High concepts can quickly curdle, though. The movie blog I Watch Stuff crystallised this for me while discussing the poster for the latest Jackie Chan film Spy Next Door. The headline: “Actual Spy Next Door Poster Marks End of Spoof Movie Posters”. Take a look. It’s hard to argue the point.

For me, it’s the recent Bruckheimer blockbuster G-Force that hurts. A squad of celebrity-voiced, crime-fighting, wise-cracking 3D animated guinea pigs? When the worldwide landslide of promotion began, I thought: “You’ve got to be kidding.” Actually kidding, I mean – because G-Force looks exactly like one of those fake movies that act as an easy in-joke inside real movies.

The clip made available of the fake sitcom “Yo Teach!” was perhaps the single best thing about Judd Apatow’s recent (and disappointing) Funny People. It’s freakishly plausible. The script, the set, the laughter. You could drop it onto prime time TV and no one would notice. The same goes for the “MILF Island” clips featured on Tina Fey’s 30 Rock. It barely even functioned as a joke; more an only-minutes-away-at-best Reality TV prophecy.

(In both these cases, you can easily argue that the fake shows are cultural artefacts that are far more likely to exist in the real world than the actual shows that spawned them.)

This confusing play of reality-versus-parody leaves me suspicious of satire. Consider how studies seem to show that the reason Stephen Colbert is beloved by all sides of the political spectrum is that his refusal to break character makes him unpindownable. He’s a Rorschach blot in a classy suit.

I keep thinking of a quote from Steve Aylett’s faux-biography of science fiction writer Jeff Lint. In it, he writes that “satire was like scrubbing tombstones with a toothbrush, but honourable nevertheless.” Sometimes it’s impossible to tell whose tombstone Colbert’s cleaning.

And if Colbert’s fanbase can leave me feeling bewildered, something like G-Force mostly just leaves me feeling old. (You kids and your confusingly parody-tinged entertainment! Turn that music down!)

Old, that is, until I think back to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It began as a parody of Frank Miller’s Ronin, but its stars became bona fide pop-culture heroes. When the Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters inevitably appeared on comic book shelves soon after, I don’t remember batting an eyelid – despite the logic puzzle of parody squared staring back at me.

So to all the wise-cracking, gun-toting, celebrity-voiced guinea pigs out there? I may not understand you, but I salute you nonetheless. Just make sure you’re not struck by lightning.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote the following in 1934′s Tender Is The Night:

“After lunch they were both overwhelmed by the sudden flatness that comes over American travellers in quiet foreign places. No stimuli worked upon them, no voices called them from without, no fragments of their own thoughts came suddenly from the minds of others, and missing the clamor of the Empire they felt that life was not continuing there.”

To experience the absolute reverse of this, however, you need to abandon all hope and travel to M&M’s World in Times Square.

I’m no stranger to blaring corporate overdrive. I survived the Coke Museum in Atlanta, even though the staff’s ID badges bear not just their name, but their favourite flavour. Even though when the Polar Bear mascot was on break I was told he’d be back after “grabbing a Coke”. Even though their 4D propaganda film featured a hoverboarding scientist who discovered the secret to Coke’s success is – yes, yes, of course – “you”.

M&M’s World is a different beast. It’s not an exercise in legend-building and carefully constructed flag-waving like the Coke Museum. It doesn’t seem to care much about chocolate, or taste, or any other aspect of the actual candy. Here’s the best way to describe it:

Imagine a man having the worst day of his life. Death, divorce, or some combination of the two. He maybe eats an M&M that he finds rattling around the margins of the kitchen table, and he notices that the bright colour is the one spot of optimism on this awful, godforsaken day. The next afternoon, he eats a whole packet of M&M’s, ignoring the reheatable food provided by well-meaning friends. They’re worried his grief will cause him to waste away to nothing. They don’t know about the M&M’s. After a few more days, just seeing the chocolate’s logo lifts his spirits. Everything else in his house makes him miserable with reminders of what he’s lost. Not the M&M’s, though. They’re delicious.

This man lies awake at night and wonders: why can’t everything be an M&M? Wouldn’t that be a better world?

Come to New York, fight your way through Times Square, and you can buy yourself M&M’s Monopoly. M&M’s stuffed monkeys. M&M’s t-shirts, mugs, and magnets. M&M’s chessboards. M&M’s action figures, stickers, and stamps. M&M’s hand-embroidered designer jackets, selling for four figures, that you’d save for with your M&M’s moneybox.

See the yellow M&M loom over Times Square on a billboard like some ancient, Lovecraftian god. Witness the green M&M cast as some kind of misshapen, gamma-irradiated sex-symbol, pouting like Marilyn on jigsaw boxes and beach towels. Have the red M&M imprinted on a penny by one of those old-fashioned souvenir machines – because why buy something when you can cut out the middle man and have his image stamped directly onto your money?

I guess there might have been some chocolate for sale, too.