Back in the time when local television shows had a greater ability to generate their own programming, WHO-TV in Des Moines broadcast The Floppy Show. Kid-oriented and cartoon-intensive, the show revolved around a puppet dog named, yes, Floppy, and Floppy's human, Duane Ellett.
To be sure, The Floppy Show was about kids and for kids. There was no adult content. Floppy would never cease to be delighted by the same damn three riddles asked of him by the kids of his audience- "What's the biggest can in the world?", "What's the biggest pencil in the world?" and "What's tall in the middle and round on its sides?". Toss in a half dozen beeps of his nose, and a cartoon or two, and it was a show.
As a kidlet, the Curmudgeon watched Floppy. Though at that time and in the years since, it did seem as though there was no greater life-lesson to be gleaned through the endless vapid hours of Dixie-cup riddles and b-rate ventriloquism, except perhaps that entertaining children is a laudable avocation.
In recent days, however, the Curmudgeon is thinking there may be one more lesson we can take from Floppy: It may be all very well and good to be entertained as a kid by a man with his hand up the ass of a puppet dog, but heeding the same for political insight is likely not such a hot idea. Using the Floppy model to chide and amuse adults is at once pretentious and condescending, in that Garry Keillor sort of way.
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