A few months ago, Jay and WCK started watching reruns of America’s Funniest Home Videos on WGN together. They both think the show is hilarious. WCK spends the entire hour shrieking and laughing out loud. I was appalled, knowing that all that footage of people falling off porch swings and catching on fire and getting hit in the crotch was going to warp my child’s brain. Still, Jay and WCK persisted in watching America’s Funniest Home Videos. Before I knew it, I was watching it with them, warping my own brain. And then, gradually, we started making the watching of America’s Funniest Home Videos a regular thing.
I’m really ashamed. For myself. For my family. For all of those people who got kicked in the crotch in the 1990s.
It started innocently. We’d get pizza or sandwiches on Friday evenings and just casually turn on the TV to see what was on and, oh, look! America’s Funniest Home Videos just happens to be on! We didn’t have a problem. We were just watching it because we were flipping channels and it just happened to be on. We didn’t, you know, turn it on on purpose or anything.
Last night I realized we had a problem. When I stopped to pick up the usual Friday night pizza, I sent Jay a text “jokingly” reminding him to be home on time for America’s Funniest Home Videos. He was home by 5:30, and we were all ready with our pizza, only to discover that America’s Funniest Home Videos (or AFV, as I will now call it, because, well, I have now watched it enough to have the right to call it “AFV”) didn’t come on until six. And waiting for it was agony! We had to watch the news! Like animals!
It finally came on at 6 p.m., and I have to tell you that WCK and I were completely outraged that the video of the seagull eating the hot dog didn’t win first prize. It lost to footage of a little boy saying, “When I grow up, I want to be a vampire bat.” Really? That’s worth $10,000? Doesn’t every little boy want to be a vampire bat? Obviously the voting is rigged, because that seagull ate an entire hot dog. Then it threw up the hot dog and ate it again! Bravo, seagull!
I’d say the injustice is enough to keep us from watching the show again, but I don’t think anything is enough to keep us from watching the show again. It would take an act of God. Or a big kick to the crotch.