We’re not proud of it, but we’ve all done it. Sometimes, when we’ve got nothing else to do on a Sunday afternoon, we watch the Superstation.

There we see an endless stream of movies that exist nowhere else. They are not discussed over coffee, never rented at the video store and they certainly aren’t on any critics “Top 10” lists.

I’m talking about films like “The Flamingo Kid,” “Men at Work” and “Cannonball Run.”

Somehow these films have become as much a part of our culture as “Forrest Gump” or “The English Patient” will ever be. We revere great films and forget terrible films, but for some reason we watch really mediocre films over and over again.

The best films are so revered, in fact, that they are rarely broadcast on television. Somehow, it would seem inappropriate for “Schindler’s List” to be shown on “Dinner & a Movie.”

The result is that most of the best films have actually been seen by a small number of the population. We may give lip service to the notion that “Taxi Driver” is the greatest film of the last quarter century, but most of us would rather watch “Brewster’s Millions” any day.

In that respect, it may be these mediocre Sunday afternoon features that have the biggest impact on America. “Titanic” may have cleaned up at the box office, but I’d wager that when you take television into account, more people have seen “Big Trouble in Little China.”

When you consider the entire body of Sunday afternoon film, one of the most impressive contributors was Jim Varney.

For those who haven’t heard, Varney, famous for his character Ernest P. Worrell, passed away on Friday from lung cancer.

While most will dismiss Varney as a one trick pony, whose only contribution was more clutter in the direct-to-video section of the video store, I feel this is a mistake.

First off, I have always been a fan of Mr. Varney’s work, particularly “Ernest Saves Christmas,” and the song “Gee, I’m Glad It’s Raining” from “Ernest Goes to Camp.”

Sure, the Ernest films are not the height of Western Culture. Most critics would prefer “Das Boat” to, say, “Slam-dunk Ernest.” But not only would these critics miss out on a stellar cameo by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar as an angel who gives Ernest magic shoes, they would also find themselves out of touch with the masses.

We are not, for the most part, a people finely cultured in high class film. We are a people who follow along reciting lines to “Rocky IV,” and crying when Goose dies in “Top Gun.”

Those of us who consider ourselves above the mire of pop culture should not dismiss the dime-store philosopher or the blue-collar film critic. In the end we are not so different.

American artists are as much a product of John Hughes as of John Ford, and most of us know more about Ernest P. Worrell than we ever will about Kurosawa.

So let us not be so quick to dismiss an artist like Varney. Whether we enjoy him, hate him or are indifferent, we cannot ignore him, because we will be seeing him every Sunday afternoon for many years to come.

Ben Godar is a senior in sociology from Ames. He is assistant arts & entertainment editor for the Daily.