Imagineering

For some reason, I always hear the stupidest things on TV right before I go to work. This morning's atrocity was a commercial for "Dr. Dolittle," the musical starring Tommy Tune, which is apparently coming to L.A.'s Pantages Theater. The voice-over announcer instructed me to "get ready for family entertainment beyond your wildest imagination!"

Now, I think it's important for this TV announcer to understand that while my imagination may not be as versatile as, say, Stephen Hawking's, it's reasonably spiffy. I can imagine a kind of family entertainment that would, for example, encompass the euphoria of being on heroin and crack cocaine while having unprotected sex with Heather Locklear handcuffed to the bedposts after breast-enlargement surgery. I can imagine a kind of family entertainment that would be like taking a five-hour ride on a roller coaster that starts at the top of the Empire State Building in New York and ends in Atlantic City, with 5,001 upside-down loops along the way. Somehow, I don't think Tommy Tune singing, "If I Could Talk to the Animals" to a guy in a Pushmi-Pullyu costume is going to transcend my wildest imagination. It might—and I'm being very charitable here—might be beyond my imaginative capabilities at 5 o'clock on a Sunday morning after I've taken a sleeping pill and was just awakened by the sound of a ringing telephone. But probably not.