The Random Curmudgeon Strikes Again

People are great, aren't they? I know, I spend most of my time grousing about slack-witted humanity, but even I have to admit that, for solid entertainment, you simply can't beat Homo Sapiens. Especially their television. Take for instance a certain major multi-million dollar American television network. I won't mention the name, but it's infamous for broadcasting numerous timeless media masterworks such as When Magicians Attack Stuntmen, America's Funniest Congressional Sex Scandals, and When Animals Fall Down. Seriously, though, one of this network's claims to fame is a series of programs in which a master prestidigitator, equipped only with a ridiculous mask and a handful of scantily clad females, systematically performs and explains some of history’s most legendary magic tricks. Is there someone, just one person out there somewhere, who can explain to me the purpose, or indeed the appeal, of this? I admit that, at one time or another, I myself have watched every single one of these broadcasts (approximately seventeen, I believe). Why did I do this? Simple answer: I’m a geek. I am precisely the sort of person with whom you never want to watch a magic show--or a movie, or a stunt demonstration, etc.--because I love nothing more than figuring out, and then explaining in painful detail, how all manner of amazing and/or entertaining things are accomplished. In short, I leech the fun out of things which are supposed to inspire childlike wonder in an audience. Thus, these television programs were more or less right up my alley, as they gave me a chance to confirm my long-standing suspicions and to pick up a few more secrets. But what about the rest of the population? Is it not true that the majority of people watch such things as magic exhibitions for the purpose of being amazed and intrigued? And is it not true that having the tricks explained ruins this effect? Yet, to judge by the public response to this buzzkill fad, as well as by the fact that there have been more sequels than the Police Academy franchise, the Unknown Magician and his illusion-crushing programs command a wider viewing than that of the every episode of Masterpiece Theatre ever aired combined. I don’t get it...
And then there’s daytime “talk shows”. One in particular, which I’m sure you’ll all recognize, routinely features hard-hitting pieces of thought-provoking journalism such as: “Former Transvestite Wives of Ku Klux Klan Leaders who are Cheating on their Livestock-Fetishist Lesbian Lovers with their own Identical Twins While Lobbying for the Right to Act as a Surrogate Mother for the Love-Child of a Third-Term Congressman and His Illegal Alien Man-Bride.” I know what you’re thinking. There is no way, absolutely no possibility whatsoever, that any being with an intellect superior to that of a kitchen sponge could ever believe that such people really exist. To you, I say, with utmost respect, that you are a blithering idiot. There are people, actual, legitimate, child-rearing, voting-right-equipped humans, who not only watch this program, who not only accept its presentations of absurdly aberrant specimens of anthropology as fact, but who allow themselves to become engrossed in the lives of these “people” to the point of spontaneously erupting into fits of physical violence should someone dare to question whichever logical stance they’ve adopted based on the facts demonstrated in that day’s program. But I submit that this is not frightening, as many may be tempted to think. It is merely comical, a cheerful little quirk. The real scare comes when you observe one of these same individuals turn on the evening local news report only to switch it off again in disgust, because (according to them) the newscast is obviously--and they say this in a tone that implies that only an organism less sophisticated than a slime mold would fail to realize this--a work of most sublime fiction, a work that is, no doubt, an extension of some sinister government plot to cloud the minds of its citizens and obscure reality. And they always say this with a straight face.
Ha Ha! Humans, those loveable wackos! What will they think of next?
Now, I think I’ll lock away all the knives and scissors in my house and maybe hide under a mattress in the basement for a while...