McNeil's Theory of Potential Energy

Mark Osborne has McNeil thinking about Jerry Lewis. Why, McNeil asked himself, will McNeil willingly sit through the cloying sock puppets in THE ERRAND BOY, which for Osborne mark a point of no return? McNeil says it has to do with "the potential energy whenever Jerry is onscreen." Apparently Jerry's "potential energy" is strong enough to make McNeil watch movies that he has seen several times before, even the sock puppet sequence which he knows from experience no "potential energy" will be expended to save.