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Olympic satire

Broadcast Date: June 17, 1975

It seems the CBC's Max Ferguson couldn't resist getting in a dig about the upcoming Olympics. In this 1975 radio skit, Ferguson's fictional Olympic torchbearer is a 74-year-old potato farmer from Woodstock, N.B. The elderly man had won the final Olympic lottery, but since there was no money left for a million-dollar prize, his reward was the chance to carry the Olympic torch. Using that torch, the old man lights a gasoline-soaked politician on fire — can you guess who that might be?

Olympic satire

• By 1975, the Olympics were already at least $200 million over budget, and growing. To many, the mayor's promise of a deficit-free Olympics had become a joke. Comedians and cartoonists were particularly focused on Drapeau's quote, "the Montreal Olympics can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby." One 1974 cartoon (shown here) by Montreal cartoonist Terry Mosher (whose pen name is Aislin) showed a pregnant Drapeau on the phone saying "Ello, Morgentaler?"

• The primary reasons for the spiralling costs and delays stemmed from the extravagant designs for Olympic facilities, combined with labour problems and strikes on their constructions sites. But when it came to soaring costs and wasted money, it seemed everything that could go wrong did. At one point there was even a labour strike at the mint that made commemorative Olympic coins, which were helping finance the games.

• In one amusing story from 1976, the Globe and Mail reported that COJO (Le Comité organisateur des Jeux Olympiques, or the Olympic Organizing Committee) had paid $115,000 for a song called Welcome to Montreal by teenage singer René Simard. It was "so awful" that radio stations refused to play it. "I listened to it once, and that was enough for me," said one station's program director. As a result, COJO decided to put even more money into promoting the song.

• Late in 1975, Quebec's provincial government instituted a special provincial task force to take over the planning of the Games and get everything back on track. This committee was not only charged with scaling down and speeding up the construction of the facilities; it was also aiming to improve the horrible image the Montreal Games had throughout Canada and the rest of the world.

Olympic satire

Medium: Radio

Program: The Max Ferguson Show

Broadcast Date: June 17, 1975

Performer: Max Ferguson

Duration: 3:18

Last updated:
May 26, 2004