Every Winter Olympics, I do two things:

1. Marvel anew at the existence of ice dancing.
2. Watch the 1993 Disney comedy Cool Runnings.

The movie stars John Candy, testing our suspension of disbelief as a former Olympic athlete. He has a theory that world-class sprinters are really just underdressed world-class bobsledders. And when three of Jamaica’s fastest are tripped up trying to qualify for the Summer games, Candy gets to put his theory to the test. As he explains to one of his old teammates:

Listen, three of these guys can run the hundred in under ten-flat. I don’t care who you are, that’s lightning!

But what Irv fails to mention is that the fourth team member, Sanka Coffie, runs the hundred in about fifteen.

Matthew Wrather hosts with Peter Fenzel, Mark Lee, John Perich, Jordan Stokes, and special guest Natalie Baseman to overthink Valentine’s Day, Sharktopodes, the Olympics, the Tough Guy challenge, and more Valentine’s Day. Fair warning: It gets a little NSFW towards the end.

→ Download Episode 85 (MP3)

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A few times a generation, a book comes along that is so revered, so respected, that copies of it become heirlooms. The physical objects become mementos of joyful reads as well as signs of status and conversation pieces.  Many more times a generation, a book comes along that is so overprinted, so unnecessary, that copies of it are stashed in the corners of warehouses for a decade until they are donated in bulk to Goodwill.

On the Court with . . . Hakeem Olajuwon is one of those books.  Yeah, it’s one of the second kind of books.

So, when one of my friends managed to score five copies of it in a Yankee gift swap (along with matching Captain Picard and Commander Riker commemorative plates and three bags of Chocolate Reisen), it seemed doubtful anyone would read it. But here at Overthinking It, doubtful doesn’t stop us. We specialize in taking the doubtful and making the dubious.

Plus, there were those two words at the top: “Matt Christopher.”  If those words don’t make you cry out in joy, read on to find out what you’re missing.

More on the Dream Shake as rite of passage, the mid-90s perception of Islam, and the zombie Tom Clancy of Little League Baseball, after the jump!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to enjoy the new Fox show “Glee,” but as I’ve mentioned on multiple times in the podcast, the show’s frequent trips towards absurdity often try my sense of suspension of disbelief.

One incident in particular stands out to me as an exceptional offense. In episode 4, the song “Single Ladies” inspires the hapless football team to find its groove, but more specifically, it allows Kurt, the over-the-top gay member of the glee club, to kick the game winning extra point.

The day after the game, when our “Superbowl” podcast hit the site, I noticed that our editor had chosen to spell it in one word, as opposed to the standard “Super Bowl.” At first I thought nothing of it; I just attributed the variance to his self-professed ignorance of all things football.

But then I noticed the “Superbowl” spelling popping up all over the internets, from Cinematical to the Belfast Telegraph. Even the Wall Street Journal got in on the act.

Fear began to overcome me. If the all-powerful media, with its copy checkers and style guides, was getting it wrong, what, then, of the general public?

Google Trends (an infallible source of knowledge) confirmed my worst fears: as a search term, “Superbowl” has pulled ahead of “Super Bowl.” America officially can’t spell.

(Note: The above charts use Google Trends from the US only to minimize the impact of non-English speakers sullying the results.)

Yes, I realize this is teh inturwebz, where mangling the English language is par for the course. But I had faith that Americans would at least take the time to spell “SUPER BOWL,” that most sacred of all American days, properly. I was wrong.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a new American Spelling Crisis, just another case of language evolving, or somethingmuchworse?

Overthinking It salutes this year’s Super Bowl champions with some totally unnecessary Excel.

As the series of graphs below demonstrate, the Pittsburgh Steelers perform better when the US produces more steel, but the Denver Nuggets perform worse with increased gold production, as do the Tennessee Titans (formerly the Houston Oilers) with increased oil production.*

Click on any of the graphs for larger versions.

*Yes, I know that extremely weak (i.e., virtually non-existent) correlation does not equal causation.

Go Steelers, and go steel producers.

And then when Cooney died at first, and Barrows did the same,
A sickly silence fell upon the patrons of the game.

A dominating closer? If so, how come nobody’s striking out? These guys are putting the ball in play, and as I always say, a lot of what’s perceived as good pitching is in fact solid defense.

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Matthew Belinkie, Ryan Sheely, and Matthew Wrather overthink the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Download Episode 11 (AAC Format)

Okay, sorry for my time away sports fans. Let’s pick up where we left off.

In the last two posts, I’ve discussed the inversion at the heart of sports movies — how the screen serves as a window and a mirror, telling a story in opposition to a viewer’s expectations and perspective. Rookie of the Year is about a kid who’s bad at baseball, Major League is about how serious our National Pastime is, and Necessary Roughness, it turns out, is a fairly frivolous movie intended for leisure that’s pleasant and easy to watch—that is, neither Necessary, nor Rough (nor an Empire, which if you ask me is a damned shame).

And there’s my segue. Guys in green shirts.

Aside from ethnic stereotyping that didn’t even skirt the issue (Mariachis are sexy! Indians are crass capitalists! Chinese are pandas!), there was an overriding theme to this year’s Super Bowl ads. It started with the Audi Godfather spot.