America is cranky. Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed. Even Rachel Ray seems like she’s in a bad mood. It’s frightening.
Collectively, the country has been complaining about everything and anything for the past couple of years. America has turned into Nancy Grace. We hate our government. We hate Dane Cook. We hate reality television. We hate the weather. We hate the dentist. We hate lower back tattoos. We hate our promiscuous neighbor. We hate our promiscuous neighbor’s lower back tattoo. We even hate the French, and we’re not exactly sure why.
So why is America so cranky? Is it unemployment? Nah. We can all use a vacation. Is it the deficit? Of course not. We always have a deficit. That’s why we reproduce… so our kids can pay it off.
Then what is it? What is it that has turned the entire country into an elderly woman at a booth-less restaurant? Well, it’s obvious.
We haven’t gotten over the death of Fred “Rerun” Berry.
He was America’s sweetheart, and like a widow that believes their loved was taken from them too soon, we’re bitter about his untimely departure. We feel like we’ve been cheated. It all happened so quickly. One day he was saying “hey hey hey,” and the next day we were saying “bye bye bye.”
(That was my best joke in months. Sit back, reflect on it, and enjoy a long hearty laugh. Then continue reading… or don’t. That might be the funniest this blog entry gets.)
Once Rerun left us, we forgot how to act. His pleasant demeanor and boisterous personality reminded us that we need to treat everyday like we were hired to be a part of “The Rockets” and shrug off our problems like it was an insult thrown at us from Raj’s little sister Dee (Are these references a little too obscure? If so, please refer to the * at the bottom of the page, or simply just trust the fact that it was hilarious and laugh regardless). Once he was gone, we quickly forgot these valuable lessons.
We all need to let go. As much as we want him back, it’s not going to happen. Once we realize this, we’ll stop getting so worked up about trivial things such as child abductions, devastating oil spills, and declining life expectancy rates, and we’ll start enjoying life again. Once we do, you can expect occurrences like this to break out in local diners all around our beautiful country.
Cheer Up America!
* “The Rockets” were a fictional band that Rerun enjoyed on the show What’s Happening!! During one episode, Rerun was hired to be part of their band. Unfortunately it’s discovered that they only wanted him because they thought his weight was humorous (typical 70s obesity humor). As for Dee and Reruns relationship, they fought more than the couple on Everybody Loves Raymond.
The other day another obesity study was released, and once again the Americans are the World Champions!
If we all weren’t so out of shape, I’d suggest that we take a bow.
When these studies come out, everyone debates what the problem is. Our food isn’t healthy. We watch too much television. We’re lazy.
I think all of these reasons are bogus. I mean, we do eat unhealthy, we do watch too much television, and we are extremely lazy, but that’s not why we’re fat. The real culprit behind our need for numerous Big and Tall clothing stores is the sport that America neglects like it was a Gosselin child:
Soccer
Every other country in the world (excluding Canada… if we are even counting that as a country) loves soccer. They love watching it, they love playing it, and they love fighting over it. Unfortunately Americans seem to be the only ones in the world to understand one crucial detail about this beloved sport: it’s extremely boring.
I’ve tried to catch World Cup fever. Unfortunately because I’m American, it’s easier for me to contract HIV. Over the past couple of weeks, if I was sitting and watching soccer, I would almost immediately fall asleep. If I was already asleep and soccer was playing on the television, I would slip into a mild coma. It’s 89.9 minutes of kicking a ball back and forth and about .01 minutes of plays that can make a highlight reel. It makes televised bowling feel like the finale of M.A.S.H.
European countries don’t struggle with obesity like we do because they enjoy playing soccer. It’s an active sport where the players probably run about 5 miles a game, if not more. But the majority of us don’t waste our time with this sport because it’s dull. We have better ways to bore ourselves for 90 minutes. That’s what The History Channel is for.
What doesn’t help our obesity rate is the fact that the American pastime is considered to be baseball. When it comes to the physical activity required for a sport, baseball is just above darts.
Look at these guys…
Most baseball players probably run a total of 1 minute per game, and a majority that running typically takes place when the player is hurrying to the clubhouse to be first in line for the cheese buffet. But this is our pastime. Most of us are forced to play it for years when we are children, and it’s then that our inactive tendencies begin to develop.
But it could be worse… we could be playing soccer.
So when other countries point their skinny fingers at us Americans and our plus sized lifestyles, lets keep our gigantic heads up. Because although we may be big, at least we don’t enjoy soccer.
It may be the best show you’re not watching on Sunday’s at 6pm. Maybe you miss it because you have forgotten about it. Maybe you don’t catch it because it’s on ABC, one of the dullest television networks in the world, second only to the local cable channel devoted to posting updates and activities taking place at the nearest community college. Either way, the country has ignored this show more than it has ignored Hurricane Katrina victims… yet it’s still on the air year after year. The show I’m talking about is…
This show is delightful. They are celebrating their twentieth year on the air this year, and we’ve been loyal fans for two of them.
After Danny Tanner stopped hosting, I, and all the other dedicated Full House fans of my generation, turned our backs to this magnum opus. But time heels all wounds, and because of reruns and maturity, I have found myself frequently watching this show again.
America’s Funniest Home Videos, hiply referred to now as AFV, is not only a compilation of hilarious home videos, but is also a very interesting look into the American psyche. More specifically it shows what us as American’s think is funny. And when you watch enough episodes, it becomes obvious that our sense of humor is disgusting and perverse. Brace yourself fellow countrymen… below I have listed the shockingly disturbing things that American’s, including myself, think is funny.
Confusing Animals – We cannot get enough of animals not knowing what the hell is going on. As if being a dog wasn’t already confusing enough, we find it hilarious when a laser pointer is jumping around the room and Shadow is doing his best to try and catch it. “How stupid!” we think you ourselves. “Doesn’t a species that has been around for ages know what a laser pointer is?!?”
Lets label this what it really is: animal cruelty. We are taking human dependent mammals and exposing their intellectual shortcomings, all for the sake of a good laugh. It’s torture for the benefit of humor. But as recent history has proved, torture can be pretty funny.
LOL!
People Falling Down – This is my favorite part of the show. But what is shocking is how much the age range of the person doing the falling affects the humor of the clip. AFV has proven that the preferred age range for a comical fall is from 1 -6 years old and anyone over 60… anything in between loses its comedic value. And why is this? Because those ages have the most risk of not surviving their stumble. It’s sick, but it’s true.
Grandma falling down at the bowling alley gets the biggest laughs on the show, yet grandma is fragile. Grandma’s body wasn’t built to fall at the bowling alley. Grandma shouldn’t even be at the the bowling alley. But damn it’s a funny sight when her old bones stumble on the slick bowling lane.
And kids? When their tiny bodies do a flip after a sled accident, the crowd collectively pees their pants. But what are we laughing about? A child who barely avoided a lifetime of paralyzation? Exactly.
You’ll notice that with most videos of people falling, they cut away right after the person goes down. That’s because 47% of the accidents we see on the show result in death. True fact.
Weddings Gone Wrong – It’s the biggest day of your life. You plan for months, sometimes years for this occasion. Tens of thousands of dollars are spent on this special event where you vow to spend the rest of your life with someone else… and we LOVE to watch it go wrong.
The groom pukes, the bride trips, the best man faints, the cake is dropped, the ring girl picks her nose, the horse attached to the buggy goes bizerk and runs away with the bride and groom towards dead mans cliff… we eat that shit up!
American’s love it when something that means so much to someone goes terribly wrong. It’s cruel! It’s like going to the hospital and laughing at the husband whose wife just died during breast implant surgery. But what can we say? As American’s, we love it when things go awry. That’s why we give so much attention to Lindsay Lohan.
A Man’s Genitals Getting Abused – Being a man (sort of), I know first hand how painful it is to be struck in that special area. You can’t breathe, you can’t move, your heart stops, your brain bleeds… it’s the worst. But when I see a kid hit his dad in the crotch with a wiffle ball bat, I laugh so hard that I’m brought to tears.
Seeing an adult male experience the worse pain possible is a delight to all of us, male or female. To add to the humor, after the impact the host will make the obvious, “he won’t be able to have any more kids” comment. This makes us laugh harder. Why? Because it’s true! We just watched a man lose his ability to reproduce! The dreams him and his wife shared of having another child is now shattered… and that’s funny! A hit to the crotch that causes the inability for a man to generate useful sperm is funnier than any Tyler Perry movie.
Unfortunately, there is a flaw to this great eye-opening show…
It is my belief that early on in the development of AFV, producers, government officials, and clergy members started noticing a trend in what we as American’s thought was funny… and they didn’t like it. In the digital age, everyone from around the world has the ability to see what video American’s thought deserved the $100,000 season finale grand prize. And what do American’s find funniest? Torturing animals, people hurting themselves, ruined weddings, and accidental vasectomies.
This show came out in 1989, a year before Operation Desert Storm. In order to get worldwide support for this war, we had to improve our image… and what better way to do that than to fix the voting results on America’s most watched television show of the 1989/90 season? Which is why the video that wins every show is…
Babies and Kids Being Cute! – What a crock! We watch great grandpa trip and fall into a kiddie pool and we laugh til we bleed. We watch a three year old eating ice cream and getting it all over their face, and we think to ourselves, “This is boring. I hope they replay that old guy falling into the kiddie pool again!” Yet at the end of the show, that great grandpa clip is nowhere to be found… but that damn kid eating ice cream is one of the top three finalists for funniest video.
Although this is frustrating to the viewer, there is typically a mildly funny video in the top three where someone gets a little hurt or a wedding kind of gets ruined, so we’re satisfied knowing that this will win. But when the winner is announced, all of our fears come true: the worst video of the show wins the money… and it’s a kid being cute. Kids are cute all the time. They say stuff like “where’s my bubby?” and “Uncle Sean scares me,” and it’s delightful. But it’s not funny. A dog going into an epileptic seizure is funny. A groom puking on his future mother in law is funny. An old man falling off a roof is funny.
What’s not funny is the twisted sense of humor in this country, which is why week after week AFV rigs the results and assures the American reputation isn’t tarnished any more than it already is.
AFV, do the right thing. Let America’s votes count, no mater how sadistic they may be. In your theme song you state, “America, this is you!” It’s time for the unfortunate truth of that statement to be displayed in the weekly prize winners.
Everyone has their own fantasy of what they would do if they won the lottery, and I’m no different. However, I don’t play the lottery. I don’t even think I know how to play the lottery. So when I fantasize about receiving large amounts of money, it rarely includes winning the lotto. My fantasies are much more realistic: they involve an extremely wealthy businessman that wants nothing more than to give away his money to the next guy that walks through the front doors of the Dutch Inn West Bar and Grill. Luckily, that person would be me.
With a large sum of money, there’s one thing I would want to do: blow it all. I love the stories of people who win the lotto and then go bankrupt. I recently read about a girl who won three million dollars two years ago, and since then she has spent nearly one million of it on designer clothes alone. Now she’s down to a couple thousand dollars and wishing she never won the lottery. That’s awesome! I want that kind of story, only when I’m broke I won’t say, “I wish I never got all that money.” I’ll say “I hope I get that much money again! That was rad! Now lets go look at all the cool shit I bought before I have to give it back!”
Because I’ve thought about this so much, I wanted to share some of the things I’d do if I received a ridiculous amount of cash.
If I Received $910,000,000.
I would make an unknown, terrible book into a best seller. Something like the novelization of the movie Air Bud 2 – Golden Retriever. Since I’m sure this has never been published, I would spend $200 million on getting an enormous amount of copies made. Then I would make sure that each copy was sold for $1, and I would purchase 700 million copies. The remaining $10 million I would spend on hiring Steven Spielberg to film John Grisham, Beverly Clearly, and J.K. Rowling’s faces when they hear that the novelization of the film Air Bud 2 – Golden Retriever has sold more copies than all of their books combined.
If I Received $17,900,000,000
I’d buy NASA, which is reported to be worth around 17.6 billion dollars. First order of business would be getting Lance Bass into space, so he could live his/our lifelong dream of having a member of N’Sync experience space travel. I’d also change the name of NASA to N’NASA in honor of the revolutionary band Lance helped create. With all the hate mail I’d get from space geeks, scientists, and Backstreet Boys fans, I’d throw a big honarary bon fire for Lance when he got back from his journey. The next day I’d shut down NASA… sorry… N’NASA, and spend the rest of the money on turning the headquaters into a big Showbiz Pizza, since I haven’t seen one of those places in years.
If I Received $9,000,000
I would get all the plastic surgery necessary to look like Devon Sawa, circa 1995. This is the year he was in Casper. Ladies, don’t even pretend to not know what I’m talking about.
No matter what age the women from my generation are, they still melt at the thought of this 15 year old coming down the stairs after turning from ghost to human. So I would get enough plastic surgery to look completely identical to him. Then I would go out on the town every night and flirt with women in my age range until all of them realize how creepy it is that at their age they still think a 15 year old is sexy.
Sorry if I sound bitter, I’ve just had way too many relationships destroyed because of the end of Casper.
If I Received $1,368,983
I would hire the worlds greatest private investigator to track down Carmen Sandiego ($600,000). Once found, I would hire a group of locals in whatever exotic country she has been located in to capture her ($38). Then I would have a private jet transport her to O’Hare airport ($66,000), and from there an armored car would drive her to my basement ($1,500). In the basement I will have a state of the art cage ($30,000), equipped with a bed($600), shower($200) ,toilet($225) and clothes from T.J. Maxx ($110). Then I will rehire the private investigator that found her to track down her mom and dad ($600,000). Meanwhile, while waiting for her parents to be located, I will keep Carmen fed ($800) and entertained with a high definition television ($1600) and every Gilmore Girls Complete Season DVD that is on the market ($250). Once her parents are found, I will have them flown to O’Hare on a private jet ($66,000) and have a limo transport them from the airport to my house ($160). Once they get there, I will take out my brand new video camera ($1500), and record the dramatic and emotional reunion that has been in the making since I was in grade school (priceless).
Carmen and Family!
If I Received $500,000,000
I would spend $499,000,000 on the fattiest foods you can think of: milkshakes, whoppers, pizzas, hot dogs… anything loaded with an inhumane amount of calories. Then with the remaining $1,000,000, I would ship all of this food over to the smallest famine stricken country I could find. That way I could feed the hungry, and at the same time ensure that the U.S. would no longer have the highest obesity ratio in the world! It would solve two problems at once!
The next time the department of health releases a survey of the fattest countries in the world, we won’t have to be embarrassed: Mozambique will! Furthermore, I can’t think of anything better for our countries image than an American single handedly spreading heart disease throughout a third world country.
America
