I have not liked Howie Mandel since “St. Elsewhere.” Based on his newest offering, “Mobbed,” he doesn’t like me  much, either.

In a moment of weakness, in the glow of post ”American Idol” family togetherness, my son and I decided to leave Fox on, and check out “Mobbed.” We thought it would probably be ridiculous, but sometimes a clearly manipulated reality show is just the right kind of funny for a Thursday night. I expected to be faintly amused, and maybe a little moved. I knew it was a wedding (which I always like) and based on the barrage of clips I knew that the bride was beautiful and the groom seemed sincere in his feelings. I expected nothing further, other than the passive surrender of another hour of life and a couple of baskets of clean and folded laundry.

The setup was sweet in that carefully edited reality show way. He loved her, they had been together for three years, and he wanted to go big with his proposal. I am one of those practical types who tends to believe that spending thousands of dollars on an extravaganza removes the focus from the serious commitment and hard work of real marriage as opposed to “Bride” magazine fantasies. “Mobbed” is not, however, a gritty documentary about the realities of married life; it is a confection aimed squarely at YouTube aficionados, Bieber fans and women who own all the Disney princess movies.

I floated along paying minimal attention as I rolled socks and pressed wrinkles out of T-shirts, but I grew alert as Howie and the Experts devised a setup for the proposal. They would send in an actress who would pretend to be a woman from the proposer’s past to accost the couple as they sat at a restaurant table, and, eventually, hurl a drink at him and make a scene. This seemed not to be so much confection as shit sandwich; one Is either in a “Cops” kind of relationship in which there is constant drama and anxiety, or one is not. If one is not, such an occurrence is shocking, painful, and honestly, not very funny. It was not very funny. She cried. I would be terrifically unhappy if, five minutes before my highly public marriage proposal I was sitting alone at a two top, sobbing and believing that I had completely misunderstood the most important relationship in my life.

Of course, they made it right. Sort of. The waiters broke into “Everlasting Love,” there was a parade, there were cloggers, and there was a proposal in the open area of a gigantic California shopping mall. She cried a lot more, she said “yes,” and then there was the Howie Mandel twist - she was asked to have the wedding right then and there. 

I know that no one is meant to analyze reality TV in terms of anyone’s actual life, but I was riveted by that time, worrying about the fact that she was being manipulated into agreement, and that she would be forced by a crowd of  whooping mall shoppers to agree to have her wedding, an act considered sacred by some, surrounded by strangers and TV cameras. Furthermore, she had not had the opportunity to pick out her dress, or her bridesmaids, or even to have her hair done. It was, it seemed to me, a horrific and mutilated Frankenstein of a wedding with the casual spontaneity of flying to Vegas superimposed on the “Bride” magazine fantasy of a Vera Wang dress, designer cupcakes and $500.00 bouquets of hothouse orchids. It was a hot mess.

And so the wedding happened, with the bride wearing a dress pulled on in public over her previous outfit, and unbuttoned up the back. Her face was stained with the tears, and her hair was messy from standing outside and being flash mobbed. It was not what I would have chosen, and probably not what most women would choose; you can say the trappings don’t matter if you’re really meant for each other, but if the trappings don’t matter, there is no justification for spending a small fortune on professional choreographers, formal clothes for a bridal party, or union wages for every unemployed dancer in Los Angeles. I will admit to a tear or two because the bride was beautiful, and I’m a sucker for a wedding, but mostly I was wishing I’d watched a re-run of “Without A Trace,” instead.

Apparently, I just don’t get the whole flash mob thing, although it would be lovely if a crowd in a retail setting burst spontaneously into Christmas carols in mid December and I could stand safely to the side, listening as I picked out ice cube trays. If someone has an important message for me, I prefer a tasteful communiqué on heavy, deckle-edged note paper. I am a reserved person, and I do not even like it when restaurant wait staff is dragged to sing a rushed and unwilling rendition of “Happy Birthday to You.” I will not eat at the Mongolian Barbecue because diners awaiting their spicy tofu stir fries are sometimes forced into a Congo line. 

I would find it amusing if flash mobs were employed to deliver more delicate messages; perhaps a line of Rockettes kicking and a crowd of smiling, everyday types singing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin” to tell one’s past sex partners about a positive test for syphilis. It might also appeal to my dark and twisted nature to see a flash mob announcing that all employees’ paychecks had been lost, perhaps to the strains of Abba’s “Money, Money, Money.”

Pretty much, I prefer all flash mobs to take place in the train stations of foreign countries where I can observe them from a safe distance,  on YouTube. I think Howie Mandel and his crack team of reality TV manipulados should stay far, far away from any serious, personal and sensitive moments in life. I think I should stick to the BBC.