No longer able to find gainful employment in his chosen field, Smiley has fallen on hard times, turning to drink and drugs to numb the pain of his seemingly pointless existence. It's been a while since Kermit or Big Bird checked in on him. Hell, even Oscar and the other monsters have stopped returning his calls. Broken and alone, he whiles away the hours in a fantasy land of his own creation, attempting to relive the glory days... days when he was a somebody on Sesame Street. Tonight he's hosting a gala dinner for the few inanimate objects remaining in his shell of a home; he's had no actual house guests since 'the incident' and his subsequent acrimonious divorce.
His once immaculate tuxedo now hardly fits, worn-out and out-dated, barely holding itself together at the seams; perhaps a metaphor for Smiley himself. His hair, usually slicked back with pomade leaving not a strand out of place, is tousled and unkempt. His eyes bulge, wild and unblinking after a three-day narcotics binge has left him mentally exhausted but unable to sleep.
With his grip on sanity rapidly loosening, Smiley indulges in anthropomorphism; projecting the personalities of former colleagues and friends onto such objects as a shoe, a shovel and a shirt in a desperate attempt for conversation and purpose. The 'cheers' of his imaginary audience are in actuality the jeers of an all too real angry mob gathered outside his home. They've returned every day since 'the incident' that led to his very messy, very public fall from grace. How was he to know that Grover was only 14?
At 1:48 of the video Smiley is jolted back to reality and begins to scream, albeit briefly, before drawing on what remains of his professional instinct to finish the 'show'.
A few hours later he sits alone in the darkened room. "A is for Alcoholism...", he mumbles to no one in particular, taking another pull of cheap whiskey directly from the bottle. As it stings his sodden felt lips he wonders how it all came to this; 'America's Favorite Gameshow Host', reduced to grappling with his own sanity in a self-medicated haze. Ultimately he'll carry on because it's all he knows, desperate for any sense of normality.
Tomorrow he'll present a variety show with two tangerines, a timid tennis racket and various other things beginning with T, before staggering out into his garden, drunk, naked and roaring at God. His eyes wet and his throat raw, he'll stumble back inside and crawl between the filthy, unwashed sheets of his former marital bed to end the day like every other; cold, alone and wondering when then pain will stop.
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