Let The Games Begin

Apparently while the rest of us watched the Olympic opening Ceremony from Sochi, American were treated to a episode of Sesame Street or something because NBC, the media outlet covering the Olympics for America, didn't show it or rather, decided nobody wanted to watch it live and will show it several hours later. For the benefit of America, you missed a treat.
My personal highlights was when the five giant snowflakes appeared and slowly transformed into the Olympic rings. Actually only four did leaving four Olympic rings, a big snowflake and a snowflake engineer hurriedly shoving clothes into a suitcase and looking up the schedule for the next flight to Mexico.
Where we had the Queen parachuting out of a helicopter, Russia had President Putin stepping out of a door to declare the Games open and herald the lighting of the torch by Russian gymnast, Alina Kabayeva, who may or may not be Putin's mistress.
The normally boring 'Meet The Athletes' bit was brightened by a member of the Austrian team falling flat on his face and the Bermuda squad turning up in shorts.  
That's basically it, lots of dancing and music and fireworks but nobody was expecting the grand finale when the mascot removed his head to reveal Edward Snowden.
As the BBC man said: 'Maybe its a good thing NBS isn't showing it live, they will probably cut that bit' so if it isn't included on NBC tonight when they show it, that what happened.