The Amazing Race is on tonight. There’s an older couple on this season, Fran and Barry. Usually when there is a couple-of-a-certain-age, they’re super nice and grandparenty and endear themselves to the viewership, but Fran and Barry really bug. They’ve survived longer than they should have through flukes and random luck, and even though they’ve made really stupid mistakes (like walking right by the big red-and-yellow clue box, multiple times, on more than one occasion), and every time, they are big with the “woe is us, we are so so eliminated,” and then when they are miraculously saved, they are all, “oh, we are totally a force to be reckoned with.” Whatever!
Every time they show Fran and Barry doing a task, it looks as though they are never ever ever going to finish it, and they are all depressed and sad and bewildered, and then they cut to commercial. And just before the commercial cut, they show one of them, usually Barry, making the Amazing Race Stupid Old People Face, a gap-mouthed face of total confusion. I used to think The Face was pretty funny, but that was before Sir Monkeypants imitated it one morning. Then it moved from amusing to TOTALLY HILARIOUS. I seriously couldn’t stop laughing. I possibly have never laughed harder. And now, he can pull out The Face at will and it gets me every time. I had to stop asking him to make The Face because I have stuff to do, and I can’t be spending 15 minutes of every hour totally incapacitated with laughter.
The other night I was playing with the camera’s continuous shot feature, and I was taking continuous shots of and he slowly turned to me and made The Face. I can’t even look at this series of shots without dying.
TurtleHead 
Two related points:
* while it’s true that can’t help but laugh at the ARSOPF I tried it out on each of the kids and Gal Smiley basically ignored it and Captain Jelly Belly gave it a weak smile at best. I was afraid that I was doing it wrong but I could laughing hysterically in the background
* I was telling a friend of mine, also an avid Amazing Race watcher, about this at work one day and he immediately made the ARSOPF. I think his is even better than mine.
It just goes to show you that it really needs background knowledge to be funny. One day, the kids will understand. Heck, by then maybe you’ll be making the face genuinely!
Nah…
I’m not convinced that old = stupid.
That was a hilarious post. I laughed my ass off the whole way through and nearly fell off my chair when I clicked on the link.
I think what made the written part so funny was partly content but partly because I could totally hear you saying it. I imagined some “back of right hand slapping down onto left palm” moments during the italics bit. (I’ll have to demonstrate this to you if the words don’t create an accurate image.)
I think sirmonkeypants got the slack jaw just right…but to get a perfect ARSOPF I think he needs to furrow his brow more (in panic).
Then again maybe you need to be an old person to get it just right…
Hmm…
Yes, feels that the crappy photo I posted does not do justice to his real-life ARSOPF. He feels a profile view would give you more a feeling for The Face — there’s a whole hunched-back addition that makes it work.
I have to say, though, that the reason I find it so totally hilarious is because his imitation of Barry is just so bang on. It’s eerie. You’ll have to ask him to do The Face next time you are over :).
Oh, I totally get it. I’m doing it right now.