Frankenfreddie

Media Moment: Jimmy Kimmel Live
Queen-related: Monologue clip includes WATC

Since it’s July 4th in the United States today, pretty much all of the television programming we Canadians get from our southern neighbours will be reruns. Tonight’s episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live was no exception. 

It was a repeat show from June 16th, which was the day after the Vancouver Canucks lost to the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup final. What really made the news, however, were the riots that broke out in downtown Vancouver and the world watching in disbelief that Canada became so unglued off the ice.

Kimmel went to task on polite Canadians by incorporating some riot footage in his monologue and I must say that, as a Canadian, I laughed out loud at how he skewered our nice-nice reputation. Pretty funny stuff.

After the riots segment, he moved on to some footage of the welcome home victory parade for the Dallas Mavericks after they won the 2011 NBA finals against the Miami Heat. Kimmel was poking fun at their (big German*) captain, Dirk Nowitzki (pictured left), who was “attempting” to sing We Are the Champions to the crowd of 200,000 that had gathered at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.

Kimmel compared Nowitzki’s singing to that of Peter Boyle as Frankenstein’s monster singing Puttin’ on the Ritz in Young Frankenstein. I think that’s an insult to Peter Boyle, frankly. If Nowitzki wasn’t pronouncing the words, we’d be hard-pressed to realize it’s WATC. But in Boyle’s case, he kept the tune while unintelligibly slurring the words.

If you want to see the entire clip of Nowitzki singing — joined by his teammates and then the crowd — you can see it here. It also includes Mark Cuban’s introduction of Nowitzki and the song, which was interesting to watch.

* as described by Kimmel.