... and it begins.

When you were a kid and you would make some kind of goofy face, your mother would tell you, “If you don’t stop, your face will stay that way!” While most of us never believed it, I think it’s true in a different way.

Tonight, the seventh season of television’s version of the Goofy Face starts up again, and the slow erosion of what passes for entertainment continues. It’s called American Idol, and in case you don’t already know, I despise this program and everything it stands for.

You started watching it because it looked kind of interesting, and because the first few shows featured people who sang so badly that dogs covered their ears, but not badly enough to be kept off of television. It’s beyond bad, but who doesn’t like a good train wreck? You are repulsed yet you cannot look away.

Maybe one of your friends showed up at what they call “talent searches” in a city nearby because they figured that the producers were actually listening and that they might think they were good enough to make it to the end. They might be, if the results were not determined long before the talent search began.

Then, as the weeks and years wore on, you become hooked. The goofy face contest has turned into its own industry, with concert tours and record deals where even the “losers” are winners. You watch every week and you talk about it with your co-workers because they watch too. It’s “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” in the form of a TV show. Don’t fall asleep or they’ll get you, too.

You may even call to vote for your favorite, because you think they are really counting the votes. I’d like to have the available money and time to do the actual footwork to prove that this show is the biggest scam perpetrated on the American public since the 2000 presidential election, but all I have is my cynical viewpoint of the entertainment industry and the simple fact that the people they choose are not uniquely talented nor are they necessarily any better than some of the people who get turned away. I don’t have to watch the show to know that. I can base my low opinion on the fact that the show has become its own franchise. Franchises don’t like to take chances, and this one is no exception. Perhaps the first season was legitimate, but at this point, the producers cannot afford the luxury of taking a chance that the person they pick will not be someone who can carry on the franchise. It’s politics disguised as music.

Somehow, it fills our perceived shortage of celebrities and perpetrates the idea that hard work isn’t necessary to succeed. All you need to do is somehow get on television and, like winning the lottery, your fortune is made. There are lots of shows like it now, because just like kids, when one of them makes a face, the others imitate it.

The sad truth is that, with the writers on strike and television reduced to a litany of game shows and talent searches, this may be the biggest year ever for AI, so the franchise will roll onward and I will have to continue to ignore it, because my eyes are still pointed straight.

Seven years ago, television made a goofy face, and just like mom said, it stayed that way.