Time to play small ball

Wait. None of this happened? What do you mean, none of this happened?

Boston awoke yesterday to the shocking news that the big Fourth of July television show was “enhanced’’ this year with scenes of fireworks that were nowhere near the Esplanade. Fenway made an appearance, as did Quincy Market. The Red Sox, apparently, were happy to allow a camera crew in recently to shoot a bunch of footage for this bogus broadcast.

It gives me no pleasure to point out that the person behind this very bad idea was none other than David G. Mugar. Mugar is the man who saved the Fourth of July in this town, by agreeing years ago to bankroll a production that some thought the city could do without. He is a great Bostonian. But this was crazy, as was his explanation that it was no different than “Boston Legal’’ tossing in a little stock footage of the city when most of the show was shot in Los Angeles.

People were surprised, but really should they have been? While those who dutifully pack the Esplanade each year think of it as a valentine to the city, for the rest of the country it is a television show, on a night when not much is on. And, as we are often reminded, there is plenty of unreality in reality television. I can imagine how this sounded like a great idea to a bunch of network types in California.

Bostonians, of course, feel a little more possessive about this event, and rightly so. Before Mugar’s stunt exploded in the newspaper yesterday, he had been pummeled online by local viewers who couldn’t, and didn’t, believe what they were seeing.

What’s wrong with it, of course, is that it was so unnecessary. While I personally believe the Fourth of July extravaganza became a monument to wretched excess a long time ago, it’s certainly photogenic. And if the idea is to show more of Boston than the Esplanade and the Charles, there must be plenty of ways to accomplish that without deception and glaring bad faith.

Maybe this is just the logical extension of taking a cherished local event national. Boston is a city with an amazing story to tell. There’s no need to turn it into Hollywood, or Disney World. But apparently reality just wasn’t enough.

Mugar didn’t seem terribly apologetic in his comments yesterday - in truth, he didn’t seem to get what the fuss was about - but this act seems destined for a short shelf life. Given the immediate and forceful backlash, it’s hard to imagine who would miss it.

And maybe - I’m being a wide-eyed optimist here - this fiasco presents an opportunity. Maybe the whole Fourth thing can go back to being what it used to be, a celebration of Boston, a city that has had an outsized effect on history. Bigger isn’t always better. This might be a golden opportunity to scale the whole thing back a notch. Cutting an hour out of the show, which has become endless, wouldn’t be a bad place to start.

Boston may be small physically, but you really can’t see the fireworks exploding over Fenway. And for years, everyone’s been fine with that.

Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com