America's Stupidest Video Stars

I’m watching America’s Funniest Videos while I’m writing this, so if it’s incoherent, it’s because I can’t keep from being distracted by the dumb stuff people do.

The guy I just watched crammed himself into one of those one-piece plastic cars for little kids. His arms were hanging out both sides and one of his legs was out a window and the other was out the windshield area. He started down the hill and hit a dip in the road which made him take a nosedive. The car rolled nose over end several times, and this guy just had to go with it because he was wedged in there so tight he couldn’t even be thrown from the vehicle.

You gotta wonder what goes through a grown man’s mind in this kind of situation. Here’s what I imagine:

“You kids today have so many cool toys. We never had stuff like this. We had tricycles or wagons but no little molded plastic cars. I’m going to go for a ride in this thing just to see how fun it would have been if I’d had one of these when I was a kid. Here, I’m going to just cram my 185 pounds into this toy made for a 40 pound toddler, then point it down a steep, bumpy hill and let ‘er rip. Yep, that’s what I’m going to do, because it’s going to be so much fun!”

There are also those young men who ride skateboards down stairs. I know in advance every single time what’s going to happen, but when it does I laugh anyway. The kid loses contact with the skateboard, it flips up, the kid’s legs flail open and he looks like he’s doing a jumping jack, then the skateboard lands end up, and the kid crashes down on top of it a split second later – with the skateboard pointing straight up at his crotch. The kid gets the equivalent of a karate chop between the legs, and he rolls over on the sidewalk holding his privates and moaning while everyone around him laughs.

There’s a lot of humor to be had at the expense of a man’s privates. There are so many videos of toddlers jumping off a couch directly onto a man’s most sensitive area. What I can’t understand is that all men KNOW this area is sensitive, and yet they put themselves in positions that are obviously going to end with them curling up in the fetal position and rolling from side to side with hands cupped over the injured area as if trying to protect himself. He should have done that in the first place. Tonight two toddlers were taking turns jumping off a couch onto their dad’s stomach. Wonder where this is going?

How is it that someone is always holding a video camera at the right time? I’ll tell you. Because the person holding the camera is the mom. She knows what’s going to happen, and rather than warn the dad of the pain he’s about to suffer, she’s thinking, “I know it’s just a matter of time. If I can hold this camera pointed at his privates, he’s going to be rolling on the floor any second now, and we might have a chance at $10,000.”

Tonight they also had bike riders going over jumps. Does any male in America ever make it over a homemade jump on a bike? I don’t think so. Either they break the ramp on the way up, or they get to the end of the ramp and nose dive, throwing the rider over the handlebars and smacking his face in the pavement. Or he makes it over the jump and crashes on the landing.

Notice I said “he,” because 99% of the time it’s men doing this stuff. One could jump to conclusions and think that men or just stupid, but on looking closer at the issue, you’ll see that men aren’t just stupid, they also appear to enjoy pain. Take, for instance, the guy who caught a crab and let it clamp its claw to his nipple. He started screaming in agony as the crab dangled from his second most sensitive body part, and when he tried to pull the crab off, it wouldn’t let go. He finally got it loose, and then DID IT AGAIN while one friend stood there bent over double laughing at the girl screaming like a girl, and another friend holding the video camera. I have a feeling that guys would do this stuff even if they weren’t trying to get on TV.

The women, on the other hand, are usually the victims of some practical joke, or are in the wrong place at the wrong time – like the obese woman who steps off the dock toward the boat, but doesn’t quite step far enough and belly flops into the water. Another walks into a room and gets terrified when a man wearing a gorilla mask pops out of a garbage can.

So when men aren’t busy torturing themselves, they torture the women. This all leads me to the conclusion that men being stupid and mean is what keeps America’s Funniest Videos on the air – and just about any time of day you’ll find it on one station or another. Thank goodness we Americans have bred so many idiots, because this show always makes me laugh out loud.

Men, keep up the good work.