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The first time I saw the men dressed up in giant foam suits in the shapes of hands running and jumping onto big posters of 80’s Italian musicians and actors, I thought I must have been either dreaming or hallucinating. The show was hosted by an elderly man with slicked back gray hair wearing a shiny pinstriped suit and big gold-framed glasses, and the contestants, the big flesh colored hands, were asked a pop culture question and had to race to dive onto a picture of the answer. Hands were crushed, and if one of them couldn’t stand up a team of blue clad helpers would run out onto the game floor and help them up awkwardly, as the hand struggled and squirmed in the probably hot and uncomfortable suit.
I quickly became used to this kind of bizarre entertainment, and have lately come to embrace it as a strange and sometimes alarmingly serious form of performance art. The difference between Italian television and American is fascinating, and I often have fun surfing the channels to see what oddness was on now. When I am lucky the “fruits and vegetables show” is on. In this riveting program, a specific fruit or vegetable is chosen as the topic, and in front of a massive display of the chosen food an expert is interviewed on every aspect of the fruit or vegetable. I often wonder who these experts are, and why in God’s name do they know so much about pineapples? Then there are the musical breaks, where a flamboyantly dressed, balding, elderly man with a keyboard plays funky songs about potatoes, or beets, or kiwi’s, or whatever exciting thing they have picked for this week’s episode. It’s wonderful.
On the other end of the television spectrum, the news is extremely straightforward. In the United States we are used to the overwhelming images thrust at us when we turn on CNN, FOX, or NBC, with their spinning logos, information streaming across the screen, names of interviewer and interviewee, flapping American flags, and stock tickers at all times flashing. On the major news networks here in Italy, the news lacks this intense visual stimulation, often the cause of our hypnotism to the TV set. The simple logo, small at the lower right hand corner is stationary, and doesn’t spin, shine, flash, or dance around. The topic of the news is set on the bottom of the screen in simple white lettering, and is always just the bare minimum of information, void of opinion and pun. The newspeople don’t crack jokes or go on rants, they present the news through a straight face, although I don’t know if maybe that’s just a more effective way to present biased information. Regardless, it is much easier on the eyes to watch the news in Italy.
My favorite show by far is Paperissima, the Italian form of America’s Funniest Home Videos. The home videos used on Paperissima are often much more disturbing and dangerous, which is what makes me laugh so much. I remember my first week here, when the homesickness and longing for home was crushing me and I felt like I hadn’t had a real laugh in a while, I was saved by this simple, ridiculous, and hilarious show. I remember sitting in pajamas and my Dad’s big cashmere sweater, exhausted and lonely on the couch of my new house, feeling the magical release that laughter allows. When I told my mother about it later, she confirmed the importance of that kind of release, quoting Joni Mitchell from the song “People’s Parties:” “laughing and crying,
you know it's the same release.”
Whether it’s watching the fruit show, or Paperissima, or the news, or even I Simpson, I am greatly thankful for the simple pleasure that is TV. As strange as that may sound, when you are this far away from home every bit of humor and comfort is worth more than anything. What could comfort a kid more than the home video of an old man falling backwards off of his chair into a pool?
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