Olympic Magic: Disney's Impact on the Games Ranked!

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Hey, this is synergy loves company, where we explore how Disney connects to everything. Because you don't have to be at the Disney parks to experience the magic every day. I'm Eric, and the time is upon us. Every four years, the best athletes from around the globe come together to compete, break records, and make history in the ultimate celebration of sportsmanship and human achievement. That's right, I the Olympics. And in the spirit of the Olympics and the spirit of this show, we are going to put the most Disney of Olympic moments and the most Olympic of Disney moments head to head with each other and see which ones come away with the glory of the gold. Let's light that torch and get on with these games. From the people who put the glad in gladiator and brought you Hercules. The ancient Greeks first held the original Olympic Games in 776 bce in Olympia, Greece. These games showcased athleticism, but also were a vital part of greek culture and religion. The games were dedicated to Zeus, the king of the gods. The ancient Olympians featured events such as running, wrestling, and chariot racing, drawing athletes and spectators from all across Greece. The games emphasized the ideals of honor, glory, and unity, and they left a legacy that continues to inspire the modern Olympics today. The modern Olympics, the ones that we are familiar with, started in 1896 in Athens, Greece. These games marked a revival of the ancient Olympic tradition, but now on a more global scale, with athletes from 14 nations competing in a variety of events. The Athens Olympics symbolized the international unity and the enduring human spirit of competition. This rebirth of the Olympics continues on today, and every four years we get an Olympic Games showing up in different cities all over the world. In fact, we're in the middle of a chain of Olympic ceremonies taking place in Disneyland cities. The last Olympics took place in Tokyo. This year's takes place in Paris. And the next Olympics in 2028 is going to be in Los Angeles. When the modern Olympics came about, the world was becoming more connected. The industrial revolution led to developments in technology, industry and communication. Cultural exchange was becoming important, and international expositions and world's fairs were connecting the global community. The Olympics developed out of this same yearning for international connection, cooperation, and competition. Hooray for progress. Walt Disney himself grew up alongside the modern Olympics. The Walt Disney company became an international institution alongside the modern Olympics. So, of course, Disney has crossed paths with the Olympics over the years. So today on the show, we will take a look at the moments where Disney and the Olympics have crossed paths. Then we'll pit them against each other in competition to see which olympic moments in Disney history are worthy of the thrill of victory and which will fall to the agony of defeat. Our Disney Olympic events will feature four separate competitions, animation, live action, the Olympics at Disney, and Disney's influence on the Olympics. Only those moments that have shown true heart and determination and have combined the glory of the Olympic Games with the magic of Disney, will come out victorious and be awarded a bronze, silver, or gold medal. So let's get to it. Our first event is animation. Animation is core to what Disney is all about. For over a hundred years, Disney has been delighting audiences with storytelling. And as Walt Disney famously said, it all started with a. An animated mouse. That is. So it only makes sense that we would kick off these games with animation. In this matchup, we will take a look at moments of Disney animation that have featured the Olympics. For our first contender, we have 1980s animallympics. Wait, animallympics is not Disney. And that. That might mean disqualification, but let's give it a chance. We'll see what this is all about. Animalympics is a 1980 animated television film that parodies the Olympic Games. It features animals competing in various Olympic sports. It had an all star voice cast, including Billy Crystal and Gilda Radnor. Pretty star studded for 1980, animalympics was originally supposed to be a two part special with a summer and winter special, each airing on NBC during each corresponding Olympic Games that year. However, in 1980, the United States boycotted the Summer Olympics in Moscow, and animallympics was packaged as a single film that aired once on NBC, but picked up a nostalgic cult following when it continued airing on HBO over the years. Still not quite Disney enough to place. Wait, wait, what's that? What's this? Brad Bird, Pixar director, collaborator, extraordinaire, and the voice of Edna mode, got his first animation credit on animalympics. Well, I guess that's something. But wait, here comes the real connection. Writer director Steven Lisberger. Lisberger wrote and directed Animalympics, which helped him book his next project, a big one, with Disney Tron. In fact, if you take a look at the intro for Lisberger Studios incorporated at the beginning of animal sailor type ships like the ones in Tron. And then you see this man made out of light that throws two data discs that return to him just like in the movie Tron. This is essentially the first appearance of Tron on film. Animallympics got off to a rocky start, but it finished strong enough to take the bronze in our animation event. Lets take a look at who else made the podium. The silver medal for animation goes to barnyard Olympics from 1932. Barnyard Olympics is an early Mickey Mouse short that was released in the spring of 1932, just a few months before the Summer Olympics that took place in Los Angeles that same year. Seems like Walt Disney caught a little olympic fever with this one. The short starts off with some barnyard animals taking on some Olympic events like wrestling, diving, hammer throw, and then Mickey takes on his arch nemesis Pete in a cross country race triathlon style event. The short is filled with gags and follows the expected formula for a Mickey short in the early thirties. One of the strengths is that we get appearances of Clara Bell cow cheering Mickey on with Minnie and Horace horsecollar in Mickey's corner, helping him to train and keep him in shape during the games. Mickey is ultimately victorious and wins the race and the heart of Minnie Mouse. Of course, solid performance from an early Disney short, which of course earned it our silver medal. But our gold medal winner is the goofy short, the Olympic champ from 1942. The Olympic champ was not released in an Olympic year, but it takes place at the actual Olympics. In the short, Goofy participates in a number of track and field events, including pole vaulting in a relay race. He even gets the honor of carrying the Olympic torch. And to top it all off, the full color short is done in that classic goofy how to style. I just love these, where we get the narrator telling us what is supposed to happen and then goofy hilariously botches it. The Olympic champ short does not disappoint, which definitely earns it our gold medal in animation. Congratulations, goofy, and the world thanks you for your masterclass in athleticism. Kinda. Our next Disney Olympic competition is live action feature films. We have quite a few competitors in this group as Disney has done many feature films that include Olympians and the Olympics. This competition is full of live action feature films that capture the spirit of competition of the Olympic Games. And to capture a place on the podium, these films will need to portray the Olympic experience on the silver screen. The films in this competition have shown the lives of Olympians and the triumphs and trepidation of the actual Olympic Games. And we have some tough contenders. First up, we have a relatively newcomer with Walt Disney pictures. 2024 film the young woman in the Sea. The movie stars Daisy Ridley as Gertrude Etterly in her 1926 quest to become the first woman to swim across the English Channel. The movie's Olympics connection comes in with Etterley's being an Olympic gold medalist for her swimming in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Thats a strong performance from a real olympian. But the movie itself is not about her Olympic showing, it is about her crossing the English Channel. So it just misses our podium. Lets see if our next contender can do any better. All right. This ones a classic from 30 years ago. 30 years. Now I feel old. 1990 four's d two the Mighty Ducks. It is a sequel, but in this sequel, the Ducks expand their team under coach Gordon Bombay to compete as Team USA in the Olympics. Wait, no, scratch that. They're competing in the junior goodwill games. The goodwill games sound like some sort of fake Olympics made up to be in the movie. But actually the goodwill games are a real fake Olympics. In 1980, the US boycotted the Olympics in Moscow and then in 1984 the Soviet Union boycotted the Olympics in Los Angeles. So cable owner Ted Turner decided to do something about all these boycotts. He made an alternative Olympics called the Goodwill Games that was meant to remove the politics from the games and give him some sweet, sweet cable programming for his empire. It worked for a while and the games occurred every four years from 1986 until 2001. But thats not enough to get d two anywhere close to the podium. So it falls into dead last place, which is sad because I really like that one. Now lets move on to our Olympic champions in the category of live action feature film. Receiving the bronze medal is the movie endurance from 1998. This lesser known film endurance follows the story of ethiopian gold medal Olympian Hailee Gebra Selassie. He had won the gold in 10,000 meters in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. The movie shows him getting his start in running as a young boy by having to run to get to school every day, and follows him up to his gold medal run of the 10,000 meters. But thats the odd part. The movie is a docudrama made completely in hindsight, it mixes real documentary footage from after the big race as well as footage filmed during the Olympics and then reenactments of events when he was growing up. Despite this after the fact documentary style, the film did really well with critics and audiences, but it never actually had a wide release. Maybe one date well actually be able to watch it on Disney, but for now, you can check to see if your local public library has a dvd copy. Or you could rent it for a couple of bucks on Amazon. Taking the silver in our live action feature film category is another gold medal winner, the 1980s USA Olympic hockey team and their miracle on ice. In 2004, Disney released the movie Miracle, which chronicled the USA hockey team's 1980 underdog success story. In the movie and in real life, the Soviet Union's hockey team had been winning the gold medal for the past couple of decades at the Olympics. But Team USA pulls out a miracle on ice to bring home the first us hockey gold medal in over 20 years. Sorry for the spoiler. It's history, people. Come on. The movie's retelling focuses on coach Herb Brooks, played by Disney legend Kurt Russell, who sees the potential in this team to break the Soviet Union's gold streak. And because he was cut from that 1960 Olympic team that won the gold, he wants to win this so bad. He's basically the real life Gordon Bombay from Mighty Ducks. This movie also stars Al Michaels playing himself, since he was the original announcer at the actual Miracle on Ice game. He was the one who shouted, do you believe in miracles? Which gave the game its name, the Miracle on ice. Al Michaels, though, would also serve an even more important role for Disney when they traded him from ABC Sports to NBC Universal so that Disney could regain the rights to Oswald, the lucky rabbit. Oswald came home to Disney. Do you believe in miracles? Yes. Finally, we've reached the top of the podium because it is my favorite of the Disney Olympics. Live action films 1990 Three's cool runnings takes our gold. I mean, I'm wearing the shirt right now. Cool runnings is the most fictitious of our podium, finishing live action movies, but it is still, still based on a true story. You don't normally expect a nation with a tropical climate like Jamaica to represent in the Winter Olympics. But in 1988, they showed up in Calgary with an Olympic bobsled team. That year in the Olympics, the us hockey team was eliminated earlier than they were expected to, and a bunch of events got delayed for bad weather. So ABC had some airtime to fill, and they turned their cameras over to the bobsled run where Jamaica was competing. The jamaican team won the hearts of the american viewers during one of their runs when their bobsled flipped upside down on top of the team. The team got out and walked alongside their bobsled across the finish line. They, of course, didn't win anything. They were disqualified, but they were praised for their audacity to walk across the finish line after that monumentous crash to turn it into a screenplay. Events like this were highly fictionalized. The team themselves were fictionalized, and one of the movie's characters is even named Sanka Coffee, like the instant coffee brand. And then they went and added a surly former bobsled coach played by John Candy. And Disney ended up making cool runnings, a drama into a comedy into an inspirational sports movie that has elements from all of the other live action contenders in this category, making it my favorite and the most well rounded of those Olympic films, in my opinion. So I'm giving it the gold because I make the rules on these games. Our animation category was total fiction and those live action films were based on true stories. But for our next categories, we are going to get into real life, real life events where Disneyland, the Olympics have crossed paths. For our next event, we're going to take a look at the times when the Olympics came over to the Disney side. Now, the Olympics have never taken place at Disney itself, but the Olympics and the Olympians have made their imprints on Disney soil and in Disney projects. So let's take a look at our next competition, the Olympics in Disney. Our first contender is a team effort appearances in Disney projects by Team USA Olympic athletes over the years, Olympic athletes have become superstar celebrities and national heroes. After competing in the games, Disney has made sure to capitalize on their stardom. Lets take a look at these Disney Olympian performances. First up, we have 2009 gold medal beach volleyball winner Misty Mae Trainor when she made an appearance as herself on Disney channels Wizards of Waverly Place. This is a pretty standard move for Olympic athletes. In postgame cameos, they often play themselves. Our next teammate shows the same moves in 2017, fresh off her Olympics gymnastics team gold in the 2016 Rio Olympics, Laurie Hernandez made a guest appearance on Disney Channel, stuck in the middle as herself. This is a good start, but Team USA is going to have to show some bigger moves if they want their appearances in Disney projects to win them the gold in this category. Our next teammate is the real mvp for Disney and the Olympics, 1992 gold medal figure skater Christy Yamaguchi. She played herself on ABC's Fresh off the boat in 2018, but well before that, she made a cameo in d the Mighty Ducks. That may not have helped d two win the medal in the feature film category, but it does boost Yamaguchi's chances to bring Team USA's Disney appearances to glory. Yamaguchi does not disappoint. In 1995, she also took on the role of Princess Jasmine in Disney on Ice. That year, she played Jasmine on a special made for tv version of Disney on Ice's retelling of Aladdin. Christy Yamaguchi pulls Team USA into the lead. Next up for Team USA's Disney appearances is another 1992 figure skater, Nancy Kerrigan. But it was her 1994 silver medal performance that made her a legend. That was the year that she was attacked by Tanya Harding's henchmen before the Olympics, sustaining a knee injury. She overcame the injury and went on to win a silver medal for the United States. Then she got to participate in Disney's famous I'm going to Disneyland ad campaign. She and Brian Boitano were the only two Olympians to ever get to participate in this prestigious campaign. However, when the time came to participate in the athletic ad campaigns parade, Kerrigan confided in Mickey Mouse, but was caught on camera saying, this is dumb. I hate it. This is the corniest thing I've ever done. Ooh, that's gonna set Team USA back. Kerrigan dropped the ball on what was otherwise an impressive turnout for the Olympians appearances in Disney projects. They'll only be able to come away with the bronze. All right, let's take a look at what edged out these cameos to win the silver in the Olympic Olympics in Disney category. Our silver medal second place finisher is that time Disney put an Olympic sized pool on Main street after the 2004 Olympics. The 2004 Olympics were held in Athens as a return to the original games. They are also the Olympics that introduced the world to superstar Michael Phelps. America went Phelps crazy during and after the games, and upon returning to the states, Michael Phelps and other Olympians participated in a victory tour, shaking hands and kissing babies all across the United States. The tour ended with a swim meet in Disneyland. The only problem is Disneyland doesn't have an actual pool. I mean, like, the resorts do, but the park doesn't. So a three lane, Olympic sized swimming pool was constructed down the center of Main street to host the event. It took about 30 hours to install the temporary pool, and during the event, three members of the USA swim team, Michael Phelps, Ian Crocker, and Lenny Krazelberg, swam with local children from swim teams around the area. Each Olympian was paired up with some kids to make a relay team. The kids were awarded special Mickey shaped medals, and then the olympians showed off their Athens medals and signed autographs while meeting with the attendees of the event. That's a pretty solid performance. To only get the silver. Whatever is gonna take the gold must be something pretty big at the top of our podium in the category of Olympics at Disney is something that seems so Disney now, but was originally inspired by the Olympics. Pin trading. Pin trading is still super strong at Disney. When I was there just a few weeks ago, there was still tons of pins for sale and cast members everywhere with their cork boards and lanyards ready to trade. I remember back when pin trading was taking off at Disney. The pin sales and trading started during the millennium celebration in 1999 and it was a really big deal and it was a really great idea for Disney consumer products. It really took off. Pin trading as a pastime started at the Olympics in the nineties. Also wait, the 1890s. The first modern Olympics in 1896. At the first Olympics in 1896 in Athens, so many athletes from around the world were getting together to compete, but they were also meeting their global peers and wanted to mark the occasion with little souvenirs. The first Olympics had used primitive cardboard pins with ribbons attached to mark who was an athlete, a coach, media, etcetera. Kind of like a little backstage pass. At the end of the games, many of the attendees traded the pins to remember the people that they had met from all over the world. As the games continued, the pins got more sophisticated and the athletes as well as the spectators would trade pins representing their country with people from other countries around the world to prove the Sherman brothers right. Its a small world after all. 100 years later, in the 1990s, Olympic pin trading had become a popular pastime filled with tons of interesting pins from over the years and from all around the world. In 1998, Disney executive George Calagridis was attending the Nagano, Japan Winter Olympics. When he observed this pin trading craze. He immediately knew that he needed this for the parks. Pin trading could build the camaraderie between guests and cast members to build the human connection that was at the core of the millennium celebration. It could also sell a lot of pins and make a lot of money. It definitely caught on and created a culture, a Disney sub fandom of pin traders. As a little added bonus, Disney made special Olympic commemorative pins for the 2004 Athens Games. My favorite from this collection is this set of interlocking Olympic ring pins. Each of the five rings sports a different Disney character and a different sport, and they all fit together to make one of those big mega pins. Pin trading definitely earns the Olympics at Disney gold medal. There you have it. We've talked about the Olympics at Disney, but we gotta flip the script. Here we are at our final event in our Olympic Disney history contests. Up to this point, we have looked at how the Olympics have helped shape Disney, but this category is different. We're going to look at Disney's influence on the Olympics. Disney at the Olympics. Let's get right to the podium receiving the bronze, Disney shaping the Olympics medal. Sam the eagle. But probably not the one you're thinking of or the other one you're thinking of. This one's Sam the Olympic Eagle. The 1984 Olympics were held in Los Angeles, and by this time, the idea of an Olympic mascot was becoming more and more popular. LA wanted to make sure their mascot was designed by the best, so they turned to the Walt Disney company for the task. Disney legend Bob Moore had been working at Disney since the 1940s as an animator on feature films like Dumbo and Make my Music. But in 1951, he became the one man publicity art department. Bob was responsible for movie posters and all the ads for the movies. He was the person the Olympic planning Committee was looking for to design a mascot for the LA Games. Bob Moore designed Sam the Olympic eagle. A bald eagle in a Stars and Stripes Uncle Sam. Tophat. Why is Disney obsessed with eagles named Sam? Okay, I know the Muppets one. They didn't create him. That's Jim Henson. But he's Disney now. And what I'm really talking about is Sam the eagle in America sings. He's got a striking resemblance to Sam the Olympic eagle. Bald eagle with a stars and stripes Uncle Sam top hat America sings was first, though. I'm not saying that Bob Moore took this idea, but it is really similar. Bronze medal. Our silver medal in the category of how Disney shaped the Olympics goes to Bob Iger and his ABC sports coverage of the Olympics. In the 1970s, Bob Iger started working behind the scenes at ABC Sports, which put him on the team to help broadcast the Olympics. His mentor, Roon Arledge, was responsible for directing the broadcast of the Olympics during that 1980 Olympics. The miracle on ice. Bob Iger was part of the team that brought the games into America's living room, and events like the miracle on Ice gave him a rush. He wanted to capture that same Cinderella story magic when he took over as senior program executive on the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. These Olympics were not initially what he was hoping for. There were tons of weather delays and the US Olympic hockey team had gotten eliminated sooner than everyone expected. And that left giant holes in the programming schedule. Instead of throwing in the towel, Iger and his broadcast team turned to new events featuring athletes from countries around the world, not just the US. ABC Sports presented their stories and athleticism to an interested us audience, and we got behind international underdogs like british ski jumper Eddie the Eagle and the jamaican bobsled team. Wait, what are you telling me? That Bob Iger, trying to fill time in the 1988 Olympics, highlighted the jamaican bobsled team, which captured America's hearts so much that it was later turned into the classic Disney movie cool runnings? How's that for how Disney connects to everything? Bob Iger, of course, later became the CEO of Disney after the Cap cities merger and the fall of Michael Eisner. But it was his work on the Olympics broadcasts that landed him the role of vice chairman for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics board. That's right, he is helping to plan the next Olympics. But he's not the only Disney executive that helped plan an Olympic Games. Which brings us to our gold medal moment of how Disney shaped the Olympics. The gold medal goes to Walt Disney, the chairman of pageantry at the 1960 Squaw Valley Winter Olympics. At the top of the show, I mentioned that the modern Olympics started in 1896 in Athens when the games restarted as a global competition. But I would also argue that the modern Olympics as we know them today were started at the 1960 Winter Olympics with the pageantry of Disney. Squaw Valley, California was a small and interesting choice for an Olympic contest to be held. It's far from the cosmopolitan cities that usually host. California wanted its small town Olympics to stand out. It should be a magical event that would be magnificent in person and also stand out on television. Walt Disney had proven that he could do this. He had created Disneyland, a literal dream come true that you could walk around, and he promoted it on tv. In 1960, the Olympic planning committee put him in charge of pageantry, and he added tons of Disney Flair to the games, much of which stuck around and is still there today. He made the opening and closing ceremonies grand events. The team at Disney added fireworks, balloon launches, and the releasing of doves to the opening ceremony, making it more inspiring than any of the opening ceremonies before and starting a trend of each country trying to outperform each other Olympic year after year. And that epic opening ceremony almost didnt happen. In an often repeated anecdote, a storm broke out and the organizers were just about to shift to a smaller, indoor ceremony, not the one that Disney had planned. However, the weather cleared up just in time and just long enough for Disney's presentation to go off without a hitch. This might be the beginning of people thinking that Disney could control the weather. Speaking of opening ceremonies, Disney designed the Tower of Nations topped with the five Olympic rings and featuring the emblems of all the competing nations as a backdrop to the torch. The tower would serve as the location of the opening and closing ceremonies. The tower was too good to only use in the opening and closing ceremonies, but Disney had an idea to make it more prominent. The idea was to host public medal ceremonies in front of the torch and the tower. The victory ceremonies were previously small affairs, done semi privately. The Disney model would bring medal ceremonies front and center and give the athletes the glory of hearing their nation's national anthem while receiving their gold medal moment. This is still a big part of the Olympics today. Disney also added concerts and other entertainment events to give the spectators a complete experience at the Olympics. Disney was also responsible for designing uniforms for the Olympic staff as well as visual elements of the games to make the Olympics a more cohesive experience. Disney legend John Hench notably designed a special torch for the games, and this started a trend of designing a new torch inspired by each Olympic locale for every game's after. Entertainment and design are also still a major part of what a host city brings to the Olympics today. Hence the real modern Olympics. That was definitely a gold medal performance from Walt Disney and the Disney Olympic pageantry team of 1960. Today we recognize many Disney moments of a Olympic proportion. Some came out victorious, others stumbled, but all of them have left a lasting mark on the history of two international the Olympic Games and Disney. And with that, let's start our closing ceremonies. 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