NBC: “Uh, sorry about that”

The National Broadcasting Co. and its affiliates and related cable stations have apologized for its choice of “inappropriate comments and images” it provided while showing the United States Olympic team during the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Summer Games.

“We admit that some of the commentary relating to the current political climate might have been, um, a bit over the top,” NBC Olympics executive producer Molly Solomon said, “especially the references to the ‘big mouth’ and ‘fat ass’ of the former president.

“And in retrospect, we could have found better photos to show, relative to the home states of some of the American athletes. Showing Texas gymnast Simone Biles alongside a picture of a drunk Senator Ted Cruz, and showing soccer star Megan Rapinoe of California waving next to a photo of Rep. Kevin McCarthy groveling in front of the ex-president at Mar-a-Lago just seemed a tad excessive,” Solomon said.

The decision by NBC to express its regrets follows the apologies by MBC, a South Korean broadcaster, which showed images of, among other things, pizza as the Italian team entered, salmon alongside Norwegians, Chernobyl as Ukraine arrived and Count Dracula with the Romanians, plus comments about a 10-year civil war alongside images of the Syrian team, and the assassination of Haitian president Jovenel Moise as that country’s athletes marched in.

Sakura Kokumai, a Japanese American karate gold medalist at the the 2019 Pan American Games, said she was surprised that CNBC showed closeups during the opening ceremony of her and Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Fist, the only senator to vote against the anti-Asian hate crimes bill passed in April.

“Well, we thought it would only be appropriate to give a balanced viewpoint of the bill,” said Shepard Smith, who joined CNBC last year as a news anchor and executive editor. “One in favor of it, one against.”

Meanwhile, Telemundo-NBC Deportes sports anchor Miguel Gurwitz said he could “see how some of the images we showed during the opening ceremonies could be misconstrued, particularly the photo of rolls of paper towels as the team from Puerto Rico was introduced.”

And Telemundo sportscaster Carlos Hermosillo added, “The video of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Hypocrite, singing Maria, I just met a girl named Maria with pictures of the hurricane that devastated the island, well, that was uncalled for.”

When German-born Steffen Peters and Sabine Schut-Kery, members of the U.S. equestrian team, appeared on the screen during Peacock’s coverage of the ceremony, alongside a photo of officers at the Eagle’s Nest at Berchtesgaden, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Reichstag, reportedly leapt to her feet shouting “Jawohl, mein fuhrer!” but that has yet to be confirmed by ihre beraterin in her hauptquartier.

NBCUniversal chief executive Jeff Shell said he expected the Games to be a ratings bonanza, “although I wonder why the USA Network, one of our cable channels showing competition, chose to broadcast Farewell to Manzanar and Kommando 1944,” about the Japanese internment camps in the United States during World War II.