Contorted comedy

Against my better judgment I was led to watch an extraordinarily bizarre bit of American TV comedy newly borrowed from Japan.  The title alone would scare off  a mindless squirrel from a corncob.  They call it "It's Time to Face the Hole",  a full half-hour of  noisy inanity which is said to be quite popular in Japan.  If so, we have little to worry about another attack on Pearl Harbor.

The object of the game was to challenge human beings (at least they seemed to be humans)  to contort their bodies in grotesque positions to pass through holes in  a styrofoam wall.  Those who succeeded ended up with some money; those who didn't were dumped into a bilious green pool.  They were, however, wearing silvery wet suits and blue helmets.  Stylish anyway. 

The entire performance reminded me of those savage professional  wrestlers who made odd sounds and pounded their chests, ape-like, in front of the TV cameras. The emcee worked hard to dramatize the adolescent humor, the attractive young hostess laughed and screamed throughout that part of the program that wasn't interrupted by commercials and the audience never stopped howling.  The teams of contestants doubtless had to visit their chiropractors the next morning.  

I don't watch much network TV (this was a product of Fox), which makes me a TV snob, I suppose.    But if this is the level of entertainment that the masses happily endure from the television set,  I can only quote that great social commentator Carmine Sabatini in the movie, The Freshman.    Ending a visit to a young college student in the latter's campus room, Carmine, a mob boss who never had the benefit of higher learning,  studied the room carefully and concluded: "I didn't miss nuttin".