"You Vill Be Happy!"

I don’t know why it annoyed me so much.  It echoed exactly what I wrote yesterday, except, this time, about drama.  Maybe, hearkening to Fagin from the musical Oliver!,

“I think I better think it out again.”

My perspective yesterday was a lament for a now passé genre of comedy which, characterized in three words, would be,

“Recess from Reality.”

Call it the “Silly Putty” of comedic entertainment, consumed not for learning and growing but just laughing.  (“Soupy Sales”, anyone?)  Not all the time, but sometimes, I think, we need a restorative “palate cleanser” from life.  Which seems no longer commercially available.

Call me a “Lonely Crusader for Comedic Diversity.”

(I just imagined myself, a solitary protester, carrying a sign on a stick reading, “Where’s ‘The Silly?’”  Wearing a loud, checkered coat and a flower that squirts water?  No.  That’s “Gilding the Lily.”  Regular clothes, with an incendiary message.  A classy campaign, championing unclassy comedy.  Paraphrasing the old {animated} sitcom Dinosaurs:   “Lonely Protester – Gotta love me.”)   

Alright, enough about me.

“Yeah, right.” 

Oh, a gratuitous “Wake-Up” call from “Blue Italics Person.”  Thank you.

Anyway, so here comes this guy, writing an op-ed column in the paper about how the Hallmark television channels are making a fortune doing, basically, “Recess From Reality” dramas, and I’m like,

“Wow.  He’s saying what I’m saying.  And I hate him!”

Comforting Head’s Up:  “Meaningful Distinction” to follow.  (So you won’t think I am “bank-shotting” hating myself.  Always a possibility, but not, thankfully, this time.)

The commentary’s objective observer characterizes “Hillary Country” entertainment as “dystopian”, “grim”, “dark” and populated by (Booga-Booga!) “unconventional families.”

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

That purportedly left-leaning audience, otherwise known as “The Devil’s Spawn”, is said to be “dwindling.”  (Not because of the many available alternatives.  It’s the irredeemable subject matter that’s doing them in.)

On the other hand, the ratings and revenues for Crown Media’s Hallmark networks, offering the good people of America “shows that express traditional family values”, steering clear of shows expressing “political themes and stories that denigrate religion” favored by the“Trump Country” viewership are soaring.

Justly so, as they are doing “The Lord’s Work” on television.

I have thought about writing how the country’s “Political Divide” has created two diametrical cultures of entertainment, but as my time on this planet winds down, I have (hopefully) abandoned chronicling the obvious. 

Our Current Predicament:

Two nations. 

Two distinguishable entertainments.

Taking a moment to (gratuitously) mock theirs…

The self-righteous op-ed columnist mentions a Yuletide-themed made-for-TV movie entitled, “The Christmas Train.”  Full Disclosure:  I happened to have somehow missed that movie.  But here’s my (imagined) “Thematic High Point.”   

Everyone’s sad to be away from their loved ones during this special time of the year… until somebody chimes up:

Wait.

Diabetic Alert:  I am unaware of the distinction, so, erring on the side of caution, readers with “Type One” and “Type Two” diabetes should assiduously avoid the following (pretend) summary.

Okay, now that I have averted the legal consequences of “Abetting a coma”, where was I?

Oh yeah.

We have reached the emotional nadir of this heart-tugging saga.  At which point, some upbeat “Heartland Pollyanna” exhorts,

“Come on, people.  If we all can’t be home for the holidays, why not celebrate Christmas right here on this train!”

Hold on.  My fillings just started to ache.

Okay, now the “Meaningful Distinction.” 

My Promoted Agenda:  An available alternative of comedic silliness, sprinkled amongst the “Wiser Heads Leading Us Out of the Wilderness Into Enlightened Wisdom, Insight and Understanding.” 

But with laughs.

The Columnist’s Similar But Demonstrably Different Frightening Agenda: (In the form of a “Capitalist Warning”):

“Television producers are typically quick to emulate the latest success.  But for many, apparently, Hallmark-style programming that appeals to red state residents is a bridge too far.  The loss is theirs.”

The Punitive Message:  Do it our way, or go broke.  (Never mind that the “Hillary Country” programming amasses all the honoring awards.  To the “Never nominated (for good reason)”, that just shows that the elitist “Anointed Arbiters of Quality” are as “out of step” as the producers. 

Wow.  I once got “96” on a Chemistry exam.  Cautioning Subtext:  “Somebody studied.”)

Okay, I gotta go take a “Bile Bath.”  (By which I do not mean a bath in bile, but rather a bath to cleanse at least some of the oleaginous stuff off.)  I am not sure what got into me today.  I have entirely eschewed my customary admirable “Argumentative Balance.”  Something about a sensible suggestion, carried to a worrisome extreme.

I wanted to revive a hue in the comedical rainbow.

This fatuous flak insisted that every television production should sound like the theme song from Annie.”