‘Today’: Why Are All These People Smiling?

I’ve been watching the

ry-anything-we-can-think-of-to-stop-our-ratings-from-disappearing-entirely “Today” show configuration: Gumbel, Norville, Daniels, Garagiola and, of course, his royal earthiness (“I’m as happy as a pig rollin’ in a mud puddle”), The Wacky Willard.

You need a 45-inch screen just to hold them all. Tent revivals aren’t as crowded.

As “Today” seeks rejuvenation through sheer numbers, it’s beginning to look more and more like one of those old-time circus acts in which a small car sputters into the middle of center ring and stops. Then the front door opens and a clown climbs from the car, then another, then another, and they just keep coming.

It’s no accident that family sitcoms dominate TV comedy. Despite the nation’s ongoing social changes, Americans still love the familial and seem to regard TV characters and personalities as their own extended households.

Leaving no straw ungrasped, therefore, “Today” at some point each morning feels compelled to demonstrate to its viewers that We’re One Big Happy Family. This is accomplished--where else?--in a living room set. It’s here where all or most of the “Today” cast members form themselves into an arc of chumminess around a coffee table, making giddy small talk with each other as if no one is watching. By NBC’s standards, of course, no one is.

In light of past tensions on “Today” and the internal edginess that typifies any program in upheaval, you have to be more than a little skeptical about all this beaming conviviality.

Has “Today” really flushed its veins of all that bad blood between Bryant Gumbel and The Wacky? Then, too, there’s was Deborah Norville’s nervous coronation as Jane Pauley’s successor, followed by the crashing ratings that made everyone even more nervous. There was also the later arrival of Faith Daniels from CBS as a newsreader with Host of the Future credentials, along with the rehiring of plain-talking Joe Garagiola, even though “Today” already had one Salt of the Earth in The Wacky.

Can these people be as clubby as they appear? What are they really thinking as they fawn over each other? The more I watch, the more I wonder, and fantasize what’s really in their minds as they switch on those 50,000-watt smiles.

Hmmmmmmm. . . .

Bryant: It’s time for me to gracefully segue from Nelson Mandela to our story on a singing carp.

Deborah: As I grin at the camera in lieu of having something to say.

Willard: Which gives me just enough time to irritate my old pal Bryant by putting on my cow bell and mooing.

Bryant: But first I’ll coolly take a sip from my cup of coffee that I’d like to pour over your fat head.

Faith: As I smile graciously at Deborah while hoping she falls down an elevator shaft so I can get her job.

Deborah: As I grin back trying to disguise my uncontrollable urge to rip out your tongue.

Joe: As I squint at the camera while pretending that I know why I’m here.

Bryant: I believe it’s now time for me to pretend I’m not repelled by all of you and to smile warmly but insincerely at Willard, whose nose hairs I’d like to yank out one by one.

Willard: As I flash my grating grin while wishing for an earthquake under your chair.

Bryant: While I flutter my lids to show my warmth and humanity, and tell the singing carp to “take care of yourself, pal” while secretly hoping it gets laryngitis.

Joe: Is this where I interrupt to say “oh yeah” and ask if the carp sings in Italian?

Bryant: No, this is where you tell an old baseball story that renders everyone comatose.

Willard: Not before I jump at the chance to irritate Bryant again by yodeling into his ear while wearing my banana hat.

Bryant: While I attempt to refrain from punching you in the jaw.

Deborah: Isn’t it time for us to chuckle amiably and poke each other in the ribs while concealing our mutual hatred?

Willard: Only after I congratulate Bryant on his tie that I’d like to wrap around his neck before the gnats eat away at my hairpiece.

Deborah: No, up next is my get-tough interview with the little girl who won the spelling bee.

Bryant: No, that comes after I pretend to be interested in what you’re saying while shielding myself from the glare of your teeth and daydreaming about golf.

Faith: Isn’t it time for us to laugh at nothing?

Bryant: Yes, let’s laugh.

Everyone: Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Bryant: That’s enough! It’s my turn to hide my disgust for Joe while slapping him on the arm to prove I’m a regular guy too.

Willard: After which I make my old pal Bryant’s skin crawl by putting on my moose antlers and blowing him a kiss.

Faith: Isn’t it time for our meaningless small talk about nothing we know or care about?

Joe: Only after my endearing big-lug-covers-the-news interview with a world leader whose name I can’t pronounce.

Willard: As I put on a fright wig and bellow while trying to disarm Bryant of the spike he’s now trying to drive through my heart.

Bryant: As I flutter my lids and chuckle amiably while pretending I’m trying to murder Willard in jest.

Joe: As I try not to be distracted by Bryant’s whining or Deborah’s right eyebrow moving up and down erotically as she grins at the camera for no apparent reason.

Willard: While I disgust even myself by impersonating Judy Garland singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as a lead-in to Faith’s story about a mass murderer.

Bryant: As I smile at all of you whose names I no longer care to remember while saying with as much insincerity as I can muster, “Take care of yourselves, everybody.”