It seemed harmless enough when I received a copy of the first two seasons of Mr. Belvedere on DVD. (To be released tomorrow.)

It seemed harmless, that is, until I watched a few episodes of this show I barely remember and realized that the theme song (above) had been locked in my brain for years. But I have somehow unlocked the trunk in which it was stored, and now it has grown out of control. It is stomping around my head like a monster in a black-and-white movie, capable of taking out the entire city of other things I once was capable of humming to myself. All I hear is this. It is all I hear.

It is stuck in there. It is going 'round and 'round, no ordinary earworm but some kind of nightmarish horror show, which got me thinking that maybe it's like that one scary movie (I won't spoil it by saying which one). You know what I mean, where you can't get the thing to stop menacing you until you pass the thing along to someone else? Maybe it's like that. Maybe only by encouraging you to hear this music can I release myself from its iron grip. Believe it or not, the clip above is a shortened version, so you are not getting as much exposure as you could be. I do have some sense of mercy. After all, I have relived the brief cultural moment of Bob Uecker, and you have not.

Someone once told me that the Charlie Brown theme music was a sort of earworm antidote, so I am trying to soothe myself with Snoopy while simultaneously trying to ignore the possibility that, like one of the afflicted people in Oliver Sacks' book Musicophilia, I will never get rid of it and will actually go insane.

Because of Mr. Belvedere.

This could only happen to me.