Pillow? Yes. Anvil? No.

While my wife and I were in a pizza joint with my sons the other day, I looked over at the television mounted on the wall behind them. It was tuned to a game show featuring foam-clad people (ala American Gladiators) preparing to try and cross a baseball-themed obstacle course, complete with rotating giant bats and wobbling base paths, without falling into the giant pool of water below.

As I crammed another piece of pizza in my face (already two pieces past when I should have stopped) I realized it was the show I’d seen advertised a year or two back. On the original commercials, the poor contestants were attempting to cross a series of gargantuan pilates balls by bouncing from one to the next and failing miserably.

That’s going to get old, I remember thinking to myself then.

But as I spit flecks of half chewed pepperoni across the table through my laughter, I had to admit that I was wrong. The show is pretty good.

For the better part of our meal we watched as, more often than not, the contestants misjudged some portion of the course and fell into the water. But just watching them fall wasn’t the best part. The real treat came when somebody committed to their jump and did a Wile E. Coyote into the side of a foam barrier or mistimed their ascent up a tower and took a spinning post to the side, full cartwheel spinning to their soggy fate.

As I watched the hilarity ensue, I realized exactly why my sons and I enjoyed the show (I’ll point out here that my wife chuckled a few times but said she felt sorry for the contestants). It appealed to my most base level of humor. It wasn’t crude or vulgar, but it was simple. I like watching people get smacked around and falling.

And it’s not like this show, called Wipeout, was the first to figure out people liked watching this. The Three Stooges slapped each other around and attempted to tear off one another’s noses with pliers while we all had a good chuckle over it. Tom & Jerry, (like any other cartoon with even the slightest chance of the appearance of an anvil) saw the protagonists blow each other up and throw knives as we shot our morning milk out of our noses. The best clips on America’s Funniest Home Videos have always been the ones where somebody gets hit in the crotch.

People just like to see other people get hit by things. The assumption is that censors would remove anything that was actually dangerous from the show and that everything we watch is harmless. So we let ourselves go. We indulge that part of ourselves that would point and laugh at our buddy as he flubs the cool bike trick he was attempting and lands with one leg on either side of the railing before we ask him if he’s okay.

When you think about it, babies will hit their toys or stuffed animals and laugh about it before they can talk. Most kids go through a hitting phase and think it’s hilarious. They don’t know it could ever hurt anyone, so with that aspect of it removed, it’s hilarious.

I think allowing that part of our psyche to step out into the light and enjoy itself every now and then is healthy. If you don’t, I think violent tendencies might spawn and fester in the dark reaches of your brain and take over. I picture the proverbial pressure cooker (also used in cartoon, Woody Woodpecker I believe) filling with steam and resulting in a stabbing. This is why my sons have Nerf swords. Sometimes they just need to beat the hell out of one another and I'd rather have it be with a consequence free piece of foam than their fists or my video game controllers.

So, as I sat enthralled over my pizza, I was fully aware of how rudimentary the entertainment was and I accepted it. I wasn’t watching trash. This wasn’t Springer or one of the many reality shows where people are petty and mean to each other for no good reason. These contestants knew they would take a beating and look silly as they flipped around and into the pool. It’s just plain old fun.

But the show that followed was just mean. It’s called Downfall and it has contestants watching their potential prizes roll by on a conveyor belt. If they don’t answer the questions fast enough, the prize reached the end of the belt and plunged off a cliff where it was destroyed as it hit the ground a hundred feet below.

As I watched a fully loaded new dishwasher drop off the edge and nearly explode on impact I thought, this is just wasteful and wrong.

I’m not sure if this is going to come out right, but I’m just going to say it: If you’re going to try and entertain me by knocking something to the ground, I’d rather it be a human being than something somebody could use.