Games, The

1 9 9 8 (Australia)
13 x 30 minute episodes
2 0 0 0 (Australia)
13 x 30 minute episodes

John Clarke and Ross Stevenson created this brilliantly funny mockumentary about the team assigned to mount the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Using their own first names, Clarke played John, the head of administration and logistics, Gina Riley the faintly acerbic marketing and liaison manager and Bryan Dawe the quietly flustered accounts, budgeting and finance manager.

Each week offered challenges for the trio of organisers: They grappled with the question of tobacco company sponsorship, were faced with the little problem of the 100-metre track being just 94-metres long, and performed diplomatic gymnastics to deal with a Federal government marketing maven called Jasmine who suggested a range of idiotic changes – why, for example, did the medals need to be round? So cliched.

Meanwhile, the diving pool at the new aquatic centre was in the wrong place and the IOC committee was coming to inspect all the venues – but they were one venue short.

In the second series (2000), the team had to contend with a man who had registered his name as ‘Sydney Olympic Games’, an athlete who changed her name to Pepsi (which upset sponsor Coca-Cola), a Bulgarian wrestler who was seeking asylum in Australia and an aboriginal land rights claim on the shooting range.

Clarke, Dawe and Riley played the whole thing absolutely straight. No jokes. No rib-nudging. The crackling dialogue took the form of a hilarious mix of indecision, chaos, hubris and bureaucratic double-speak.

Nicholas Bell appeared as the secretary to the Minister for the Games.

A set of municipal offices in outer Melbourne were transformed into a slick set of SOCOG-style offices, complete with slimline hi-fi equipment, space-age lamps and shelves of Olympic spoons in between posters proclaiming “And the winner is Sydney!”.

John
John Clarke
Bryan
Bryan Dawe
Gina
Gina Riley
Nicholas
Nicholas Bell
Tim
Tim Schwerdt

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