The Games (Australian TV)
Overview
 
The Games was an Australian mockumentary
Mockumentary
A mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...

 television series about the 2000 Summer Olympics
2000 Summer Olympics
The Sydney 2000 Summer Olympic Games or the Millennium Games/Games of the New Millennium, officially known as the Games of the XXVII Olympiad, were an international multi-sport event which was celebrated between 15 September and 1 October 2000 in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

 in Sydney. The series was originally broadcast on the ABC
ABC Television
ABC Television is a service of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation launched in 1956. As a public broadcasting broadcaster, the ABC provides four non-commercial channels within Australia, and a partially advertising-funded satellite channel overseas....

 and had two seasons of 13 episodes each, the first in 1998 and the second in 2000.

'The Games' starred satirists John Clarke
John Clarke (satirist)
John Morrison Clarke is a New Zealand-born Australian comedian, writer, and satirist. He was born in Palmerston North, New Zealand, and has lived in Australia since the late 1970s...

 and Bryan Dawe
Bryan Dawe
Bryan John Dawe is best known as an Australian writer, comedian and political satirist, but is also known for his work as a songwriter, photographer and social activist....

 along with Australian comedian Gina Riley
Gina Riley
Gina Riley is an Australian actress, writer, singer and comedian.Riley became a popular television performer in the sketch shows Fast Forward, its successor Full Frontal, Big Girl's Blouse and Something Stupid. In the latter she was also a producer and writer...

 and actor Nicholas Bell
Nicholas Bell
Nicholas Bell is a British actor who has worked in Australia for more than 20 years. He is a regular actor in Melbourne Theatre Company productions as well as work with all the major broadcasters in Australia, most notably the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.-Film and television:Film credits...

. It was written by John Clarke
John Clarke (satirist)
John Morrison Clarke is a New Zealand-born Australian comedian, writer, and satirist. He was born in Palmerston North, New Zealand, and has lived in Australia since the late 1970s...

 and Ross Stevenson
Ross Stevenson (Radio)
Ross Stevenson, real name Ross Campbell, is a radio presenter on Melbourne radio. Breakfast with Ross Stevenson & John Burns on radio station 3AW is one of Australia's most successful radio shows...

. The series centred on the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games (SOCOG) and satirised corruption and cronyism in the Olympic movement, bureaucratic ineptness in the New South Wales
New South Wales
New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

 public service, and unethical behaviour within politics and the media.
Quotations

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.

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|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. 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|Picasso's Guernica (painting)|Guernica. She had to turn it down.

I thought you're supposed to jump up and down after you've won the gold medal.

Regarding the inclusion of Trampolining|trampolining as an official Olympic sport.

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

 
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