{"id":90384,"date":"2015-09-30T15:01:07","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T19:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=90384"},"modified":"2015-09-30T15:01:07","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T19:01:07","slug":"and-so-say-all-of-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/30\/and-so-say-all-of-us\/","title":{"rendered":"And So Say All of Us"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_90390\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/belvedere.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-90390\" class=\"wp-image-90390\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/belvedere.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"441\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/belvedere.jpg 641w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/09\/belvedere-300x220.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-90390\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A birthday from <i>Mr. Belvedere<\/i>, one of TV\u2019s many disquieting alternate universes.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Television Land (not to be confused with the ever-sadder TV Land) is a foreign country: they do things differently there. The residents get very excited about fast food. Dads are childish buffoons and moms are smug scolds. All kids are bratty smart alecks. Police witnesses are strangely insolent and really busy. And everyone who uses online dating services is beautiful, chic, and well adjusted. But perhaps the strangest thing about this parallel universe is that in lieu of \u201cHappy Birthday,\u201d they sing \u201cFor He\u2019s a Jolly Good Fellow.\u201d\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Well, until recently. Now that shows don\u2019t have to pay the astronomical permissions\u00a0fee on \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d\u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.courant.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/hc-op-wire-feldman-happy-birthday-song-freed-0929-20150928-story.html\" target=\"_blank\">as of last week, in fact<\/a>, when a federal judge invalidated the copyright\u2014there\u2019s sure to be a stampede of television office workers and television classrooms and television singletons breaking into the song on the slightest pretext. Heidi Klum\u2014serenading Macy\u2019s in an ad that I find unwatchably embarrassing because it\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-SZ288OnQ8Q\">trying so hard in so many ways<\/a>\u2014is just the first. I\u2019m glad, at least, that she got a Marilyn reference in right out of the gate; maybe it will stem the tide a little. But:\u00a0Apr\u00e8s Klum le deluge.<\/p>\n<p>It makes much more sense, of course. It was very peculiar to see characters who were ostensibly normal, cosmopolitan, modern people constantly breaking into \u201cFor He\u2019s a Jolly Good Fellow,\u201d a song one never in fact hears in real life, and certainly not at birthday parties. It was sort of like all those insolent witnesses and perps and their unwillingness to take any effin\u2019 crap from stinkin\u2019 cops\u2014weird, yet somehow comforting. A reminder that it was TV. That Big Brother is not only watching, but he has his hand on the purse strings, and he isn\u2019t\u00a0<em>made<\/em>\u00a0of money.<\/p>\n<p>Why else do you think everyone on TV\u2019s so excited about those endless shrimp?\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><em>Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review<em>, and the <\/em>Daily<em>\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Television Land (not to be confused with the ever-sadder TV Land) is a foreign country: they do things differently there. The residents get very excited about fast food. Dads are childish buffoons and moms are smug scolds. All kids are bratty smart alecks. Police witnesses are strangely insolent and really busy. And everyone who uses [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[1642,601,19603,19604,19602,19606,6053,13487,54,19605],"class_list":["post-90384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-commercials","tag-copyright","tag-for-hes-a-jolly-good-fellow","tag-happy-birthday","tag-mr-belvedere","tag-permissions","tag-public-domain","tag-songs","tag-television","tag-the-birthday-song"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Now That \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d Is Legal, Can TV Be More Normal?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"September 30, 2015 \u2013 Television Land (not to be confused with the ever-sadder TV Land) is a foreign country: they do things differently there. 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