Humour is sorely absent on Seven, writes Will Brodie.

SOMETIMES it is good to know that in parts of the world it is still 1984.

When, on Olympic day three, Simon Marshall, close to 1.30am, startled the remnant few in my office with a blaring, falsetto "You little rippahhhh!", I knew that the Olympic bivouac was truly back in town, bringing with it the enthusiasm, real and forced, of traditional over-the-top commentary.

Marshall's whooping at the climax of the equestrian teams event brought back memories of Lou Richards talking up a one-sided footy game in which the slaughtered underdog manages a consolation goal, forcing Louie to cry, "Oh boy, can they come back from here?!"

A colleague was reminded of ABC radio's Benny Pike and George Grljusich making past Olympic boxing broadcasts a showcase of vaudevillian passion. "You only wanted 10 minutes of them every four years but they were great."

And that's the beauty of the Olympics; everyone, from judo players and archers to less-exposed commentators making the most of their quadrennial minutes of fame, bring their decade, and their values with them.

Former champion jockey Marshall left no sports fan in doubt as to the era and profession that formed him by exhorting, at 2.19am Australian time, that German rider Hinrich Romeike was moving "into equine immortality".

These words are sacred in Australian horse racing, being those exclaimed by late, great caller Bill Collins at the end of the "race of the century", the 1986 W.S. Cox Plate.

But let's enter the Olympic spirit - which means forgiving amateurish faults as if we are a family member helping out with a scout jamboree - and say that Marshall was caught up in the moment, and his true passion bled through.

Similarly, let's cut host broadcaster Seven some slack.

Though no one has a good word to say about Seven's Olympic coverage, I put a lot of that down to the "you can't please everyone" principle, especially as viewers are fussier than ever, there are 28 sports, and there are many overlapping events involving Australians.

You just can't cover an entire soccer debacle live while concurrently covering swimming and rowing heats and "staying across" the latest Chinese clean sweep of the floor or weightlifting. And pay for it all without having endless ads.

Decisions have to be made.

The thing I can't forgive is the air of middling competence of the whole thing, the lack of drama, inspiration, imagination and especially humour. It feels as if the whole coverage was dropped into a comfortable, familiar template.

Oh for Roy and H.G.! If ever their warped realism was required, it is at this po-faced meet.

It is as if the spectre of the limiting Chinese has made everyone retreat into pre-packaged slickness. Graphics, backdrops, intros and outros are all polished, very 2008; like much of modern life, the whole thing is surface-designed and polished but there is the lingering doubt that it is all a glittering mirage.

This "professionalism" is saved from itself by the scale of the five-ringed affair, which exposes the expert and articulate (David Culbert, trackside), alongside the knowledgeable but tongue-tied (Daniel Kowalski, poolside).

The dearth of spontaneous, unscripted live TV on our airwaves is addressed with magnificent clumsiness by endless hours of Olympic footage. The committed viewer is ensured of "rippah" moments.

Away from Seven's swooping crane shots and slo-mos, in the occasional colour piece in the back pages of the Olympics supplement or in the features section of an Olympics website, you could catch sight of a "real" China, circa Stone-Age poverty, or timeless communist paranoia. The lockout of fans and families from the cycling road races; the overzealous media officer at the pool; the dagginess of the Beijing everyman. Abuse, repression, protests, censorship ...

Maybe we shouldn't ask the broadcaster to provide a panoramic overview of all the dimensions of such a massive and chaotic event. Sports fans just want the Grant Hackett final in full.

Perhaps other media should be our source for insights into modern China.

But couldn't our host broadcaster offer a glimmer of irony, an upturned lip of cynicism, a glance sideways at the rarest and prohibited substance at the Games: a giggle? Neil Kearney whimsy at 2am does not suffice.

You had to be eternally vigilant to find coverage of this Games' loveable loser, a Democratic Republic of Congo swimmer a minute slower than Michael Phelps over 50 metres.

For mine, Seven, if it wasn't going to perform an emergency Roy and HG. airlift, needed to bus Simon Marshall poolside to get rhapsodic over Stany the Stingray's freestyle heat.

At least they both seemed excited and amused by the whole shebang.

The only thing worth taking seriously at the modern Games are the naive, neglected 1890s values of bringing people and nations together.

And what brings people together more than a good laugh?