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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: August 15, 2004
PROGRAM ORIGINALLY AIRED ON THIS DATE: The 2004 Athens Summer Olympics
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: Trying to cover the breadth of an Olympic games can be a daunting challenge for a TV network. NBC has certainly faced some problems with their coverage this year. But when it comes to their studio coverage of the events, they deserve a lot of credit for continually being able to build narratives out of hundreds of events and thousands of athletes. Some sports make it easier than others. Like, try coming up with a narrative for the badminton events. Such was the case for Mary Carillo, doing desk work during the 2004 games in Athens. Faced with some air time to fill in between badminton events, Carillo began her segment by showing off some of the cutting-edge equipment that the “bad boys of badminton” play with.
Now, a word about Mary Carillo. I’d probably stop short of calling her “eccentric,” but she’s always had a singular way of talking about the sports she’s covering. Her primary beat is tennis, the sport she played professionally in the late ’70s. She actually has a French Open championship in mixed doubles, won with her childhood friend John McEnroe. In tennis, she’s prone to wordplay and exaggerations. She coined the term “big babe tennis” to describe the women’s game’s turn towards heavy hitters and power in the last 15 years. She’s also known for her sense of humor, which can be bone dry. I say all this because there’s a chance that someone uninitiated with Carillo might have viewed her 2004 segment on badminton equipment as a Network-style nervous breakdown. Nope, just Mary Carillo spinning straw into TV gold, and describing backyard badminton with the kind of lived-in familiarity John Updike could only dream of.
This rant ends up making the rounds every Olympics, passed around on social media. It’s always Christopher Burr who gets the shine for his part in Mary’s story. I’m partial to Colleen Clark up in a tree, trying to get that SpongeBob Squarepants beach ball down with a hockey stick.
The whole segment is gold, though. That’s big-babe Olympics commentary is what it is.
