London's Olympic Opening Ceremony did not feature John Cleese and made very little of The Clash, but did have a Mr. Bean boogers joke. What else did it not have? During a montage showing the posters of all previous Summer Olympics, it did not show Los Angeles 1984 or Atlanta 1996.
The video evidence, from the part near the beginning after the camera's raced over the River Thames and into the stadium:
Atlanta's own Creative Loafing is looking into the matter, but I'll go ahead and tell you what happened here, at least as far as Atlanta's snub goes: they mad, y'all. Oh, they mad. All day, every day. And I don't really even care who, specifically, is mad. There's just that much mad to go around.
Either the International Olympic Committee is still so mad it stings (after IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch refused to give ATL the customary "best Olympics ever" designation), or NBC yanked it just as it did the Munich tribute due to the Olympic Park bombing, though that wouldn't explain L.A.'s exclusion. Really, I don't even care who made the choice or why it happened. They mad, and mad they shall remain.
Atlanta's Olympics were criticized as too corporate, via ever-present Coca-Cola logos and probably Coca-Cola logos with other logos inside of them plus all other varieties of logos. Well, we got money 'cause we ain't had money, basically. Now we have both money and an officially certified Olympics-branded gathering point in the middle of our city that serves as a landing pad for Tea Party rallies, gay pride parades and Home Depot-branded College GameDay tailgates soundtracked by Big & Rich. Our Olympic park will be there for a long time, just getting countrier and gayer and more fried chickeny by the day, so y'all can just stay mad, IOC.
For more on the Olympics, check out SB Nation's London 2012 Olympics Hub.
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