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more details, request your appointment at

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midas.com. Hey

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there, news of oars! Which sounds like people

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who eat the news, but also like people

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who eat old-timey newsboys. And, aw, geez,

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which way did I mean it? That's

0:28

for you to decide. I'm an old-timey

0:30

news man, and here's some more news.

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The Olympics are almost here! Did

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you know? Did you ever? Does

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anyone actually know when the Olympics are coming? Or do

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we all just sort of turn on the TV and

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get surprised by them? Like the ring goes running a

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mean 100-meter dash. I'm

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just kidding. I'm just razzing you. We're really

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into razzing here on the show, Dee. I

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razzed like four times

0:55

this morning. The Olympics are obviously a very

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major and very popular worldwide event, and that's

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no razz. Alright, you've

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entered the no-razz zone. That

1:03

razz? No! Countries

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agreeing to set aside their political differences to

1:08

have one big field day together is honestly

1:10

kind of a miracle. And it speaks to

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something good and decent within us all. To

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me, one of the biggest thrills

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is being in that stadium and

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hearing the athlete oath, hearing

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them announce the games being open, and

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seeing the flame come in. Because to

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me, it reaffirms what the Olympic games are

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about and why I'm doing what I'm doing.

1:32

That sounds inspiring, because the Olympics, as

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an ideal, are inspiring. They give us

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a tiny, fleeting glimpse of what world

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peace could be like. They're also a

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bone fest, which personally inspires me to

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bone. And fester.

1:48

But the Olympics, as a real-life organization,

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are, as you may have guessed by

1:52

the video title, far less noble. In

1:55

fact, the event is closer to a

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traveling blight crawling across the planet in

1:59

such a... up resources like those

2:01

awesome Predator cities in that Mortal Engines

2:03

movie, a common reference that all of

2:06

us understand and appreciate. And while I

2:08

could sit here and talk about Mortal

2:10

Engines like a commoner all night, tragically,

2:13

the Olympics need my attention. And they

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are far less awesome. Most

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of the time. The

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Olympics are terrible for everyone, except Michael Jordan and

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the 92 Dream Team. The

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Olympics were pretty great for those guys, but

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for everyone else, the Olympics are butts. And

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they've been butts since the start of the

2:40

modern era. The first modern Olympics were the

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1896 Summer Games, which were held in Athens

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and brought together 241 athletes from 14 nations.

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That's shortly after they formed the International

2:52

Olympics Committee, aka the IOC, aka

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the governing body of the Olympics. No word

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if that one was corrupt. It was 1896

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though, so that probably

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sucked in general. But the iconic Olympic

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torch relay, which opens the games with

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the relay of torchbearers running from Athens

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to the host city to light the

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Olympic flame, only started in 1936, specifically

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for the Nazi-hosted Berlin games. So one

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of the most lasting images of the

3:17

Olympics was created as a group project

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with the Third Reich while the games

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were all hugged up with the Nazis.

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That's cool. We keep putting

3:26

that on stamps, I guess. The first

3:28

Olympic torch relay was essentially a

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Nazi propaganda film orchestrated by Joseph

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Goebbels, who had convinced the Fuhrer

3:35

that the games weren't, as he'd

3:38

originally suggested, an invention of Jews

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and Freemasons. Hitler didn't even want

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the Olympics because he thought they

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were a Jewish conspiracy. And the

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International Olympic Committee said, let's give

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them the games, give them the

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games. This decision will age spectacularly.

3:54

Nazi propagandist Lenny Riefenstahl even restaged

3:56

some segments of the relay for her

3:58

air quotes.