SALT LAKE CITY When U.S. athlete Jeremy Bloom
received a call to appear on The Ice Dream with Roy and H.G., his first
reaction was, Who's that?
Teammates, his agent and Australian athletes immediately prodded him
and said, You have to do the show. What Bloom quickly learned is
that Roy and H.G. are the hosts of
one of the hottest late-night TV shows on Australia's Channel 7. They
are quickly becoming a cult hit in the United States after getting off to
a wild start at the Games in Sydney in 2000. Athletes and delegation
members from Sydney have been sharing tapes of the show to keep up with
two of the more irreverent characters on TV.
It is best compared to The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, but these two
gentlemen, who show staffers just call 'The Boys,' take full advantage
of looser Australian TV regulations in terms of raunchiness. As for
questions for guests, about anything goes.
These are the interviews that I like to do, Bloom said the
morning after. Normal interviewers just always ask the same thing, so
it is fun to do something silly, not think about it and just have fun.
Bloom managed to cram a bit before the show, when he got his hands on a
tape of one of the Sydney shows. Bloom, who will play football at the
University of Colorado next year, expected questions chiding him about why
American football players wear all those pads. Instead what he got was
questions about sex, modeling in his underwear and the future of moguls
skiing.
I had no idea what to expect, Bloom said, unknowing that they
were showing images of him modeling underwear on the monitor behind him.
I couldn't see the monitor, so I don't know where they got that
from.
Some highlights from the show:
On moguls
H.G.: "Were you
slightly disappointed with your effort yesterday?"
Jeremy: "Absolutely."
H.G.: "What did
you think of the rest of the competition? Did you think you were judged
fairly in those areas that are subjective in the moguls?"
Jeremy: "I don't think so. With all the controversy going along, I
don't think I was part of that, but as long as they're talking about it,
sure, I got ripped off."
H.G.: "It seemed
to me that a number of people attempted things yesterday which got very
low marks. I refer, of course, to Jonny Moseley's turdo-Chicko-roll
maneuver. Now I understand that the skis can't go above the head."
Jeremy: "Correct."
H.G.: "Do you
think people have almost exhausted the possibilities of what they can do
once they hit the kicker."
Jeremy: "Yes. He's the only guy that tried the inverted trick and he
prides himself on being an innovator of the sport and the rest of the pack
didn't do that."
Roy: "Jeremy,
I'd like to suggest, and this is something I have been working on at home,
that once you hit the kicker, you remove the skis. They go off on their
own accord. You would spin, then, in all manner and arrive back on your
skis. It would be within the rules. That's the only way to go, isn't it,
to make the sport more interesting, because the sport is going to die on
the vine?"
Jeremy: "Okay, if you say so, absolutely."
On sex
Roy: "I believe the
moguls tour is just rooting all the time."
Jeremy: "It's what?"
Roy: "Sex,
having sex all the time. Is that what it's about? You wake up, it's sex .
. . Is that how it is?"
Jeremy: "Yes."
Bloom, the first athlete to appear on 'The Ice Dream' for these
Games, was asked to return to the Channel 7 this week to tape another show
called SLX, dedicated to extreme sports. Find out more about Roy & H.G. and 'The Ice
Dream' at their web site -- http://www.theicedream.i7.com.au.