olympics-opening-ceremony-national-anthem

I never thought I’d describe a national anthem as “chill” … and then Paulinho da Viola strummed his way into my life.
I never thought I’d describe a national anthem as “chill” … and then Paulinho da Viola strummed his way into my life.
The performers began by channeling their inner Julie Taymors for a demonstration of Brazil’s rich rainforest life. (Pictured here: The Very Hungry [Brazilian] Caterpillar.)
Truly, I haven’t seen projection work this mind-blowing since Beyoncé at the 2011 Billboard Music Awards. And this was much more impressive. (That’s right, I just gave Beyoncé the silver. Wanna fight about it?)
It’s apparently a widespread belief that a Brazilian harnessed the power of flight before the Wright Brothers — and Matt Lauer could not have been shadier while explaining that during the broadcast: “The Brazilians don’t think so. They think it was a guy named Alberto Santos-Dumont.” (Who knew Lauer was so passionate about aviation history?)
Oh, boy, here’s Kanye West trying to interrupt me for not giving Beyoncé the gold medal a few slides back.
Just ignore him, he’ll go away.
You can laugh now, but when runway walking is introduced as a full-fledged event at the next Olympic games, you’ll have Gisele Bündchen to thank.
An open request to all future award show producers: The next time you get the urge to cut to Taylor Swift dancing in the audience, cut to Bündchen instead. I don’t even care if she’s not there. Cut to her at home.
Whoa, wait, what? I thought this was supposed to be a party.
Too real, Olympics!
Too real!
No, seriously, where are all the ice caps going?
What’s “global warming”?!
Why hasn’t someone made an inconvenient movie about this?!?!
There’s been a lot of talk about who the real star of this show is: The athletes? The performers? The people of Brazil? (I think the answer is clear. It’s the selfie sticks.)
I don’t know much about sports, but mark my words: Aruba is going to crush all Music Man-related events this summer.
I’m not even sure Dr. Seuss would know what to call this thing.
Matt Lauer waxed poetically about this young man’s emotions over entering the Olympic stadium. (In reality, he was this close to catching a Pikachu. Been there, buddy.)
Hoda Kotb nearly lost her s–t when she saw that Team Bermuda was wearing shorts in the Olympic stadium…
…but then she was like, “Check out Djibouti!” and giggled, so now I don’t know where her limit is.
“Hey, Miley Cyrus? It’s Michael Phelps calling. Listen, I’m trying to figure out what to do with my tongue during tonight’s opening ceremony. Any suggestions?”
And the Internet apparently had a field day — as its known to do — over Tonga’s fetching flag bearer, Pita Taufatofua.