America's Funniest Home Videos

America's Funniest Home Videos
Premiere	special November 26, 1989 series January 21, 1990
Airs	Sundays at 7PM
Creator	Vin Di Bona
Host	Bob Saget (seasons 1-8) John Fugelsang (seasons 9-10) Daisy Fuentes (seasons 9-10) Tom Bergeron (seasons 11-25) Alfonso Ribeiro (seasons 26-)
Network/Provider	ABC
Style	60-minute comedy variety
Company	ABC Productions, Vin Di Bona Productions
Distributor	MTM Television Distribution (1995-98) 20th Television (1998-2001) Buena Vista Television (2001-07) Disney-ABC Domestic Television (2007-20) Disney Media Distribution (2020-)
Seasons	34
Episodes	746 + 8 specials (through season 33)
Status	Currently airing season 34
Origin	USA
Official Site	ABC

America's Funniest Home Videos is one of the longest-running primetime entertainment shows on television, and ABC's longest-running such show, as of the start of the 2008-09 season. Although its hosts and format have changed over the years, the premise of the show has remained constant: Ordinary Americans send in funny (mostly—but not exclusively—serendipitious and unplanned) moments they have captured on home video, and at the end of each episode, the audience votes for the funniest clip, with awards given to the first prize, second prize and third prize winners. (Currently, the awards are $10,000 for first prize, $3,000 for second and $2,000 for third.) In addition, the first prize winners compete against each other at the end of every season for a $100,000 grand prize.

When it first debuted, America's Funniest Home Videos was a smash hit and one of the most popular shows throughout most of the 1990s. The success of this show and its low budget led to a craze of "caught on tape" specials and series throughout the decade. The FOX network, in particular, became notorious for sensationalizing the concept and pushing it to its logical extreme.

At almost the same time as ABC debuted the first America's Funniest Home Videos special, FOX—then just beginning to break out of its overlooked, "other" broadcast network shell to make the "Big Three" (ABC, CBS and NBC) into the "Big Four" of today—premiered another, much different documentary series, COPS. On the surface, except for their low budgets, America's Funniest Home Videos and COPS had almost nothing in common. The former was a variety show with a comedian host (Bob Saget of ABC's Full House), the latter a documentary show in which camera crews followed around real-life cops on the job. However, FOX recognized both shows featured ordinary people—not actors, stuntmen, or even highly-paid journalists—without script writers or cinematographers. Any danger faced by the people seen on-screen—be they police officers or simply people carrying electrical equipment up ladders—was genuine and immediate. In cop dramas, when a police officer was shot at, the actor playing the police officer had to pretend to fear death, although the bullets fired were blanks and any physical activity was handled by stuntmen. In situation comedies, when a man was hit in the groin, the actor playing him had to pretend not to expect it and to writhe in pain, even though the hit was carefully coordinated, and he was probably wearing a cup to protect from real damage. However, on America's Funniest Home Videos, the man hit in the groin really was hit in the groin, and the bullets fired on COPS were real bullets. What's more, America's Funniest Home Videos and COPS provided an appeal which traditional documentaries did not—the possibility that anyone, anywhere could do or film something which ended up on national television. In a sense, it was the final realization of artist Andy Warhol's famous prediction (meant literally, but often incorrectly taken as metaphorical), "In the future, everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes."

It didn't take FOX long to combine the element of viewer-generated footage from America's Funniest Home Videos with the lurid appeal of crime, physical danger and violence from COPS. The result was a host of specials and series throughout the 1990s—When Animals Attack, Man Vs. Beast, Terror on the Job, Video Justice: Crime Caught on Tape. FOX would even sometimes be so brazen as to make its titles clear nods to America's Funniest Home Videos, as it did with World's Most Shocking Moments. These specials and series were critically reviled but immensely popular. ABC, of course, was none too thrilled with FOX imitating the formula for its success to find even more success, and FOX was criticized for the move. That notwithstanding, well into the 2000s, FOX would receive criticism for stealing and sensationalizing ABC's documentary concepts—thus Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? first became Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire? and then Joe Millionaire; Wife Swap became Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy; The Bachelor became My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiance.

Although the concept of combining documentary footage with entertainment programming for TV dated back to Candid Camera, the unique combination would become so prevalent at FOX and in syndication that a new term, "reality," was coined to describe it. Although the genre would take on new forms in the following decade, America's Funniest Home Videos was one of its final progenitors. In addition, its competition-based format would lead to a spate of network primetime game shows in the 2000s—the first real explosion of the format in primetime since the quiz show scandal of the 1960s. It would also predict the rise of such people-in-danger shows as Jackass and such viewer-generated Internet sites as YouTube.

The America's Funniest Home Videos star faded a bit shortly before Saget left in 1997, but it continues to garner solid ratings and significant sponsorship. This is due to its broad, mainstream appeal, but its continued success is also ensured by the fact that it is, far and away, one of the lowest budget shows on network primetime in America. As most of its content is produced and filmed by the contestants themselves, its writing and filming crews are kept to a minimum. Even its cash prizes, which number in the hundreds of thousands in most seasons (the highest prize awarded to date was $250,000), are negligible compared to the millions of dollars winnable or potentially winnable in seasons of most of its reality and game show grandchildren. As a result, in all likelihood, America's Funniest Home Videos will remain on the air for many years to come.

Seasons

Season	Premiere	Finale				#
ABC
Season One	January 26, 1990	May 20, 1990				15 + 1
Season Two	September 16, 1990	May 12, 1991				25
Season Three	September 22, 1991	May 17, 1992				25
Season Four	September 20, 1992	May 16, 1993				25
Season Five	September 19, 1993	May 22, 1994				22
Season Six	September 18, 1994	May 21, 1995				19
Season Seven	September 17, 1995	May 19, 1996				21
Season Eight	September 22, 1996	May 18, 1997				21
Season Nine	January 9, 1998	1998				25
Season Ten	1998	1999				26
Season Eleven	July 20, 2001	December 2001				25
Season Twelve	January 4, 2002	—				25
Season Thirteen	September 27, 2002	May 9, 2003				24 + 1
Season Fourteen	September 28, 2003	May 23, 2004				22
Season Fifteen	September 26, 2004	April 29, 2005				21 + 2
Season Sixteen	October 2, 2005	May 19, 2006				23
Season Seventeen	October 1, 2006	May 18, 2007				25
Season Eighteen	October 7, 2007	May 16, 2008				22
Season Nineteen	October 5, 2008	May 15, 2009				24
Season Twenty	October 4, 2009	May 16, 2010				24
Season Twenty-One	September 26, 2010	May 15, 2011				24
Season Twenty-Two	October 2, 2011	May 20, 2012				22 + 1
Season Twenty-Three	October 7, 2012	May 19, 2013				22
Season Twenty-Four	October 13, 2013	May 18, 2014				22
Season Twenty-Five	October 12, 2014	May 17, 2015				22 + 1
Season Twenty-Six	October 11, 2015	May 22, 2016				22
Season Twenty-Seven	October 2, 2016	May 21, 2017				22
Season Twenty-Eight	October 8, 2017	May 20, 2018				22
Season Twenty-Nine	September 30, 2018	May 19, 2019				22
Season Thirty	September 29, 2019	June 14, 2020				22 + 2
Season Thirty-One	October 18, 2020	May 23, 2021				22
Season Thirty-Two	October 3, 2021	May 22, 2022				22
Season Thirty-Three	October 2, 2022	May 21, 2023				22
Season Thirty-Four	October 1, 2023	May 19, 2024				22

In-Depth

• At a Glance: Additional information about the series

DVD Releases

Title			Release			Discs
'Best Of' Collections  (Region 1)
Animal Antics			October 12, 1999	purchase		1
Deluxe Uncensored			October 12, 1999	purchase		1
Family Follies			October 12, 1999	purchase		1
Home for the Holidays			October 4, 2005	purchase		1
The Best of Kids & Animals			December 27, 2005	purchase		3
Nincompoops and Boneheads			June 13, 2006	purchase		1
Athletic Supporters			August 1, 2006	purchase		1
Salute to Romance			January 1, 2007	purchase		1
Episode Collections  (Region 1)
Volume 1			July 26, 2005	purchase		4

External Sites

• America's Funniest Home Videos Episodes, TV Listings, News, Photos and More at TVGuide.com