Was anyone in the country who owns a television at all surprised that Eddie McGuire and Mick Molloy's "commentary" throughout Nine's Winter Olympics coverage turned out to be inane and, inevitably, offensive to broad swathes of the viewing public?
For those who missed the shitstorm, McGuire and Molloy were cracking wise and not particularly funny about the men's figure-skating, and in particular, the effervescent and wondrous Johnny Weir.
Here's a bit of Johnny, for those of you whose lives are bankrupt:
And here's what those champeens at Nine had to say on the topic, more broadly, of Weir and male figure skaters:
Molloy - "They don't leave anything in the locker room those blokes."
McGuire - "They don't leave anything in the closet either, do they?"
Geddit? It's a bit gay! They're dancing on ice and wearing sparkles! What a bunch of poofs!
It was deeply depressing but not at all surprising; as many have
suggested, the Winter Olympics does little more than highlight Australian media personalities' ignorance of winter sports.
But what characterises McGuire et al's comments is not just the ignorance of the sports themselves, but bullish ignorance, full stop - and, most criminally at all, a complete lack of humour.
Sure, they were trying to be funny, but they missed out on what made Roy & HG's
The Dream (and its Winter equivalent,
The Ice Dream) so wonderful: it was good humoured and gentle, even as they covered effectively the same ground (i.e. footy field ribbing) as McGuire and Molloy.
Here's their gymnastics coverage from Sydney: