasion. And again, this is where I started to get,

because I was watching clips because I was research and also it's just super fun to watch. And their voices are too good. Like I know... Do you think that Farnsey and Olivia and John? John the voice Farnum. His voice was too good. Jess, come on, please.

Come on. Conspiracy. Pre-recorded. Pre-recorded. Pre-recorded. Look, I'd accept that from Olivia. But obviously they can both sing. We know that.

Oh, no, absolutely. And you know they still sing well live, but it was kind of like... Just too hard. No, it just sounded too clear. Yeah. I was like, this is too perfect. And especially because like, and especially while Nikki Webster's running around and singing, I was like, nobody can sing that well while moving and adrenaline and you're 13 years old.

And you probably weigh about 20 kilos. There's no way you can... This sounds like jealous Jess coming in again. It is 100% jealous Jess. But also, yeah, like speak, a big space like that, speakers give you sound at different times and stuff, right? And it's just perfect. Yeah. So they're miming it, which is very disappointing.

But they're walking through the Olympians, and you can see, like, the Australians are all just like, ah, because Farnham. John Farner. It was beautiful. It's a great song, Dare to Dream. It was lovely. People from Cambodia are like, who's that?

Who are these people? So now we're getting to the crux of it. We're nearly there. What would you define as the crux of the event? Well, we've already talked about it, so we kind of ruined it, but, like, the lighting of the cauldron. All right. That's always a pretty,

big part of the ceremony. It's a big part. It's a big part. And there's a couple of really nice things that sort of happened before that. So the Olympic flags is carried in by eight former Australian Olympic champions. Together or pass from one? No, together. So they walk it in. It's a gigantic flag.

So they walk it in four on each side. And who we got? We've got Bill Roycroft. It was an equestrian. Murray Rose swimming. Leanne Tooth, field hockey. Gillian Rolton equestrian. A few equestrians in here.

Marjorie Jackson, Athletics, Lorraine Krap, amazing name, swimming. I think of Keish when I hear her now. Every time. Every time. Michael Wendon, swimming, and Nick Green rowing. I've never heard of any of those guys, have you? I've heard of Murray Rose. Nick Green's from the Awesome Forsome.

Yeah, Nick Green's probably one of the youngest. I think he's only in his 40s now, so he was quite young. He's about to win a gold medal in a week or two. Oh, spoiler. Spoiler. Okay, so they've got a giant flag between them. Yeah, so all these former Olympic champions bring that in. And then Tina Arena comes out.

Tina Arena, she sings The Flame. Beautiful. Again, I'm in flame. Yeah. Is the song written for the ceremony? Yep, written specifically for the ceremony. And she performs it with the Sydney Children's Choir as well. But they're all miming.

Yeah, I think. Yeah, yeah, they are. Fair cool. And Herb Elliott brings that he's done the last year. He was at Athletics. He's done the last leg and he brings the torch into the stadium. Is it going to be, is he going to go the whole way? And Bruce is probably saying, maybe it's Herb.

Maybe Herb will do it. Yeah. Bruce definitely knows. Yeah. He's been told. Oh, he knows. Something kind of cool is that the Sydney 2000 Olympics was the 100th year of women participating in the Olympic Games.

Bloody good. Which is kind of cool. About time too. About time to have 100 years. In honour of that. So they just missed out on the first one. Women, 1896, obviously, is the first ever Olympics. So London, 1900.

First of the modern Olympics, yeah. That's right. Oh. That's not impressive then, is it? Like, if it had been going for 100 years and then... It's only the second ever Olympics. Women, bloody sooks. You missed out on one.

Come on, damn. Somebody had to say how to look after the kids. Did they do 100 years of men in the Olympics? Come on. If we won a quality. Well, they'd had, well, Muhammad Ali lit the torch at Atlanta. Which was a nice touch, I thought. Because he is a man.

Doing it for the men out there. It is about time men got their recognition in sport. I could not agree more. I'd like to dedicate this torch to all male athletes, old and young, around the world. Okay, well, I thought this was a really nice moment until I realized that that's the case. It's fine. It's fine. So they honoured that by, there was a form.

Former Australian women, Olympic champions, did the last sort of leg of the torch race. What are I saying? I do remember vaguely. One of the most boring races of all time. There's only one team competing. And they take their time. And they're all 65 plus. Yeah.

But I remember watching this and it's kind of like, wow. It was really moving. And you didn't know who was going to be next. So you can hear the crowd just going absolutely batchet crazy when they're. they find out who they're passing it on to. It was really amazing. So first up, you've got Betty Cuthbert. I remember Betty Cuthbert.

Betty. Four Olympic gold medals. Yeah, she's amazing. I'm just doing Olympics as well. You look at their Commonwealth Games and World Championships. These people are freaks. But four Olympic gold medals for Betty. Now, she's had MS, so she's pushed in a wheelchair by Raylene Boyle,

three silver Olympic medals for athletics as well. Then they pass it on to Dawn Fraser. Heard of her. Four gold and four silver. for her swimming and a bunch of world records in Commonwealth Games, who then passes it on to Shirley Strickland, who has three gold, one silver and three bronze. How good are these names?

Shelly, great names. Shirley Strickland Ballroom? Great. Fun one for Shirley. She won more Olympic medals than any other Australian in running sports. So how many, what did she mean? Three gold, one silver, more medals, not just gold. So three gold, one silver, three bronze.

Yeah, because we are not good runners, traditionally. show you. No, because the Kenyans keep being up. Bloody Kenyans. They're bloody fast. Now, Shirley hands it over to Shane Gould. Three gold, a silver and a bronze, all at the 1972 Olympics.

She did one Olympics, retired at 17 years old. So three gold. A silver and a bronze. Five medals in her first Olympics and she's like, I'm out. And then she retired because of the pressure. And then came back in like Masters levels and just beat a whole bunch of World Records again. What?

What a freak. What a master. What an absolute freak. Who then, she hands it over to Debbie Flintoff King. Debbie. One gold for a lot. Fun fact. I sold the heating and cooling system to Debbie Flintoff King's new house.

Is this true? La dee. Logan, what kind of premises is Debbie Flintoff King dwelling in? Well, I'm not going to, I think that there's in confidence. Confidentiality. Clientele. I'll tell you off there. I was going to say, tell us after the podcast.

Now, so Debbie's, running through the middle of the Olympians. Does she look like she's sweaty? Does that sound funny out of context? It's like all of a sudden I'm selling air conditioners, but... That's what you used to do. Oh yeah, that's right. It's not funny.

Hey, sorry. Hey, it's nice that we're celebrating women and I've just spent the whole episode talking over you. Yeah, but you're fine. Even before you, when you said, actually, that's not that impressive, that whole thing about women. I said, no, it is. Shushush. Your opinion does not matter. Yeah.

No, your opinion is not correct. Adorable. Nice try. Well, this show is celebrating nine episodes now of Matt talking over jazz. That's beautiful. What I think, so the whole time, Dawn Fraser was also, this is just a weird little fact that I've just remembered. She was like up in the officials booth, like, where all like the royalty and everyone is.

because she was sitting with, I don't remember his name, but it's a very long, complicated name. He's like one of the head honchos in the, I should have written this down, but now I'm just telling you off the top of my head, of the Olympic Committee, and his wife couldn't be there because she was really sick.

She ended up dying the next day. Oh dear. Yeah, she had cancer, so she was really sick. So he invited Dawn to come and be his guest. So you can see her in like some of the footage, like explaining things to him. She's like chatting for us. Is he from overseas?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So then she just, excuses herself, goes and gets changed into her Olympic track. He's like, you know, like a telephone booth or something. And he looks down and he's like, is that my date? Yeah. What the hell?

She said she was getting a beer. Oh, God. I'll have to get my own beer now. Yeah, yeah. Hey, Dawn, what's happening now? I'm just passing. I'll just be one sec. It's 100 years of women.

Okay, so what we're doing is. The Dawn Whisperer. So, and you can see, like, every time they pass them, because it's just a spotlight on that, on those people running a long and then they passed on to the next one and the whole crowd just goes nuts. So Debbie Flintoff King is running through, it's like Moses part in the Red Sea. She's running down this like fairly narrow path between all the Olympians. And she gets like halfway.

And I think they announced it too early because he went, um, Kathy Freeman and she still had quite a way to run. And so she finally gets her, but the crowd's already like losing their mind. But it was still like maybe a minute or so before she got to it. Really? And then Kathy Freeman's. Kathy Freeman's there. And is she wearing the, in my mind, she's wearing that suit that she won the gold medal in.

It was a similar kind of suit. Is she wearing a? It was like a, it was a, it didn't have the hood. No hood. But it was like a silver suit because she had to run, she ran up the stairs and then into like, she ran up a whole big flight of stairs past the orchestra. Did she do it quickly? No, not bad.

Good pace. Pretty record time. I mean, it's, it's stairs and she's a 400 metre runner. You know, it's different. It's different, you know. And she gets to the top and then she walks out into like this, like a pool of water. and then she lights the cauldron and it rises up above her. So she's in the middle of these flames as it goes up.

It's so cool. I was also a very big Cathy Freeman. So at what point does the malfunction occur? It rises up, I think it rises up quite a bit and then it doesn't quite go all the way. So do they just wait the four minutes before moving on to something? And what's Kathy doing at this time? She's just standing there. Are she looking pretty cool and calm or?

Yeah, I think so. Probably looking around a little bit like, ooh. Like what's going on here? But she just plays it cool. I'm sure they're talking her little earpiece like, oh, okay, Kathy. It genuinely would be someone whispering in her ear. All right, Kathy.

I'm just having a bit of a technical glitch here, but don't you worry. You look great. And then they're just like sort of talking in the earpiece to the conductor of the orchestra. They're like, quick, make four minutes of music. They're like, our instruments are plugged in. What are you talking about?

Oh, no. We're miming. So that sort of brings us to the end of the ceremony So the cordon's up now after four minutes And then everyone sort of goes crazy And is that that's sort of That's how it ends? Yeah

And then just a whole bunch of fireworks And then away we go I do have a As you know I always like to finish with a few fun facts Fun facts So that's how we're going to finish off The you know how there's always

French and English Madame de monsieur For the two official languages Ladies and Tris gentleman. Is And French for and? What? Is Anne French for And?

No, it's isn't it like, well, I don't know. Oh, no, I just thought of one of it. Did I think I said and? Yeah. Dams and Monsieur. Yeah, like, I would have believed that. Okay. It wasn't important.

I just thought, that's interesting. Yeah. I don't know what, anyway. I don't know who the French woman is, but the English language announcer for the opening ceremony was Australian actor John Stanton. Now, when I was watching, I was like, where do I know his voice from? And then I looked at him. He also voices the 40 Winks ads.

Oh, 40 Winks, 40 O'Sail. If you watch... 40 Wings, 40 O'SAle. He doesn't sing the jingles. If you go back and watch any clip now, you'll know the voice. If I was going to pick any bedding advertising person, it would definitely be... Right, 40 Winks. It would definitely be...

No, for me, it would have definitely been Rod Quantock. Oh, no. Catch a snooze for me too. Great point. But maybe he wasn't available. So, as I said before, Andrew Gay's closed. brought their flag in for the opening ceremony, for the closing ceremony. It was, I don't think it's decided sort of through the games.

It's not decided before. So it was given to one of the team's youngest members and most celebrated 17-year-old. Thorpey. Yes. Got to be Thorpe. He was one of the true stars of the game. He won five medals, three gold and two silver, 17 years old. Pretty good, not as good as 17.

That's nuts. Old mate Shane Gould, but pretty good. Shane Gould, and killed it. Yeah, I didn't know. Thorby was only 17. Wow. Australia won 58 medals. That's a record, isn't it?

Is it the most gold ever was the Sydney Olympics for us? Not for us. I'm not sure, actually. I think for us at the time it was a record. Like we were top three or something. Isn't that often the way in the host country? Yeah. We often do well. Like it's just because of the...

It's home. I think we came fourth on the medal count, maybe. So we got 16 gold, 25 silver, 17 bronze, finished fourth behind US, Russia and China. And I think more, like, last time, I think we were finished somewhere in the top 20. I think that was like, we've never finished that. That hard. Yeah, it was crazy.

It was amazing. And we also just sort of strangely... I'm saying we. Yeah, but it is we. Bloody good effort, Matt. When you're at that party at 16 and missing this opening ceremony. Good job. I knew you were training hard.

Yeah. We had representatives in every sport as well, which was pretty rare. I don't know if we've done that since. And finally... What do you reckon is the easiest sport to get into? If I trained every day... It's just the sports that no one else does, right? Shooting?

But we're really good at that. Yeah, but it doesn't require a lot of physical training or skill. I think there's a lot of skill. But I mean, like, if you try to take up gymnastics now, you've fucked. Yeah, couldn't do gymnastics. Shooting's definitely easier than gymnastics to choose to do in your mid-20s. Exactly. Or taking up a whole sport.

Like, if you're talking about you as a 25-year-old, shooting would have to be up there. Maybe horse riding is an old person. And I'm also scared of horses. Okay, so not horse riding. What about guns? How do you feel about guns? Never shot a gun.

But I've never shot a horse. Couldn't do archery because I just don't trust your little arms to be able to pull back. I guess off those small Korean women do really, really well. I've seen them in the final. What about badminton? Yeah, no, they're freaks at that. They're doing that. Yeah, but who plays it?

Like, this is the thing. Like, to reach the top of a sport that I don't know anyone else who plays it. Yeah, but then is there any, is it as exciting to be a medalist in it? No, I don't think. No, I don't think we're talking about medalists, actually. That's fair enough, because I'll never beat, like, a Chinese person that's played, I'll just pick that nation out of thin air, that's played badminton since there were three. But I could, I've got more chance to be the best in Australia, just to get to the Olympics.

With no hope. I'm not going to win a medal in anything, because you have to be amazing. You have to work most of your life. Yeah. And I don't want to take it away from the Australian badminton team. Sorry, everyone. No, I do. They've had it too good for too long.

Get out of here. Tick him down. Final, final fun fact. How many people would you say watched the Australian Open? The opening ceremony? Yeah, it's a little off topic, but I'm just curious. Let's have a crack.

The opening around the world on television. Well, I'm thinking that... 12... I'm thinking that because... It can't be the most watch one because most of the world is it's the middle of the night this time. So, like, say the... Atlanta games, you can get all of

American, we can watch it, the Beijing games, it's like all of China is watching it. In Australia would have been most households. Yeah, probably like three or four millions. I reckon maybe, three or four millions. I reckon it could be like six or seven million in Australia.

Wow, we. It's massive, man. It was huge. That would be higher than anything ever, right? The block is isn't even that high. Yeah, this isn't the block. The block Elimination Special doesn't even get the kind of numbers. Sorry, Matt.

It's the opening this is huge. We had like, we, the whole family sat around, we had little Australian flags. We were like, that's so cute.

Because I was 10, so mum put like little flags on toothpicks and put it with our sausage rolls. We had like Australian themed food. I would have loved a sausage roll, but I was vomiting all bloody night. Okay, I'm going to say,

around the world, around the world, 150 million. 3.6 billion. Are you kidding? No. That's 50% of, that everybody?

No, that's 50% of the whole world. 3.6 billion viewers. Well, that's not real. Is that the most watched one? No, surely Beijing's more. Possibly. I'm not sure. Yeah, so you're telling me that 3.6 billion people tuned in to watch us make the Olympic rings with lawnmowers.

You're welcome, world. Best ever. Best ever. It feels like the kind of thing that eventually people are going to go, wait, hang on. I've been excited about one of these before. Never again. I know, because it is kind of. of wanky, but I still

love to watch it. That is, well... That is the Sydney 2000 Olympic opening ceremony. Best ever. Best ever. Best ever. And probably the best ever podcast dedicated to it.

I reckon it could be up there. Top five. Was that too specific? No, I like it. I enjoy it. I think too specific would have been the first five minutes. What was the name?

Nicky Webster's sundress. Yeah, okay, that's too specific. No, I enjoyed that a lot. Thank you, Jess. Pleasure. Thank you for having me on this podcast. On my show.

That I'm always on, yes. You're always on. Well, if you want to get in contact with Jess, we've on heckler, or perhaps you are that man that was with Dawn Fraser that night, you want to email you in your name. You can contact us online at do-goonpod, or one word, at gmail.com. If you want to suggest a topic, or we're on Twitter now at do-go-on-pot. Do-goon-pot.

Do-goon-pot. If you had a good time, rate us on iTunes, if that's your thing. about it. That would be the best ever. We're going to be back next week. I'm going to be doing a report. Oh my God. I've got to think of something now. The life and times of Dawn Fraser. But until next time, we shall see you then. Thank you for joining us. All right. Bye. Don't forget to sign up to our tour mailing list so we know where in the world you are and we can come and tell you when we're coming there. Wherever we go, we always hear six months later,

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