YouTube Video of the Week: Space Olympics

Are you ready for the Space Olympics?

“Saturday Night Live” had a relatively dismal season launch last weekend, but there was one bright spot: the latest entry in the brilliant “Digital Short” series.

Dressed in one snazzy ambassadorial suit, a wig-wearing Andy Samberg invites interplanetary athletes to “reach for the stars” at the 3022 Space Olympics.

As you’d expect, holding a sporting event in space has its setbacks — such as a food shortage and unreliable utilities. There might even be an alien horde menacing the control room … But hey, “You’re a winner!”

Does anyone know what song “Space Olympics” is spoofing? It’s drivin’ me nuts, as the pirate said.

(This YouTube version is a bit distorted, so here’s an NBC.com link for you purists out there.)

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Excitement about the 2012 London Olympics is already mounting in Britain, where soccer hooligans and socialites alike are preparing their welcome for the world’s athletes.

London won its bid as Olympics host with this video, titled “Sport at Heart.”

First aired in 2004, the ad features five Olympic gold medalists and a score of British icons, ranging from Oscar winner Helen Mirren to James Bond himself, Sir Roger Moore. International soccer celeb David Beckham is shown puzzling over a crossword in a cafe, while “Shakespeare in Love” star Joseph Fiennes rehearses in the Globe Theatre.

(If the tune sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the theme song for NBC’s hit reality show “The Biggest Loser”: Heather Small’s “Proud.”)

Meanwhile, London mayor Boris Johnston has a message for the world’s table tennis enthusiasts: Ping pong was invited in England, not China!

Here, he makes his stump speech for bringing the illustrious sport of ping pong “home.”

The London Olympics logo, an angular thing that cost about $800,000 to design and admittedly looks a bit like a swastika, is also stirring up Britons’ righteous anger. In fact, a BBC poll found that 80 percent of online voters loathed the multicolored symbol, compared to nearly 9 percent awarding it a “gold medal.”

According to these fellows, however, the London Olympics logo may just save your life. (Warning: Video may contain drug use, obscenity, racial stereotypes and general silliness.)

Hardy the Land of the Stiff Upper Lip, is it?

3 comments

  1. I am not impressed with these videos at all. I used to love SNL, but I have to say, it has gone significantly down hill since the days of Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi,Chevy Chase,Jane Curtin,Garret Morris,Laraine Newman,Gilda Radner, and Bill Murray.

    I gotta hand it to them they continue to try!

    The other video, for the Olympics in England, is quite boring if you ask me…But that is just my take!

    K.M. George
    Hodge Podge Blog

  2. SNL has declined substantially, even from just 4 or 5 years ago. Now that Amy Pohler is leaving Andy Samberg is one of the last bright spots left on the show.

  3. Masked Avenger · ·

    Andy Samberg is funny but everybody else sux