What if You Switched the Olympic Judges With the Nailed It Judges?
Comedy vs. tragedy on ice and in the kitchen
The Olympics are stressful. The commentators are always talking about how much pressure the athletes are under. The stakes are raised even higher this year because the athletes could get COVID or be randomly disqualified.
And then, there are those emotionally deafening statements commentators make. “All of Nathan Chen's life has come down to these last four minutes. His whole life will be decided in these four minutes.”
I press 9–1 on my phone when I’m watching just in case I have a heart attack from anxiety that results from overidentifying with the athletes. I watch the skaters with the same magical focus I try to control an errant bowling bowl with veering towards the gutter. Don’t fall. Don’t miss the quad lutz.
To calm down after, I put on the hilarious cooking show Nailed It. I don’t drink or do drugs so watching a comedy cooking show is like lighting a joint or pouring a glass of scotch — takes the edge off.
Nailed It has the opposite judging style as The Olympics does. There are judges, but one is a comedian, one is a guest host, and one is a very jolly French chocolate chef. Rarely is one of the guest judges an asshole. It can happen, but it’s out of character and they’re the fish out of water.
In Nailed It, amateur cooks are challenged with making cakes that are more intricate than one of JLo’s wedding cakes. Enough fondant is used to cover a Hummer and the cake detailing is something you’d need to study at the Auguste Escoffier School of the Culinary Arts to master. Their finished products are disasters. It’s schadenfreude baby, but everybody is in on the joke.
The amateur cooks’ finished products make me laugh so hard I cry. The judges are nurturing and supportive as they eat cakes often filled with raw batter and resemble roadkill. These judges resemble parents who would love you no matter what, unlike the Olympic judges who would kick your ass out the second you shamed the family. I had a son once. He didn’t complete his quad lutz.
I thought it would be fun to Freaky Friday the judges, making the Olympic judges Nailed It judges and the Nailed It judges Olympic judges.
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED IN MY BRAIN:
The contestant is baking a cake — She forgets to separate the wet from the dry ingredients.
Olympic Judges — Can you believe what we’re seeing here? This woman is reaching thirty. This is probably her last baking show ever. After this show, what’s she gonna do with her life? You can’t mix wet and dry ingredients together without separating them first. They’re never gonna blend together completely.
Do you know that she is the first person from North Dakota ever to qualify for this baking show? She was the only one we could understand. Have you heard how people talk in North Dakota? Is that even English? I call that shithole state North Butt Cola.
Wasting her moment like this is agonizing to watch. If I weren’t a judge, I’d turn the channel. I need a drink. To think — what her family went through for her to get here — the sacrifices they made.
She is a first-generation immigrant. Her dad worked at a gas station. Does she even appreciate this opportunity? I don’t think so. Nice fucking cake, loser.
Another contestant puts a hot cake pan into the instant chiller.
Olympic Judges — These are the 30 most important seconds of his life, the only ones that even matter. Do you have any idea what happens when you put a warm cake into the chiller without letting it cool first? That cake isn’t coming out of that pan. That cakes not going anywhere — like him.
This is probably his first and last chance to even use a chiller. Where he’s from, that obscure state no one’s heard of, they don’t even have chillers. He has to get up during the frost at 3 am and stand there with his hot cake. You think he’d appreciate the kind of equipment we have here.
On the bright side, what if our brave Olympians had Nailed It Judges?
Skater falls after a double lutz.
Nailed It Judges — Oh man. I hope she’s okay. Don’t you just love those purple sparkles on her skirt? Look how she was just up in the air spinning — I bet she’s never done that before. It’s amazing. If I fell, that’s how I’d want to fall.
It didn’t look exactly like a double lutz, but she did use her arms and her legs which is really important when you’re skating. Not everyone knows that. And I bet this is a real learning moment for her. When she goes home, I bet she’ll do lutzes differently. It sort of looked like a single lutz if you watch at the review footage— which is in the lutz family.
Skater skips one of the elements, replacing it with something easier.
Nailed It Judges — Did you see how he switched it up like that? I thought he was going to do the very difficult axel jump which would have given him an extra 15 points, but instead, he did the swizzle.
That was surprising, but do you know what? One man’s axel is another man’s swizzle. I mean axel jumps are really difficult even for Olympic skaters and sometimes you just have to improvise. It may not be as high a score but it's important to know your limitations and do your best.
Conclusion — Don’t judge yourself with an Olympic Judge. If you must judge yourself, use a Nailed It Judge.