"Moves and music from the best of times" -- on your fanny.

If "Sit and Be Fit" and Richard Simmons' "Sweatin' to the Oldies" decided to have a kid to save their failing marriage, but spent more time playing mind games with each other than child-rearing and then got divorced anyway, that kid would grow up to be "Chair Dancing Through the Decades."

It's a well-intentioned video for the elderly and mobility-impaired, but a) it has the distinction of featuring the God's-honest worst muzak I have yet to hear in an exercise video, where the "hip-hop" sounds like off-off-brand Jock Jams and the rest fades into soul-deadening blandness; and b) the commercial tries to sell it as a rousing family activity or lunchtime pick-me-up for the office. As if!

And yet, I've watched this clip like 5 times, alternately cringing and staring in awe. Maybe it's instructor Jodi Stolove's Russian madame makeup. Or the arrangement of tropical flora behind her.

Maybe it's the feigned excitement on this granny and Kidz Bop "you betcha!" head-nod from this little girl when (1:03-1:08) Stolove's voice gets an echo effect and sounds like the ghost of Maude Flanders saying, "Let's get ready to hip-hop! Y'all ready for this?"

God bless this commercial, which my tipster said she discovered on late-night airtime, for entertaining untold scores of slack-jawed viewers snacking on nachos and cruising for syndicated TV to pass out to after coming home from the bar. This is the kind of as-seen-on-TV gem that can send you to sleep bemusedly content with this bizarre world of ours.

However, of this I'm sure: If I'd suggested to my dear late grandma, even when she was 92 and wheelchair-bound, that we decorate a couple paper plates and wave them around in our chairs, she'd have said, sweetly, "Honey, I'd rather not."

The granny-hug delight of "Sit and Be Fit"

How much do you love this lady? God bless her!

Mary Ann Wilson's the name, and exercise for old or mobility-impaired folks is her game. She's led the delightfully low-budget "Sit and Be Fit" for over 20 years, which is produced by a nonprofit organization of the same name and has won a bunch of health/wellness/old people awards.

First off, HOW BOUT THEM GAMS! Lady's got one of the best sets of legs in the sassosphere, and she knows how to show them off. Colorful scrunched socks + short high-waist shorts + loose sweatshirt or baseball shirt or tucked-in tee (+ some hosiery, methinks) = OFF-THE-CHARTS SASS. Take notes, boys and girls.

Hands up if you've done this by yourself after finding it on public television. Own it.

This show makes me wish my beautiful grandma were still around, because I would have loved to have done this with her -- most likely with a peach cobbler or some snickerdoodles in the oven. Which, come to think of it, is what watching "Sit and Be Fit" feels like: grandma hugs and baked goods.



Back to Auntie Wilson.

Even though it's ostensibly for the elderly, you could learn a thing or two from "Sit and Be Fit." No joke. For example: