Olympics all hyped up and going nowhere...although fast

Olympic fever? Hardly.

Not all that hot. Too bad for NBC, the Olympics have been interesting, a bit exotic and a showcase, just not for them and not so much for people here, you know, the U S of A.

The Olympics have had world class moments, sure. The opening ceremonies were fantastic. Michael Phelps, swimming, gymnastics have had top-rate story lines.

But the hype is louder than the bang.

For all that hype, Phelps is still a swimmer, a sport that has zero interest for most people throughout the preceding and following three years, 11 months, 21 days. Opening ceremonies, too, it was more like a super Super Bowl thing or great Las Vegas show that was super-duper-sized. Olympics de'soleil anyone?

But the NBC talking heads led by Bob Costas fall all over themselves proclaiming how this is the greatest event EVER.

It's all a bit too frantic, a bit too forced. Especially since we all can see for ourselves it's more like an expanded version of the old ABC Wide World of Sports with a lot of Saturday afternoon second-tier sporting events before the real deal in the form of baseball, football, basketball etc. resumes daily play.

They got basketball in Beijing, of course, with the Redeem Team, and baseball in its final appearance for a while due to the worldwide disgust with Bush's War in Iraq extending to voting out events perceived as too American.

For the most part, however, the competitions are backyard barbecue fare such as badminton, ping pong and two-person volleyball, and elite events such as dressage mixing and matching with the likes of handball, men's field hockey, water polo. Again, interesting but come on, it were so hot there would be professional leagues on prime team TV and all. And what, no croquet, ballroom dancing or volleywallball?

The Olympics has other sore points. There's a very unhealthy dose of propaganda of various types marching shoulder-to-shoulder with the hype. Many events don't have scores per se but judges and very loose standards, like this guy didn't tie his shoes, two points off type of stuff.

And then, there's a very tenuous relationship between many athletes and the countries they "represent." Chinese playing for the U.S. in ping-pong. Americans playing basketball and baseball for Italy. Hey, ate some goulash once; welcome to the Hungarian trampoline squad.

NBC paid a gazillion dollars for this Chinese elephant. As an investment, no doubt, it pays off since no matter how much money these media conglommerations pay, they seem to get back more in return.

As a "super event" and TV programming, however, these Olympic games have been a big fat dud. People watch a little so ratings are good for summer TV although that's not saying much since the big competition is Big Brother X.

Coverage has been uneven, even joyless except for Bela Karolyi doing his best Jim Cramer send-up. Features have been boring and, again, overblown. NBC Today's coverage has been sick, and sick in a sick, not good way. Matt Lauer, Meredith Viera, Ann Curry, Al Roker: TIRED AND OVEREXPOSED. Nobody cares.

Prime time coverage is just OK, a C+, although if you throw out the billions in technology and account for possibilities, the grade goes down to C-. The worst offenders have been the MSNBC team of Tiki Barber and Jenna Wolfe. Tiki: Maybe you should forget about retirement and go back to playing football. Jenna: We don't care about your hair.

Track and Field? I like some of it, even a little bit. But I will not comment on these matters again. The Olympics will have come and gone in two weeks. As they said with Hamlet, all that sound and fury signifying what...

A whole bunch of hype and see you again in four years.

As for these Olympics, they're stone cold, turn them over and let's be done with them.