America's Funniest Home Videos (often simply abbreviated to AFHV or its on-air abbreviation AFV) is an American video clip television series on ABC, which features humorous homemade videos that are submitted by viewers. The most common videos feature unintentional physical comedy (arising from incidents, accidents, and mishaps), pets or children, and some staged practical jokes.
Originally airing as a special in 1989, it debuted as a regular weekly series in 1990. It was hosted by Bob Saget for the 1989 special and the first eight seasons of the series incarnation, then by John Fugelsang and Daisy Fuentes for its ninth and tenth seasons. After two years of being shown as occasional specials, hosted by various actors and comedians such as D.L. Hughley and Richard Kind, ABC brought the series back on Friday nights in the summer of 2001 with new host Tom Bergeron, who has since become the series' longest-serving host, hosting 15 seasons. Bergeron announced in 2014 that he would be departing as host of the show, and Alfonso Ribeiro took over as host in 2015.
Video America's Funniest Home Videos
Premise
Executive produced by Vin Di Bona, Todd Thicke and Michele Nasraway, and created by Vin Di Bona, it is the longest-running primetime entertainment (non-news) program on ABC (both on the network's current schedule and dating back to ABC's incorporation as a television network in 1948). It is based on the Tokyo Broadcasting System program Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan, which featured a segment in which viewers were invited to send in video clips from their home movies; ABC, which owns half of the program, pays a royalty fee to the Tokyo Broadcasting System for the use of the format (although the original parent show left the air in 1992). A more similar concept in that a whole 30-to-45-minute show consisted of nothing but short clips from amateur home videos with slapstick-like accidents presented by a host began broadcasting only two months after the start of Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan in Japan, under the title Pleiten, Pech und Pannen (lit., "Crashes, bad luck, and slip ups") in Germany in March 1986, that program lasted until 2003.
Contestants can send their videos in by uploading them as a digital file onto the show's official website, AFV.com, which launched in 2012. From 2008 to 2012, viewers were able to upload their videos digitally to ABC's website, ABC.com; after the separate website for the program went online, users trying to access the America's Funniest Home Videos page on ABC's website - via the show page link on the site's program menu - are now automatically redirected to AFV.com and forwarded to the clip uploading process on that site. Videos can also be sent via conventional mail on VHS and other such home video formats (VHS-C, 8 mm video cassettes [to name a few]), and later as the format started to become common for home recording use in the early 2000s decade, DVD to a Hollywood, California post-office box address, with clips placed on USB flash drives and other forms of consumer flash memory formats also acceptable for physical submission as time has gone on.
Due to its very low cost and universal appeal, the format has since been reproduced around the world and AFV-inspired television specials and series continue to emerge periodically in the United States. American television series inspired by AFV's format that are not related to the series itself include The Planet's Funniest Animals, The World's Funniest!, The World's Funniest Moments, Funniest Pets & People and It Only Hurts When I Laugh; however, most of the series inspired by AFV (with the minor exception of The Planet's Funniest Animals) have not matched the success of America's Funniest Home Videos and have not lasted as long. Several local television stations, even those not affiliated with ABC, also developed special funny home video segments in their newscasts during the early 1990s, inspired by the series.
The majority of the video clips are short (5-30 seconds) and are mostly related to the host's monologues. Videos typically feature people and animals getting into humorous accidents caught on camera; while others include clever marriage proposals, people and animals displaying interesting talents (such as pets that sound like they speak certain words or phrases, or genius toddlers with the ability to name all past U.S. Presidents), and practical jokes. A group of screeners view the submitted tapes, giving them a grade (on a scale of 1-10) based on that particular tape's humor. The videos deemed the funniest by the screeners then go on to the show's producers and then is turned over to Di Bona and another producer for final approval. Home video material that involves staged accidents, or/and adults, children, or babies getting seriously injured or the abuse of animals or overall does not meet ABC network standards and practices are generally not accepted and will not appear on the show.
Every week, three of the videos seen (which are among those included in the episode) are chosen by the producers and voted on by the studio audience. The winner wins $10,000 and is in the running for the $100,000 prize at the end of a seven- or ten-show run, while the runner-up receives $3,000 and the third place video receives $2,000. In the show's first season, the second and third prizes respectively were a new TV and VCR and a new camcorder. On the initial hour-long special, the grand prize was $5,000 with second and third places both winning a new camcorder; the producer picked the winner, with no audience voting. Periodically, beginning with the Tom Bergeron run of the series and continuing on into the Alfonso Ribiero run, the grand prize winner at each season's final $100,000 contest will also win a free vacation package, supplied by either Adventures by Disney or Disney Vacation Club, in addition to the monetary prize. The program's studio segments are taped in front of a studio audience (although the specials that aired in 1999 and 2000 only featured pre-recorded audience responses); audience members are asked to dress in "business casual or nicer".
Show creator Vin Di Bona has produced two similar programs: America's Funniest People (1990-94) and World's Funniest Videos (1996). Di Bona also created two series featuring home videos that were largely culled from those seen on AFHV and America's Funniest People: the syndicated series That's Funny (2004-06) and the Fox Family Channel series Show Me The Funny (1998-2000). Many of the clips have been used internationally in various comedy compilation programs, with changes such as dubbing and subtitling. The title of the show is usually changed and the studio segments are omitted.
As noted in the closing credits of each episode, most of the videos have been edited for length due to time constraints. In addition, according to the contest plugs, family members (both immediate or relatives) of employees of Vin Di Bona Productions, ABC, Inc., its corporate parent The Walt Disney Company (and for a good portion of Saget's hosting tenure, its legal predecessor, Capital Cities/ABC) and their related subsidiaries are ineligible for the show's contests and prizes.
On October 3, 2010, beginning with the season 21 premiere, America's Funniest Home Videos began broadcasting in high definition. Many of the videos, which are largely shot using standard definition camcorders, began to be stretched horizontally to fit 16:9 screens. However, since the 2012-13 season, videos shot in 4:3 standard definition began to be pillarboxed (particularly videos that are recorded on mobile devices that are shot at a vertical angle that would not even fit the 4:3 safe area of many television sets entirely; since the conversion to HD, the series has featured advisories to viewers to tilt their mobile devices horizontally to when recording in order for their videos to fit 16:9 screens). In 2014, all episodes of the show that were originally produced and aired in standard definition before both the season 21 premiere and the show's initial conversion to HD capability simultaneously in 2010 and/or already airing in rerun syndication for almost over a decade or more (and still are) got stretched vertically downward with slightly re-edited graphics due to widescreen and HD broadcast capability and signals on more broadcast television stations (and cable) networks, AFV's 25th anniversary, Tom Bergeron's 15th and final year as host of the show, and Alfonso Ribiero's entrance as the current host in season 26 that also included an almost-brand-new set, new version of the theme song, new graphics, and new logo among other things; while the funny video clips recorded with the use of camcorders before 2009 or the years preceding the invention of today's mobile devices such as the iPhone or iPad (and especially the videos that were aired on episodes in the Bob Saget, John Fugelsang, Daisy Fuentes, and the early Tom Bergeron eras of AFV) continued (and still continue in the Alfonso Ribiero run of AFV) to be stretched horizontally to this day.
Maps America's Funniest Home Videos
History
1989-1997: Bob Saget
The show debuted on November 26, 1989 as an hour-long special, produced by Vin Di Bona and Steve Paskay, with actor/comedian Bob Saget (then starring in the ABC sitcom Full House) as its host. Saget was assisted in hosting the special by actress Kellie Martin, then the star of fellow ABC series Life Goes On, a family drama which would serve as the lead-in program to AFHV for the latter show's first four seasons. Prior to the airing of the initial special, during the fall of 1989, Vin Di Bona Productions took out ads in national magazines (such as TV Guide) asking people to send in their home videos featuring funny or amazing moments.
John Ritter was Vin di Bona's first choice as host of the program, but he proved to be unavailable.
Originally intended as a one-off special, it became an unexpected hit, causing ABC to place an episode order for the show turning it into a regular weekly half-hour primetime series; it made its debut as a regular series on January 14, 1990, with Bob Saget hosting solo. Ernie Anderson served as the show's first announcer; once Anderson became too ill to continue, Gary Owens took over as announcer in 1995 (though Anderson briefly returned until his death in 1997).
Besides hosting the series, Saget also served as a member of its writing staff, alongside Todd Thicke and Bob Arnott. The success of AFHV led to a spinoff called America's Funniest People, hosted by Saget's Full House co-star Dave Coulier (and co-hosted by actress/producer Arleen Sorkin for the first two seasons, then model Tawny Kitaen for the final two), focusing on videos featuring people intentionally trying to be funny by doing celebrity impressions, committing pranks, and performing short amateur comedy routines, among other things.
During the show's first four seasons, America's Funniest Home Videos aired on Sunday nights at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time; beginning with the fifth season, the show started the Sunday primetime lineup on ABC, airing at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, followed by America's Funniest People at 7:30 p.m. Eastern as part of an hour-long block of funny home videos. Saget always ended each episode with the phrase "Keep those cameras safely rolling", and saying something to his wife who was (implied to be) watching the show.
Beginning about the middle of the first season, the show began featuring the "Assignment America" segment, which called for a series of videos to be sent in (collected or made) pertaining to a specific theme. Another segment introduced during Saget's tenure as host called "Backwards Classics," shows videos being played in reverse set to classical music. Since the show's debut as a regular series, the show routinely includes two to three times per episode, a montage of themed videos set to a particular song, called the "Music Montage"; classic songs (mostly from the 1950s through the 1970s, with only a few songs from the 1980s scattered in) were used during these montages in the original run of the series, though more recent pop, R&B and rock songs have been incorporated since Tom Bergeron became the show's host. In season five, an animated sidekick was introduced named "Stretchy McGillicuddy" (voiced by Danny Mann), who was known for trying to tease Saget and doing other crazy things. In one episode (in season five), he was shown on the two large TV monitors on both sides of the set and Bob had to turn him off with a remote. Stretchy's catchphrase was: "Don't get a little touchy Bob, I'm just a little stretchy!" The character was dropped from the show at the end of the seventh season.
In 1994, ABC canceled America's Funniest People after four seasons due to declining ratings and had to decide what to do with the Sunday night 7:30 p.m. Eastern slot that was now left vacant. After trying out the short-lived sitcom On Our Own in the 7:30 p.m. slot after AFHV during the 1994-95 season, ABC then later chose to expand America's Funniest Home Videos to one hour with back-to-back airings, with that week's new episode being shown in the first half-hour, followed by a repeat from a previous season to fill the remaining time. On February 1, 1996, another spinoff of AFHV debuted called World's Funniest Videos; which was taped at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida; this series was also hosted by Coulier, along with actress Eva LaRue. Paired with a weekly version of the popular Before They Were Stars specials on Thursday nights, World's Funniest Videos focused on funny and amazing home videos from around the world. However, due to low ratings, ABC put it on hiatus a few weeks after its debut, before cancelling the series outright after only one season and burning off the remaining episodes that summer. For Saget's final season on AFHV, two new episodes would be shown.
Numerous comedy skits were performed on the set during Saget's tenure as host. The set consisted of a living room design (the main set, originally a three-wall design with a bay window, was remodeled for the 1992-93 season as a flatter frame outline with translucent walls - though the furniture featured on the original set remained). The beginning of each episode was tied in with a skit just before the transition was made from the introduction to Saget. This usually consisted of several actors in a fake room (usually in the upper part of the audience section or in another soundstage) pretending to get excited watching America's Funniest Home Videos. This technique was scrapped at the end of the fifth season.
Saget soon grew tired of the repetitive format and was eager to pursue other projects as a comedian, actor, and director. Producer Di Bona held him to his contract, resulting in a frustrated Saget listlessly going through the motions, constantly getting out of character, and making pointed remarks on the air during his last two seasons. Saget's contract expired in May 1997, and he decided to leave the show afterward. However, according to Vin Di Bona, the producers felt a change (and change of hosts) was needed for AFV as a result of ABC going through a change of leadership (hence ABC's ownership transition from Capital Cities to Disney). His former Full House castmates (except for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen) were present in the episode prior to the $100,000 season finale (which additionally featured 3-D skits as part of an ABC promotional gimmick week), which was his final episode. Saget returned to America's Funniest Home Videos on two different occasions, first, to co-host a 20th anniversary special edition episode alongside Tom Bergeron, which aired on November 29, 2009 (which was four days shy of AFV's actual 20th anniversary date of its premiere on the air on November 26, 1989); and on May 17, 2015, he made a cameo appearance at the end of Tom Bergeron's final episode as host of AFV in Disneyland. He has yet to make his first guest appearance on Alfonso Ribiero's AFV, which would be his third guest appearance on the show and his second guest appearance on the road or in the studio.
1998-1999: John Fugelsang & Daisy Fuentes
After Saget's departure from the series, ABC sidelined America's Funniest Home Videos from the network's 1997-98 fall schedule, choosing to bring it back as a mid-season replacement. The show began to be alternately called AFV at this point (though the show officially continued to be titled America's Funniest Home Videos). The series returned for season nine on January 5, 1998, with new hosts and an overhauled look. Comedian John Fugelsang and model-turned-television personality Daisy Fuentes took over as co-hosts of the show. Jess Harnell also succeeded Owens as the show's announcer and still holds this position to this day (despite several hosting changes since).
During this period, the show introduced a segment called "Bad News, Good News," which shows a video of an accident; then one of the hosts makes a humorous statement about the upside of what happened. This segment continued to appear occasionally until the fourth year of Tom Bergeron's stint as host. Another notable segment was the "AFV Hall of Fame", in which a clip is shown, and Fugelsang reveals the moment of impact (a screen that shows a still picture of that clip) that occurred in it. This segment was scrapped at the end of season ten. Another featured segment was "Who Would You Like to See...", in which a random person is asked which celebrity they would like to see involved in a random humorous mishap, with a photo of a celebrity's face posterized over the face of the actual person in the video.
With the Sunday night 7:00 p.m. Eastern time slot now occupied by Disney films aired as part of The Wonderful World of Disney, the show constantly changed timeslots, moving from Monday nights to Thursday nights to Saturday nights. The ratings for the show suffered during this period, and both Fuentes and Fugelsang left the show after two seasons in 1999. Their last episode - which aired on May 6 of that year - was taped at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, California. The only honorable mention of John Fugelsang, Daisy Fuentes, and segments showcasing their run to date was the 2-part 300th episode AFV special in 2003 during the early years of the Bergeron run, which also showcased Saget's run of episodes in select segments, as well. They have yet to make their first guest appearances on the road or in the studio on AFV, as they have never been invited back as guests since their final episodes as co-hosts back in 1999.
1999-2000: Specials
In May 1999, ABC announced that it would discontinue America's Funniest Home Videos as a regular weekly series, but the show returned occasionally as a series of specials hosted by various ABC sitcom stars including The Hughleys star D.L. Hughley and Spin City co-star Richard Kind. The show moved to a much smaller soundstage and the set featured various video screens and monitors (resembling iMac computers) placed on shelves. A special sports version of the show called AFV: The Sports Edition, that was hosted by ESPN anchor Stuart Scott, was rebroadcast every New Year's Day and aired occasionally before NBA playoff games with a post 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time tip-off until 2008. A special entitled America's Funniest Home Videos: Deluxe Uncensored (which was released only on home video, and featured somewhat more risque content than that allowed on the television broadcasts) was hosted by Steve Carell and taped on the set used from the 1998-99 season. These specials (except for the special sports edition) were not taped in front of a live studio audience, instead applause and laugh tracks were used during commercial bumpers and just before, during, and after video packages.
2001-2015: Tom Bergeron
In October 2000, ABC announced its decision to return America's Funniest Home Videos as a regular weekly series, ordering 13 new episodes. On July 20, 2001, the show returned in its third format, this time with host Tom Bergeron (who was also hosting Hollywood Squares at the time). By this point, the show was expanded to full hour-long episodes, instead of two consecutive half-hour episodes. The show was now being seen on Friday nights at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time; however, it went on hiatus for two months due in part to the September 11 attacks and also because of ABC airing specials and trying a new Friday night lineup. That lineup was short-lived, and the show returned to the schedule in December 2001. In his earlier episodes, Bergeron used the set (with the bulky see-through iMac computers) from the AFV specials that aired in 2000, until the latter part of his first season, when a new set (with a studio audience) was introduced featuring a round video screen with several monitors.
In September 2003, the show returned to its former Sunday 7:00 p.m. Eastern timeslot, still an hour long (though special episodes occasionally aired on Friday nights until 2007). Unlike Saget, who provided voice-overs to the clips, Bergeron humorously narrated them, though he did lend his voice to some clips from time to time.
The Bergeron version added new segments, such as "Tom's Home Movies", where his face is digitally superimposed over the face of a person in each of the videos with varying expressions shown to match the person's reaction to their mishaps in the videos (a recurring gag referenced by Bergeron in this segment is on his superimposed head being larger than normal size), various audience participation games using funny home videos including "Head, Gut, or Groin," where Tom picked one or two members of the studio audience to guess whether the person in the video would be hit in the aforementioned three areas of the body in order to win an America's Funniest Home Videos compilation DVD (since the 2012-13 season, a bobblehead of Bergeron was given as the prize) and the "slo-mo gizmo", where a video is played first at normal speed and then again at a slower speed and telestrated. Bergeron nearly always ended each episode with the phrase "If you get it on (video) tape, you could get it in cash", which was later changed to "Upload to us. Get rich, get famous" by the 2008-09 season.
While only four of the segments ("Vs.", "The Dog/Cat Park", "Name That Sound", and "A Moment With...") continue to be shown on Alfonso Ribiero's AFV at present, the segments introduced (and still seen in reruns) during this period when Tom Bergeron hosted the show include:
- "Vs." (featuring compilations of two sets of related videos, in which the "winner" of the two is revealed at the end, followed by a fictional "preview" of the videos in which the winner is claimed to face in the next segment)
- "A Moment of Ewww" (featuring a video that focuses on something gross such as mucus hanging from a person's nose after sneezing)
- "The Dog/Cat Park" (a compilation of animal videos featuring dogs or cats that is named accordingly to the animals featured)
- "AFV Family of the Week" (featuring funny videos of adults and children, the "family" featured are actually people of no familial relation)
- "Nincompoop Corner" (a compilation of videos of people getting into situations that humorously showcase a lack of good judgement)
- "AFV Dictionary" (featuring a humorous dictionary definition made to apply to the video being shown)
- "Name that Sound" (which features audio of an unusual sound, followed by a clip of the video which the sound came from that usually reveals a person or animal making the noise)
- "Pick the Real Video" (a multiple-choice game in which audience members are asked to choose which video is the one that will be shown)
- "What's Behind the Blue Blob", "Kid, Cat, or Canine" (both it and "What's Behind the Blue Blob" are games which audience members are asked to guess the person, animal or object featured in the video that is then revealed)
- "The Naughty File" (featuring a video incorporating inappropriate behavior such as a child urinating at a family gathering)
- "A Moment With..." (An out of the ordinary video is shown for a few seconds)
- "What's Up with the French?"
- "AFV Pop Quiz" (a multiple-choice game leading into and out of a commercial break in which viewers are asked to guess what occurs next in the video)
- "The AFV $10,000 Club" (an early segment in which a home video that already won $10,000 in a previous show was showcased)
- Mysterious Mysteries of Mystery (an early segment in which Tom narrates a video with mysterious things happening like balloons replacing faces, in news headline form)
- On This Day in AFV History (an early segment in which Tom narrates a very old video, with a date, which Tom says that date, for example, a video from October 10, 1987 features a kid petting a dog, which bites him in the crotch)
Starting with the 2007-08 season, the series began allowing viewers to upload their funny home videos online at ABC.com, but has since the 2012-13 season; launched their own website that same year in 2013 and has viewers upload their videos instead to AFV.com, in addition to sending their videos via standard mail. Except for reruns of episodes from seasons 21 and 22 that referenced uploading to ABC.com, the re-edited season 11-20 episodes that used to originally reference ABC.com on the unaltered versions of the episodes now reference uploading to AFV.com. During the 2011-12 season, the AFV iOS app was released on the App Store, allowing users of Apple mobile devices to record and upload videos for submission to the show; a version of the app was released for Android devices the following season.
In the final six seasons of Tom Bergeron's run as host, the show started its "Funny Since 1989" campaign in 2009 and had two anniversary seasons. Season 20, in 2009, had a special 20th anniversary episode that aired on November 29, 2009. The special brought back Bob Saget to AFV for the first time in 12 years as a guest. Both Saget and Bergeron ended that episode with a pinata party skit and a nod to the Star Wars lightsaber fight scenes when the credits started rolling. The pinatas resembled the looks of the two hosts. Five years later, on March 7, 2014, Bergeron announced on his Twitter account that season 25 would be his last. AFV aired a 25th Anniversary Celebrity Celebration special in February 2015. Bergeron's final new episode from his in-studio stage home of 15 years (which was really his second to final episode) aired on May 10, 2015 (and for the final time in rerun form on ABC on September 13, 2015), and was the final (and season 25's second) $100,000 show of his tenure and featured at different times of the episode a look back at classic and modern funny home videos that defined the show's then-25-year run. Bergeron's "real" final new episode aired on May 17, 2015, the season finale, ending his run as host after fifteen seasons (the longest hosting tenure for the series to date). The episode - taped on-location at Disneyland for that season's edition of the annual "Grand Prize Spectacular", AFV's 25th anniversary, and the Disneyland Resort's 60th Anniversary Diamond Celebration that began on May 22, 2015 (which has appeared in various formats since 2005, in which one of the two (formerly three) $100,000 winners from the current season wins a Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, or in earlier seasons, an Adventures by Disney vacation package) - featured an auto-tuned montage of clips and outtakes from Bergeron's run as host and closed with him being escorted after walking off the outdoor stage near Sleeping Beauty Castle following the grand prize presentation on a cart driven by original host Bob Saget in a special cameo appearance. ABC aired encores of this episode on two different occasions. First, on July 19, 2015 to coincide with Disneyland's official 60th birthday on the weekend of July 17, 2015 (the actual 60th anniversary of Disneyland's grand-opening on July 17, 1955) and again on September 20, 2015 as the network's final episode airing, new or rerun, of AFV with Tom Bergeron and him as host signing off for the final time. Tom Bergeron made his first guest appearance in the studio on the season 26 "Grand Prize Spectacular" finale of Alfonso Ribiero's AFV on May 22, 2016 and played the show's final on-air audience participation game "Who Breaks It?" and won an Alfonso Ribiero AFV pillow and socks.
2015-present: Alfonso Ribeiro
On May 19, 2015, two days after Bergeron's final episode aired, ABC announced that Alfonso Ribeiro (known for playing Carlton Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) would take over as host of AFV beginning with the season 26 premiere on October 11, 2015. Bergeron formally introduced Ribeiro's new role as host during the latter's guest performance on the season 20 finale of Dancing with the Stars (Ribeiro appeared as a DWTS competitor and won the prior season). Before becoming the current host of the show, Alfonso Ribiero made his first (and final) guest appearance in the studio on a season 25 episode of AFV playing one of the show's audience participation games with then-host Tom Bergeron called "Who's Makin' That Racket?". While some of the Tom Bergeron-era clip segments, the in-studio audience, and background parts of the Tom Bergeron-era set props remained intact and/or continued to air for Alfonso Ribeiro's first three seasons, the stage featured a floor layout and stairway connected to a rubics-like cube with flat-screen TVs and new segments (especially for Alfonso Ribiero's run) continued to be added and aired on the show. The Assignment America and musical montage segments that started in the Bob Saget-era and the honorable mentions segments and Disney Grand Prize Vacation Sweepstakes Contests that started in the Tom Bergeron-era also continued.
In May 2017, ABC renewed AFV for a 28th season. For the start of the season, instead of leading off the night, it currently airs at 8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT and was lead into at the start of the season by The Toy Box; during the holiday season, AFV will air in a 'repeat/new episode' scheduling format.
$100,000 contest
After every half of the season, the $10,000 winners from the preceding episodes are brought back to participate in a contest to win an additional $100,000. (Previously, there would be three $100,000 shows per season, after runs of shows consisting of either 5, 6, or 7 episodes. Beginning with the 24th season, the format changed to two $100,000 shows, each one after a 9-or-10-episode run. This format was also used during seasons 9, 12, 13, and 14.) Two $100,000 contests air each season (the final $100,000 episode originally aired as the season finale until the 15th season, at which point it begin airing as the episode before each season's final episode), though only one aired in the first season.
Voting
- 1990-97 (Saget version): ABC stations (5 in season one, 3 from 1990 to 1993, and 2 from 1993 onward) around the country are joined via satellite to cast their votes along with the Los Angeles studio audience (the final $100,000 show of season two was decided by a telephone vote)
- 1998-99 (Fuentes/Fugelsang version): Only the Los Angeles studio audience voted (with an audience from Minneapolis, Minnesota joining via satellite in one episode during season 10).
- 2001-present: Three formats have been used at various times:
- The Los Angeles studio audience votes to determine the winner.
- Viewers log onto the show's website to cast their votes.
- The show declares the winner by going to the Disney Parks and asking park-goers, as well inviting characters like Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy, to determine the $100,000 winning clip.
Other contests
- 2002: "Battle of the Best": The Quad Squad ($25,000 and trip to Maui)
- 2005: Disney Dream Vacation ($100,000 and free vacations to all 11 Disney theme parks around the world)
- 2006: Dancing Machine ($100,000 and free vacations to 500+ places for 48 years)
- 2006: "Funniest Video of All-Time": The Quad Squad ($250,000)
- 2009: Birthday Blowout ($100,000 and free vacations to 500+ places for 50 years)
- 2015: H20 NO-NO: Trip To Disneyland for 60 People (to celebrate the Disneyland Resort 60th Anniversary Diamond Celebration)
Ratings
Season averages
America's Funniest Home Videos became an instant hit with audiences, with the original special in November 1989 averaging a 17.7 rating and 25 share, finishing at ninth place in the Nielsen ratings that week. When it debuted as a weekly Sunday night series in January 1990, the show averaged an 18.0 rating/27 share, finishing at 16th place. It placed within Nielsen's Top 5 highest-rated weekly series within weeks of its debut; by March 1990, AFHV became the #1 primetime series for a short time, causing CBS' 60 Minutes to be unseated for the top spot in the Nielsen ratings for the first time in 12 years. Indeed there was at least one week in 1990 when America's Funniest Home Videos, when put in the same time slot as 60 Minutes, actually beat 60 Minutes for a win in the time slot. AFHV finished the 1989-90 season in the Top 10 most watched shows, with an approximate average of 38 million viewers for each episode.
AFHV finished the 2009-10 season in 55th place, with an approximate average of 7.52 million viewers, and finished in 69th in viewers 18-49, with 2.0/6. In 2016, a New York Times study of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook Likes found that "if you could pick a safe show that appeals to almost everyone, this might be it".
Theme songs
AFV's original theme song was "The Funny Things You Do", composed by Dan Slider and performed by Jill Colucci, who also wrote the lyrics with Stewart Harris. This version of the song accompanied the opening and closing credits for the first seven-and-a-half seasons. This theme was reused once again for when Tom Bergeron introduced Bob Saget as well as a montage of classic videos and Saget's first, original intro moment to the stage from the pilot episode and a latter segment (using the theme's original lyrics) showcasing Saget's run (during AFV's first eight seasons) on the show in the AFV 20th anniversary special, which aired in 2009. The show's online series of videos entitled AFV XD is noted for its use of this version of the theme song, as well as portions of the original graphics from the 1989-97 seasons. During the final part of the $100,000 shows, bands as well as other artists would play the theme. Midway through Saget's final season in 1997, the theme was revamped (as well as the graphics and animation of the show's intro) featuring a duet of new vocals, Peter Hix (who had previously performed the theme song for America's Funniest People) and Terry Wood. The new version was also set in a different key than the original.
When AFHV returned for its ninth season with new hosts Daisy Fuentes and John Fugelsang in 1998, a completely new arrangement of "The Funny Things You Do" made its debut. Since that time, the theme has been an instrumental (also composed by Slider) with a faster, ska/reggae beat, with the original key restored, making it sound similar to "The Impression That I Get" by The Mighty Mighty Bosstones. An alternate version of this theme exists that is stripped of the trumpets (this version is only heard as the closing theme during the 2002-03 season in ABC and broadcast syndication runs, as well as in re-edited bumpers with added video clips from that particular episode in some 2002-03 season episodes in broadcast syndication). In reruns of the Fugelsang-Fuentes episodes on WGN America and later the Bergeron episodes on WGN America and ABC Family, the theme is noticeably slowed down during the show's opening titles and commercial bumpers.
For season 26, with new host Alfonso Ribeiro, a new arrangement of "The Funny Things You Do" was introduced with that season's premiere episode in 2015, replacing the 1998 theme after seventeen seasons. The current theme, which Slider also composed, is stylized more alike the original version with its key of that theme, as well as the additional hook of the 1998 version retained.
The 1998 and 2015 themes can be heard in their entirety at the Television Production Music Museum. The two later themes used during the post-Saget era have not been released to this day, as they are reportedly being held by Vin Di Bona.
"The Funny Things You Do" was the theme song to the Australian version between 1991 and 2004. It was replaced by an instrumental version as part of a major revamp in 2005.
Virtually all episodes of AFHV are, or have been, in syndication. Each period has aired separately. Until 2001, the Saget version was syndicated by 20th Television, which assumed syndication rights through its purchase of MTM Enterprises, which had syndicated the show from 1995 to 1998. Disney-ABC Domestic Television (formerly Buena Vista Television), the sister company of one of the show's production companies ABC Productions, distributes all versions of the series.
Bob Saget episodes
The 1989-1994 Bob Saget episodes airing in off-network syndication in the Hallmark Channel from January 4, 2010 to February 25, 2014;; Nick at Nite from April 2008 to October 2013 and weeknights @ 11pm and 6am and 6:30am and Weekends @ 12am and 12:30 am & 6am and 6:30am WGN America in January 2006 to February 2010. The 1994-97 episodes on ABC Family were from September 2006 to November 2010 and airs Weekdays @ 11am and Weeknights @ 12am and 12:30am.
In ABC Family airings of the Bob Saget run, when back-to-back episodes aired, the opening titles of the second episode were cut and replaced with an announcer saying "Now don't go away, here's more of America's Funniest Home Videos!" before cutting to Ernie Anderson introducing Saget. Some airings of the Saget version on Hallmark, and Nick at Nite cut the interviews with the winners, due to time constraints, because of the longer ad breaks that were not seen on U.S. broadcast television during the period that the episodes originally aired on ABC. Also, because of time constraints, some Hallmark episodes have the opening titles (as well as various portions of the show) sped up.
John Fugelsang-Daisy Fuentes episodes
The 1998-1999 Fugelsang-Fuentes episodes aired on ABC Family from the fall of 1999 (known as Fox Family and owned by News Corporation at the time), until the fall of 2003; the 1994-1997 Saget episodes also aired on the network from the fall of September 2005 to October 2010, usually on Monday through Friday mornings at 11 a.m., and Saturdays and Sundays at 10 and 10:30 p.m. PT . The Tom Bergeron episodes aired on ABC Family on November 1, 2010 to September 2014; it usually aired three to six nights a week with episodes regularly airing at 6 p.m. ET (depending upon the night's schedule); it had previously also ran on the network in a four-hour block on Fridays from 6 to 11 p.m. ET from 2009 to 2012. The Tom Bergeron (and until Fall 2014, Fuentes-Fugelsang) episodes have aired on WGN America since 2004. Currently, the channel still only shows the 2001-09 Tom Bergeron run (now in re-edited form for HD broadcasts since Fall 2014), which airs Saturdays and on select days in 4-hour blocks from 6 to 10 p.m. ET. Before the primetime newscast was dropped by WGN America in February 2014, the Fugelsang-Fuentes episodes aired on occasions until Fall 2014 (more frequently from 2004 to 2010, due to primetime movie overruns) when a sporting event airing on WGN-TV/Chicago that was not cleared to air on WGN America forced the preemption of its simulcast of WGN-TV's 9 p.m. newscast outside of Chicago. Atlanta independent station WPCH-TV (channel 17; formerly the local Atlanta feed of TBS, now known as "PeachtreeTV") aired the entire Saget run, the first (and so far, the only) channel ever to do so since the original ABC run, from 2007 to 2009.
Tom Bergeron episodes
The Tom Bergeron episodes began airing in off-network syndication on September 14, 2009; WGN America also aired the off-network syndicated episodes in late night until September 2011, while alternate versions of the Bergeron (and sometimes the Fugelsang-Fuentes) episodes with the Buena Vista Television tag before the end credits aired in the evening. UpTV began airing (and currently still airs) reruns of the 2001-15 Tom Bergeron-era episodes of AFV in (and since) 2016. Months ahead of and in preparation for AFV's 25th anniversary and Tom Bergeron's 15th and final season as host of AFV in season 25, since August 2014, the 2001-2010 Tom Bergeron episodes from past seasons for its syndication rerun airings were re-edited to make them more HD friendly and rid the episodes of "some" of their outdated promo, contest sweepstakes, and sponsorship references that may no longer be valid. Evidence of the re-editing can be seen when the picture zooms back to its original standard-definition format during the end credits (on WGN America and UpTV only) with the colored bars utilizing the show's different background color schemes from past seasons on the left and right sides of screens. The 2009-2015 Tom Bergeron episodes with a re-edited season 20 package began airing for the first time ever in syndication on TBS on September 15, 2014. On October 3, 2016, some episodes from the 2001-2009 Tom Bergeron-era syndication package that were already airing in reruns on other cable networks for over a decade had finally became part of TBS' early-morning line-up of AFV reruns. Like the initial ABC airings, while the syndicated episodes continue to use all of the different color and logo variations of the ABC Entertainment and Vin Di Bona Productions tags before or after the end credits, depending on the station or cable networks, they have not shown the Buena Vista Television or even the ABC Studios or Disney/ABC Domestic Television distribution tags since Fall 2014.
Broadcast syndication airings of the Bergeron-era episodes have censored instances of nudity involving young children, which were uncensored in the original ABC broadcasts.
Outside of the United States
Outside the United States, family-oriented Canadian cable channel YTV has aired AFV on Saturday nights since September 2009. Canadian broadcaster yesTV, with CHEK-DT in British Columbia, also began airing a simulcast of AFV episodes on Sundays at 7 p.m. local time, as it airs on ABC in the U.S. (but factoring simultaneous substitution), starting from season 25, City and its sister network Omni Television was the previous broadcaster in Canada since the Spring of 2010. It also airs on Fox8 in Australia.
Seasons
Merchandise
VHS/DVD
ABC, Shout! Factory, and Slingshot Entertainment have released numerous compilation releases of America's Funniest Home Videos on VHS and DVD in Region 1 (North America).
Games
Parker Brothers released a board game in 1990. Graphix Zone released a hybrid CD-ROM titled America's Funniest Home Videos: Lights! Camera! InterAction! in 1995. Imagination Games released a DVD game in 2007.
Toys
An America's Funniest Home Videos micro movie viewer was released in 1990.
See also
- America's Funniest People, people intentionally being humorous, also produced by Vin Di Bona
- Australia's Funniest Home Video Show, 1990-2004 show created by Di Bona
- Australia's Funniest Home Videos, post-2005 show created by Di Bona
- Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos, a similar show created by Di Bona
- It Only Hurts When I Laugh, a truTV series
- New Zealand's Funniest Home Videos (later The Kiwi Video Show)
- Ridiculousness, an MTV series using internet videos
- The Planet's Funniest Animals, an Animal Planet series
- The World's Funniest Moments, a syndicated series
- The World's Funniest!, a 1997-2000 series on FOX
- Video Gag, the French equivalent of AFHV
- You've Been Framed, the British equivalent of the show
- ?miechu warte, in Polish programs in TVP1 production TVP3 Szczecin in Szczecin (Polish equivalent of the show)
- Video Loco, Chilean equivalent of the show
- Upps! - Die Pannenshow, in German programs in Super RTL
- Nejzábavn?j?í domácí videa Ameriky In Czech Republic programs
- Låt Kameran Gå, Swedish equivalent of the show
- De Leukste Thuis, Dutch equivalent of the show
- Videos de primera, Spanish equivalent of the show
- Paperissima, Italian equivalent of the show
- Drôle de vidéo, Canadian equivalent of the show
- Isto Só Video, Portugalian equivalent of the show
- ??? ???? ????????, Russian equivalent of the show
- Det' Ren Kagemand, Danish equivalent of the show
- Ay, caramba!, Mexican equivalent of the show
- Csíííz!, Magyar equivalent of the show
- Süper Matrak, Turkish equivalent of the show aired on Disney Channel Turkey
References
External links
- Official website
- America's Funniest Home Videos on IMDb
- America's Funniest Home Videos at TV.com
- America's Funniest Home Videos page from Shout! Factory
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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