Let the Games of the Milli-Vanilli Olympiad Begin!
From the AP:
A 7-year-old Chinese girl was not good-looking enough for the Olympics opening ceremony, so another little girl with a pixie smile lip-synched "Ode to the Motherland," a ceremony official said—the latest example of the lengths Beijing took for a perfect start to the Summer Games….
The news follows reports that some footage of the fireworks exploding across China's capital during the ceremony was digitally inserted into television coverage, apparently over concerns that not all of the 29 blasts could be captured on camera….
Lin Miaoke's performance Friday night, like the ceremony itself, was an immediate hit. "Nine-year-old Lin Miaoke becomes instant star with patriotic song," the China Daily newspaper headline said Tuesday.
But the real voice behind the tiny, pigtailed girl in the red dress who wowed 91,000 spectators at the National Stadium on opening night really belonged to 7-year-old Yang Peiyi. Her looks apparently failed the cuteness test with officials organizing the ceremony, but Chen said her voice was judged the most beautiful.
The girl pictured here is the one who passed "the cuteness test." And, apparently, made the appropriate gang signals as well.
Is it just me, or did America—or maybe only Bob Costas, who looks digitally altered himself these days—just lose its innocence? Please don't tell me that the gun guy running around the perimeter of the top of the Olympic stadium during the opening cermonies was suspended by wires!
Speaking of good looks and the Olympics, here's a chilling Cold War-era tale of "vitamins" and sex-change operations featuring East German shotputter Andreas nee Heidi Krieger.
Milli Vanilli remembered here. Other classic lip-synchs include Whitney Houston and the National Anthem, Ashlee Simpson on SNL, and…add your own here.
Marni Nixon, queen of the Hollywood lip-synchers, remembered here.
