The new year came in quietly in our house as I tried to explain to my daughter what a stroke is so she might understand why Dick Clark was on TV talking that way. I don’t know why I chose that channel for the countdown. She had tuned into “F?ED: THE MOVIE” on Nickelodeon while I was in the other room so I blame the 30 minutes of that for my bad judgment.

She hit the hay mere seconds after midnight. My wife had crashed 45 minutes earlier. Left to my own devices, I headed downstairs to watch some TV before falling asleep. As I scanned the listings, I saw a Marx Brothers movie marathon listed, which meant bedtime would have to wait.

I watched “Duck Soup” and fell asleep after a few minutes of “A Night at the Opera.” When I woke up, I caught part of a soccer match, then settled in for a few hours of a Three Stooges marathon.

The movie channels schedule this kind of programming on New Year’s Day for a reason. We have all dealt with a lot of running around due to the holiday season and need something simple and funny as we prepare to get back to work and the rest of our real lives. But why limit that kind of entertainment to the first day of the year.

We have people running around claiming the end of the world is coming simply because they don’t like the opposing political party. We have television hosts urging viewers to start canning food for impending civil unrest. Oprah is “retiring” in order to run her own television network so she can tell people all day why they need to be like her.

We need Groucho, Moe, Harpo, Larry, Chico and Curly every single day more than ever. My wish for 2011 is that people stop taking everything so seriously and remember the wonderful gifts of simplicity and laughter.