The Games (1998, 2000) a mock documentary about the organisation of the Sydney Olympics, satirizing corruption and cronyism.

John Clarke

Sydney Olympics Head of Logistics.

• If you are with a visitor from overseas in a traffic jam in Sydney, you are to say, 'This is very unusual. A truck must have tipped over.'
  • Instructing his staff.
  • Sydney's traffic congestion was bad at the time and there were fears the Olympics would make it much worse.

• The only people not watching it will be watching synchronized drowning on channel six million and eight.
  • Responding to Gina saying that no-one will watch the 500 metres because it is on in the middle of the night.
• Well, if you put $5 million on the table in this town, the room fills with the same flies every time, doesn't it?

• Well, there's a behaviour pattern exhibited in various parts of the world often referred to as quid pro quo, in which somebody will do something for someone else and then build up in their mind the expectation that somebody else is going to do something for them. It's very common in those parts of the world, for example, inhabited by human beings.

• You're not going to get $70 million out of the fluffy bunyip market, Nicholas. It can't be done.
  • To Nicholas Bell, Secretary to the Minister.

• The Formula One Grand Prix is currently less interesting than the video game that's based on it. The cars go around in a circle. They get Murray Walker off the ceiling. The game itself is a procession, you can't get passed. The car in front at the beginning wins the race. The whole thing is decided by who's gonna have a pit-stop. They're the fastest cars on Earth and the key element here, Bryan, is not racing. It's PARKING!
  • Arguing that Formula One Grand Prix is not a sport.

• We're running on the smell of an oily rag.
  • To Nicholas Bell, Secretary to the Minister, they then proceed to purchase and open two expensive bottles of wine.

Gina Riley

Sydney Olympics Marketing and Liason Manager.

• Yes, it's pretty hard. We're looking for an eighty-year-old, Spanish, ex-fascist art lover with Olympic connections ...
  • Trying to find someone to open an olympics art exhibition featuring Picasso's Guernica. She had to turn it down.
  • See wikipedia on Juan Antonio Samaranch.

• I thought you're supposed to jump up and down after you've won the gold medal.
  • Regarding the inclusion of trampolining as an official Olympic sport.

• (Stuck in traffic)
  Oh. A Truck Must Have Tipped Over.

Dialogue

• John Clarke: Does anyone have any questions that don't have anything to do with lacrosse?
  Journalist: How much over budget are the Games at the moment?
  John Clarke: Are there any more lacrosse questions?
• John Clarke: What happened to the lifts, Bryan?
  Bryan Dawe: I had them disconnected, John.
  John Clarke: Why?
  Bryan Dawe: Mister Expenditure, John.
  John Clarke: How are we supposed to get Mister Up and Mister Down?
  Bryan points to the stairs. John is not impressed. They climb.
  Bryan Dawe: Mister Very Good For You.
  John Clarke (breathing heavily, clutching chest): Mister Coronary....

• Nicholas Bell: Have you ever appeared before a parliamentary enquiry?
  John Clarke: No, and I've never been cleaning anything when it went off, either.

• Journalist: You can check it until your arse falls off.

John Clarke: You can tell me that until your dick catches fire. That's not my point.