…this is what passes for entertainment down there.

A Brazilian variety show called Programa Silvio Santos makes a habit of doing Candid Camera-type pranks on unsuspecting people, but with a lot harder edge than we’re used to here in the states. For example, the latest is something called “Ghost in the Elevator,” in which victims get waylaid in a steel box which stops, the lights go out and when they come back on a freaky-looking little girl appears with a doll and commences to scream at the top of her lungs at them.

Judging from the laugh track, it’s supposed to be uproariously funny.

It isn’t. It’s pretty horrifying, or at least classless for a TV show to be doing that to people. They probably need more plaintiff lawyers in Brazil.