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> The other day I saw some footage of Tom Hanks being incredibly sentimental and mushy at something like a press conference. Do you lot in the US of A actually LIKE that kind of stuff? Sentiment can ruin a good bit of comedy (it happens a lot in The Simpsons). Any thoughts?
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First, you are making a generalization based on something that you haven't been able to identify. All you know about it is the person involved and what he MIGHT have been at. The press conference was probably for the Golden Globe award he just received (voted on by the Hollywood Foreign Press) so, yes, he was probably sentimental. So what? In that context, that doesn't seem all that unusual. Are you suggesting that all humor should be dry and that all people should be stoic? Or that there should be humor in everything we do no matter what the situation is? That would get old fast.

Second, the Simpsons are often sentimental. They are also satirical and sentimentality is something they often skewer. The Simpsons does it well. Many shows do not.

Ferrick