About six years ago, my friend Dave showed me a videotape from the bowels of his immense personal collection. Had I known how many times I’d end up watching that tape over the course of the next six years, maybe I wouldn’t have watched it in the first place. I was younger back then, foolish and naive. Plus, I didn’t know it was going to be a video of a retarded guy doing a cooking show on public access.

The video in question is called “The Merrill Howard Kalin Show.” In it, a young mental defective named – you guessed it – Merrill teaches the audience how to prepare a number of dishes including salad, jello, chicken, and stuffing. He also fucks up every single dish in one way or another and somehow finds time along the way to do impressions of Julia Child, Jack Benny, and “the oldest man in the world” among many others. Then around the end he completely flips out and forgets where he is.

He also expresses a seemingly unhealthy enthusiasm for salad dressing.

I’d like to pause the story for a moment and address something. There might be some people reading this thinking to themselves, “Wow… this guy is the biggest asshole in the entire world, laughing at a retarded person.” For years I addressed this by saying that Merrill is an entertainer, that he wants us to laugh at his show. This is horseshit, obviously. There is no defense for this behavior. I’m an asshole, and if you watch this video and laugh at it you’re an asshole too. Big deal. The most common reaction to the tape is laughter followed by overwhelming guilt, and almost every time the tape is viewed in a large group of people at least one of them says “we’re all going to hell.” I felt kinda guilty about showing it for a while, but people kept asking to see it! What could I do?! I had no choice!

Some people have suggested that the tape is fake, that he’s an actor. I’ve always responded to this suggestion in the same way: If Merrill is an actor, the motherfucker deserves an Oscar. Or an Emmy. I guess it’d be an Emmy, technically. Regardless, this tape is about more than just laughing at a retarded person. Really. Watch the way he addresses the crowd. Watch the way he gives them advice about how they should “never cook alone.” Watch the way his eyes dart back and forth like he’s trying to hide something from the camera that’s catching everything on tape anyway. Watch him unable to resist the temptation of a tomato in the salad he just made. Watch him arrange the cucumbers in the salad into a little smiley face, kinda. Watch him say “my banana got rotten” and then chuckle to himself because he just inadvertently made a semi-dirty joke. Watch how he uses a measuring cup. Watch the cameraman inexplicably cut to the quivering jello mold over and over again. Watch him go completely batshit insane, and then picture the guy behind the camera frantically waving his arms, trying to bring him back to the planet Earth.

Anyway, the whole point of the story is that someone put the tape up on YouTube a few weeks ago. It’s about time – that’s exactly where it belongs. Welcome home, Merrill – you’ve come a long way, baby. Shit really heats up in Part 3 if you’re in a hurry, but I’d strongly recommend watching it start to finish if you can. Brace yourselves, people – it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

The Merrill Howard Kalin Show – Part 1

The Merrill Howard Kalin Show – Part 2

The Merrill Howard Kalin Show – Part 3

(edit: The video has been removed at the request of the Little City Foundation‘s lawyers. This actually has me kind of worked up right now – while it’s admittedly fucked up to laugh at these video clips, I don’t think that means they should have the right to take it down. Okay, sure – it’s their “Intellectual Property.” But it’s not like the video’s availability online was somehow killing their sales numbers or something. They’re a non-profit (or very similar to one), which means that this video has been removed from YouTube at their request simply because it isn’t “nice” to have it up with all these people laughing at it on the internet. And there’s only one word for that: gay lame (first word removed at the request of the ilga).