AFV

I was once taking on online quiz about Starbucks* and received a personality profile based on my standard small black coffee that read something to the effect of: you are the type of person who watches America's Funniest Home Videos (or AFV as I like to call it, with or without acknowledging that there should be an H there) and thinks it is a great show. Initially, I resented the classification, not because it tried to imply that my simple coffee taste meant I was simply simple. I simply resented the classification because it attempted to use AFV as an insult. You can insult my coffee taste, but don't insult one of the hallmarks of American culture (unless you are referring to the years when Daisy Fuentes was a co-host).

I may have written something similar to this column (I like to avoid the word blog for posterity's sake) (and no I have no idea what the last parenthetical means), so for those of you who have been reading the daily doyle for some time, I apologize (to both of you). However, I recently rediscovered the show and witnessed the host claim that many American's still refer to AFV as a guilty pleasure. I found that to be a woeful, if accurate, description of American culture. Desperate Housewife's and Grey's Anatomy are guilty pleasures, AFV is the pinnacle of American art.

If you beg to differ, consider the following indisputable syllogism (or linear logical argument:
-People actually do (most) everything you see on the show
-People actually have a video recorder present at the time of the action
-The people that have a video recorder present, are present in mind just enough to capture it on video
-The people who complete the act, have a video recorder present, and capture the act, somehow are capable of finding the address to AFV which means: When someone somewhere utters "I'm going to send that into America's Funniest Home Videos," they actually follow through with it
-People actually fly to San Fransisco (or whever the show is, I assume SF, only because Bob Saget definitely still lives somewhere on the set, even if he is the dirtiest American alive), to sit on what appear to be disproportionate building blocks in hopes that they can identify themselves as the moron on the video
-And finally, people getting hit in the nuts, is and forever will be, extremely funny, with the obvious caveat that it is not you receiving the death blow to your battlestar gallactica**

To quote smiling Jack Ross, these are the facts of the case and they are undisputed. If you are not impressed by this feat, you are the same kind of person who likes to state that an infinite number of monkeys typing on an infinite number of typewritters could compose Shakespeare. To you, I pose one final convincing question, "could monkeys and/or Shakespeare use a camcorder?"


*I tried to think of a way of starting this column without acknowledging I took on online quiz about my Starbuck's preference. Alas, there was none and I am duly embarrased

**The irony here is that attributing the name battlestar gallactica is the type of quality humor that AFV fans rightly appreciate