My name is Jay Phillippi and I’ve spent my life in and around the media. TV, Radio, the Movies and more. I love them and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View From the Phlipside.
This must be my week to be puzzled. Because I do not get this next bit, not in the tiniest little inkling do I understand the allure. I understand where it comes from. This is the land of the mash-up. A mash-up, if the term is new to you, is where you take ideas, information, words and/or images from multiple sources and “mash” them together to create a new thing. Most mash-ups are pretty boring and predictable but a small percentage turn out to be quite inventive and interesting.
Sadly I don’t think these next two make the grade. The two stories crossed my desk within a couple weeks of one another. The two concepts are very similar so maybe one fed the other. It didn’t get better with age. The first is the product of a comedy team called Paul and Storm and author Josh Cagan. What the movie industry would call the “concept” sounds interesting, take classic cartoons from the New Yorker magazine and team them up with tweets from the Twitter account of pop singer and moron Kanye West. Yeah, take some of the most sophisticated cartoons of the century and team them up with one of pop culture’s shallowest thinkers. It’s the kind of thing that the more you say it the less appealling it sounds. You’ll find it under the hash tag for kanyenewyorkertweets. If you don’t know what that means here’s the good news, it’s not worth worrying about.
Now we have the next addition to this,what? With two can we call it a trend yet? That would be Jersey Circus where the mash-up brings together the cartoons of Family Circus with the um wisdom of TV show Jersey Shore. That’s right Jeffy and Barfy meet Snookie and the Situation. The resulting love child is every bit as unamusing as Kanye and the New Yorker.
I think what really repels me about all this is the underlying feeling of smugness I detect. Mashing together the simple, clean humor of Family Circus with the current rulers of American Low Brow doesn’t add anything to the pantheon of literature. Seeing little Jeffy supposedly mouthing the words of some Jersey Guido isn’t amusing it’s perverse. Forcing the words from the bottom end of our cultural intellect in the mouths of our brightest or most innocent is simple vandalism. It is an anti-intellectual form of thuggery. The assault on the innocence of childhood would be rejected in the harshest terms in any other venue.
Instead of being funny it ends up being nauseating.
Call that the View From the Phlipside.
“The View From the Phlipside” airs on WRFA-LP Jamestown NY. You can listen to WRFA online HERE
Copyright – Jay Phillippi 2010
Stories Are My Life 
I just looked up Jersey Circus and I think that at, the very least, the shocking idea that these naive, unassuming kids would say these outrageous things is humorous, if not hysterical. The information on the blog acknowledges that Jersey Circus is a “bastion of trash”, and it seems as if the creators are using something so innocent and well-liked as Family Circus to further represent the absurdity that is Jersey Circus. You missed the mark with this one.
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Ever hear of satire?
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I couldn't agree more that Jersey Circus is in no way adding to the “pantheon of literature.” Why do they even continue posting when clearly this blog is superior? One day, this blog will be nestled safely in the “pantheon” (that's the fortress where all the world's books and Family Circus cartoons are kept right?) This blog will be held in such esteem that children shall read it for school assignments. And they shall think, “Thank God Jersey Circus stopped masquerading around as humor! I'm so jazzed I get to read a blog written by someone who REALLY understands what funny is!”
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Phlip! We wrote about you. http://bit.ly/cClA2b Thanks for the shout-out, and no hard feelings.
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Please re-read your second paragraph. Pride in our own ignorance is the very worst foundation for reasoned – which is to say, believable and thus effective – cultural criticism. As a fellow writer, husband, father, brother, friend, teacher, and follower of Christ, I resent your making me, too, look like a crank. A disgruntled sense that your opinions are no longer universally held is not the same thing as a prophetic mandate.
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/facepalm
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I often consider myself too serious. Seeing your post, I might think to reconsider based on contrast.It is a mash-up; Not a doctoral thesis or a novel meant to change the world. Some things in life, including many on the internet, are simply entertaining. They do not require analysis. The fact that they cannot bear analysis is besides the point. They affect a small moment of levity; That is worth the effort.Try writing about something more serious if you want to take everything so damn seriously. Otherwise your critique is simply not germane.Regards,YoungStructural
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My, my, you're getting roasted on this one!
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What's a 'mized up world'?
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… and that's how you get 'em out!
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Someone named BillW offered the following comment (which I can't edit in the original so I've editted it here:”I was going to edit this, becuase I know it won't get posted, but you're a real c##$”Yes, I'm tempted to take a shot at Bill for this rather sad comment. In the end I just feel sorry for him. This was the best he had to offer. This was his “contribution” to the conversation.Make up your own minds.PeaceJP
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It's a “craxy, mized up” world.You're gonna have to work it out for yourself.
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“Seeing little Jeffy supposedly mouthing the words of some Jersey Guido isn’t amusing it’s perverse.”FYI all of the cast except for one person is from either NY or RI. Also, using the term guido has been found to be offensive in itself.
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You lost me at “I do not get this next bit”.
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Lighten up dude. It's not literature, it's a comic strip! The TV show isn't Shakespeare either, so don't get your panties in a bunch.
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Phlipside said… It's a “craxy, mized up” world. You're gonna have to work it out for yourself.wowthat's amazingly cleverquick, someone add it to the pantheon of literature
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I'm amazed that this column still results in the kind of vitriol it does. Even more so from the folks who don't want to offer any counter opinion, merely to just call me names.The really funny thing is that I and the folks at Jersey Circus (Hi Liz!) are completely fine about it all. It doesn't work for me and I found some of it a bit offensive. I even stated my reasons.Sevourn – A “craxy, mized up world” is simple word play to emphasize the point. My comment was in response to someone who apparently couldn't figure even my simple wordsmithing out. I make no claim to its cleverness nor that it was literature. The attempt to “stain” me with statements I've never made is the tactic of the fraud and poseur.If you have a counter argument make it. If you simply don't like my opinion, fine. Simple snark is the preserve of the smug narcissist.
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