Juvenile Behavior... Unplugged

The other night yours truly and some associates attended an improv comedy show here in NYC.

The show (which as it just so happened was atrociously rotten) featured a “Whose Line is it Anyway?” style format, and frequent suggestions from the audience were required for the performers to shape their scenes. (And by “shape,” I mean “completely butcher.”)

Anyhow, whenever the MC of the show asked the audience for a suggestion, this one guy sitting towards the front would reflexively shout out some unimaginatively (and therefore corrosively not funny) dirty word. Examples of his brilliant ideas included “Pussy!” and “Porn.”

Needless to say, I’m pretty sure everyone in the audience wanted to backhand slap him with a soaking wet towel.

I bring this up as a means of illustrating that there are multiple varying degrees of juvenile behavior. There’s juvenile to the point of extreme annoyance (our friend at the comedy show) and there’s juvenile that’s kind of irresistible even though you know it’s… well, completely juvenile.

And I’m pleased (or embarrassed as the case may be) to admit that I apparently fall somewhere in between these extremes.

You see, there’s this commercial for the United Way featuring Jonathan Vilma of the New York Jets. Have you seen this thing? It’s actually been on the air for a while, and every time I see it, I start giggling uncontrollably. I do so because the first line of the commercial is:

“Jets’ linebacker Jonathan Vilma is famous for plugging holes.”

And frankly I have no idea what the rest of the commercial says after that.

Okay, okay, so I know that “plugging holes” is technically a football term and I understand that if I were truly a “good person” I probably wouldn’t be mocking a commercial for a charitable organization.

But really now. I mean, come on. Did anyone with any sense of innuendo ever once listen to this thing before it started airing? If Renee Zellweger had Jerry Maguire at “Hello,” this commercial had me (or I guess lost me) at “plugging holes.”

I dare you to listen to the thing and try to keep a straight face.

And if you do so successfully, I regret to inform you that we are no longer friends.