Live (Sort of) From Beijing, Real (Not) Fireworks

Pity the poor reporters who set off to cover the Beijing Summer Olympics, thinking they were getting a cushy, kick-back assignment, only to find themselves in a hopeless tangle of scandals that include lip-syncing-gate, live-tag-gate and faked-fireworks-gate.

Inexplicably, the American public has not turned away in disgust, as evidenced by new stats showing "American Idol" finale-like audiences tuning in every night of the Games to date. Total viewership for the Beijing competitions through Tuesday night had reached nearly 170 million -- nearly 15 million more than for the Athens Summer Games for the same four nights.

And based on the first official Summer Games TAMi (Total Audience Measurement Index), it appears virtually everyone and his future offspring already has experienced the Beijing Games on NBC Universal 2.0, via television, online, mobile or TV video-on-demand.

"The glow of NBC's Olympics coverage ratings victory threatens to be sullied by reports that the Beijing Olympic Committee and the network have been less-than-scrupulous in their presentation of the Summer Games," sniffed the Hollywood Reporter this week.

"Newsworthy Cracks Coming to Light in the Great Wall of Olympics Coverage," scoffed the Tampa Tribune.

For starters, Opening Ceremonies organizers have been accused of telling the truth when they said they'd mixed computer-generated fireworks with the real thing for Friday night's broadcast.

"Some footage had been produced before the opening ceremony to provide theatrical effect," Beijing Games Executive Vice President Wang Wei told the news media.

Preproduced was a series of firework "footprints" seen in an aerial shot leading from Tiananmen Square to the Beijing National Stadium.

"Some of them were genuinely produced. Some maybe were used from previously recorded material," Wei explained.

"Fiery Footprints Were Phony," screamed Newsday.

"Ceremony Bigs Faked Footsteps," howled the New York Post, adding, "Admirers of the Olympics' spectacular opening ceremony said it would be difficult to follow in the program's footsteps. Now it turns out the footsteps were fake." NBC, meanwhile, got blasted for not dumbing down enough its explanation of the computer-generated effect.

When the "footprint" display was being shown to U.S. viewers Friday, NBC's Matt Lauer told us, "You're looking at a cinematic device employed by [acclaimed filmmaker and Opening Ceremonies director] Zhang Yimou here. This is actually almost animation -- a footstep a second, 29 in all, to signify the 29 Olympiads."