| Creator: | Vin Di Bona |
| Based On: | Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Num Seasons: | 35 |
| Num Episodes: | 790 |
| Producer: | Bill Barlow |
| Network: | ABC |
| Location: | Manhattan Beach Studios, Manhattan Beach, California |
America's Funniest Home Videos,[1] also called America's Funniest Videos[2] (abbreviated as AFV), is an American video clip television series on ABC, based on the Japanese variety show Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan (1986–1992).[3] The show features humorous homemade videos that are submitted by viewers. The most common videos feature unintentional physical comedy, pets or children and some staged pranks.
Originally airing as a special in 1989, it debuted as a regular weekly series in January 1990. The show was originally hosted by comedian Bob Saget for the 1989 special and the first eight seasons of the series incarnation. After Saget stepped down as host in 1997, John Fugelsang and Daisy Fuentes took over as co-hosts 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, Richard Kind, Stuart Scott and Steve Carell, with Mike Kasem and Kerri Kasem hosting international versions), ABC brought the series back on Friday nights in 2001 with Tom Bergeron taking over hosting duties; Bergeron is the longest-running host in the show's history to date, staying on AFV for fifteen seasons until he stepped down in 2015. Alfonso Ribeiro has hosted the program since 2015.
On May 16, 2023, ABC renewed AFV for a 34th season which premiered on October 1 of the same year.[4] [5] On May 13, 2024, ABC renewed AFV for a 35th season.[6]
America's Funniest Home Videos is based on the 1986–1992 Tokyo Broadcasting System variety program Kato-chan Ken-chan Gokigen TV (also known as 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 holds a 50% ownership share in the program, pays a royalty fee to TBS Holdings, Inc. for the use of the format (although the original parent show is no longer in production).[7] [8] Contestants can submit their videos by uploading them on the show's official website, AFV.com; through its iOS or Android apps; on the show's official Facebook fan page; or by sending them via mail to a Hollywood, California post-office box address.[9] The majority of the video clips are short (5–30 seconds) and are mostly related to the host's monologues. Videos usually feature people and animals getting into humorous accidents and incidents 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. As of 1989, the show's production process featured a group of screeners viewing the submitted tapes and grading them on a 1–10 scale based on how humorous they were. The videos graded the highest were sent to the show's producers, and then to Di Bona and another producer for final approval.[10] Videos that feature staged accidents, people being seriously injured, the abuse of animals, or otherwise do not meet ABC network standards and practices are generally not accepted for broadcast.[11]
Every week, the producers choose three videos to participate in a tournament that the studio audience will vote on. The first-place winner is awarded a $20,000 cash prize (previously $10,000 until Season 32), advancing to the semifinals and placed in the running for the $100,000 prize awarded during the middle and near the end of each season (each with their own corresponding eligibility period for the $10,000 winners selected from the block of episodes preceding each $100,000 prize telecast); the runner-up receives $6,000 (previously $3,000) and the third-place video receives $4,000 (previously $2,000). The winners of the $100,000 prize in the semifinals then advance to the grand finals, and will compete for a vacation prize package in the grand finals (starting in Season 12, and becoming an annual tradition starting in Season 15), supplied by DisneyParks, Disney Cruise Line, Adventures by Disney, or Disney Vacation Club, and the title of "America's Funniest Home Video".[12] 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, and episodes taped towards the end of Season 30 through Season 32 featured a "virtual" audience presented on set monitors through video conferencing due to local and state crowd restrictions put in place during the COVID-19 pandemic). Audience members are asked to dress in "business casual or nicer".[13]
Show creator Vin Di Bona has produced three spin-off programs: America's Funniest People (1990–1994), World's Funniest Videos (1996), and extension series (2021–2022).[14] In 2019, Di Bona also created an attempt at an adult-oriented spinoff, Videos After Dark, which was not picked up as a series but aired on ABC as a two-episode special.[15] Di Bona also created Show Me the Funny (1998–1999, Fox Family Channel) and That's Funny (2004–2006, syndication), two similar comedic home video series—both hosted by actor/comedian Rondell Sheridan—that largely relied on repackaged clips from the video libraries of AFV and America's Funniest People.[16] Several local television stations, even those not affiliated with ABC, also developed special funny home video segments in their newscasts during the early 1990s, and or local spinoffs, inspired by the series.[17] 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 the substantial majority of Saget's hosting tenure, its legal predecessor, Capital Cities/ABC) and their related subsidiaries are ineligible for the show's contests and prizes.
Series creator Vin Di Bona had previously developed a similar concept in Animal Crack-Ups (1987–1990), a celebrity game show that aired primarily as part of ABC's Saturday morning lineup and was based on the Japanese series Wakuwaku Dōbutsu Land (or “Waku Waku Animal World"), a game in which contestants answered questions related to funny video clips involving animals (accompanied by narration that anthropomorphized the clips’ subjects). Di Bona—who decided to form his eponymous production company following his stint as a line producer on the first season (1985–1986) of the ABC action-adventure series MacGyver—partnered with former CBS News executive Joe Bellon, whose distribution company, Bellon Enterprises (founded after Bellon left CBS in 1985), at the time had been struggling in its efforts to sell the international rights to programming concepts—like Wakuwaku—based on shows originally aired by the Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS). The two soon developed a pitch for an American version of Wakuwaku, using the licensed animal footage from the program, eventually selling it to ABC.[18]
In the spring of 1989, while Di Bona and his then-wife, Gina, attended the Monte-Carlo Television Festival, the latter passed a booth for a distributor showcasing a segment from the TBS variety program Kato-chan Ken-chan Gokigen TV (or Fun TV with Kato-chan and Ken-chan), in which hosts Ken Shimura and Cha Kato presented and provided comedic narration over a package of funny caught-on-tape moments sent in by viewers; at the end of each show, audience members voted for their favorite clip among those featured. At Gina's insistence, Di Bona contacted TBS about licensing the rights to the concept.[18] [19]
Di Bona, with Bellon's assistance in acquiring the clips from TBS, put together a presentation reel featuring footage from the Gokigen TV home video segment; ABC executives, immediately after seeing the reel (Di Bona has claimed in interviews that the network decided to buy the proposed show four minutes into the pitch), decided to place an order for the concept that would become America's Funniest Home Videos. However, the network intended for it to be a one-off special, unsure that a program showing other people's home movies would work as a weekly series. Di Bona enlisted most of the staff from Animal Crack-Ups—including among others, writer Todd Thicke (whose older brother, actor/host/songwriter Alan Thicke, hosted Crack-Ups in addition to his starring role in the ABC sitcom Growing Pains), producer Steve Paskay, creative consultant Gina Di Bona, coordinating producers Joe and (his son and business partner) Greg Bellon, and director Ron de Moraes—to work on the pilot special. Di Bona also borrowed the comedic narration style used in Gokigen TV and Wakuwaku, having the host provide voices to both humans and animals featured in the clips as well as exaggerated observational humor.[19] [18]
In the run-up to the special's broadcast, during the fall of 1989, Vin Di Bona Productions took out ads in national magazines (such as TV Guide and People) asking people to send in their home videos featuring funny or amazing moments. Around 1,800 tapes were submitted for inclusion in the pilot special.
John Ritter was Vin Di Bona's first choice to host the program, but was unavailable (according to Di Bona, Ritter did not envision the hosting role as fitting in with his shifting career focus from sitcoms to feature films). Los Angeles sports reporter Fred Roggin was also approached to host, but due to his contract negotiations with NBC (and its O&O station KNBC), he was unable to accept. (Roggin would eventually host a similar show of his own, Roggin's Heroes, which aired in syndication from 1991 to 1993.) Di Bona then approached actor/comedian Bob Saget (then starring as Danny Tanner in the ABC sitcom Full House), whom he remembered from the latter's May 1989 guest appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, impressed by his comedic timing and storytelling during the interview; however, Di Bona was unaware of Saget's existing ABC series role until he was informed by network executives when pitching Saget as host. Saget was initially reluctant to accept, but Di Bona ultimately convinced him to agree to do the gig, believing that it would showcase Saget's general comedic talent, and make him known for that than merely for his role as the cleanliness-obsessed "dorky dad" on Full House.[20]
The show debuted on November 26, 1989, as an hour-long special,[21] produced by Di Bona and Steve Paskay, with Saget as host. Actress Kellie Martin, then the star of fellow ABC series Life Goes On (as Becca Thatcher), which would serve as the lead-in program to AFHV for the latter show's first four seasons, and A Pup Named Scooby-Doo (as the voice of Daphne Blake), served as a special guest and assisted Saget in hosting two segments during the special, including the announcement of the three grand prize finalists (for the special, the first-place winner was awarded a $5,000 cash prize, while the second and third-place winners each won an RCA camcorder). Married couple Helen and Bill Wholf of Thompson, Ohio were awarded the show's first grand prize for a clip titled "The Dishwasher Lady," in which Bill discovers Helen had gotten herself stuck inside their dishwasher after her hair became entangled in the machine's spray arm while attempting to retrieve a dropped utensil. The clip, the Panasonic OmniMovie HQ 1FX8-CCD camcorder that Bill Wholf used to record the video, and other artifacts from the series—including an annotated pilot script, an audience voting machine, and a presentation reel created to pitch the proposed special to ABC executives—were donated to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History in 2008.[22] [23] [24] [25] [26]
America's Funniest Home Videos became an unexpected hit for ABC: the special's initial broadcast was watched by 32.8 million viewers, roughly double the network's average viewership in the Sunday 8:00 p.m. ET timeslot at the time. Ratings increased over the course of the show, with much of it coming from viewers in the Northeastern and Midwestern U.S. snowed in by a significant blizzard that hit those regions a few days earlier around the Thanksgiving holiday. Impressed by the viewer response to the special, ABC decided to turn it into a weekly prime time series and ordered 10 additional half-hour episodes (later increased to 15); it debuted as a regular series on January 14, 1990, serving as a replacement for the recently cancelled fantasy sitcom Free Spirit.[27] Besides acting as host, Saget also served as a member of its writing staff, alongside Todd Thicke (who stayed with the series until the 2014–15 season, and also served as a producer starting with its eighth season in 1996) and Bob Arnott.
Ernie Anderson, the longtime voice of ABC, was the program's original announcer, although Charlie O'Donnell, then known mainly as the announcer for Wheel of Fortune, occasionally substituted for him during some Season 1 episodes. Anderson also made an on-camera cameo appearance during the third season's first grand prize episode, originally aired on November 17, 1991 (an excerpt from that episode—featuring Saget prodding Anderson into reciting the signature vocal delivery he used to promote The Love Boat—was featured during the March 9, 1997, episode in a brief segment paying tribute to Anderson, who died the previous month from lung cancer). He was replaced in 1995 by radio and television actor Gary Owens, who remained in that role until Saget's departure, although Anderson would briefly return via archived recordings. The show's theme song, "The Funny Things You Do", was performed by co-songwriter Jill Colucci (who also sung the themes for ABC's "Something's Happening" and "America's Watching" promotional campaigns between 1987 and 1990) for most of the Saget run; this was replaced midway through Season 8 by a "Proud Mary"-inspired funk rock duet rendition by Peter Hix and Terry Wood. (Colucci would make a cameo appearance during the show's second season to perform the song in the opening segment of the January 6, 1991 episode.) The set used throughout the Saget era was an open floorplan living room design (originally a papered three-wall design with a bay window for the first three seasons, then redesigned for the 1992–93 season as a translucent-walled flatter frame outline utilizing a similar floorplan, though the furniture from the original set remained), with two large video screens on either side of the main set.
Numerous comedy skits were performed on the set during Saget's tenure as host of AFHV. The opening host segment of each episode was tied in with a skit featured in-between the transition from the opening title sequence and Saget's introduction. This usually consisted of several actors in a fake room (usually in the upper part of the audience section or in another soundstage, the setting within it changing each episode) pretending to get excited to watch the show. Sometimes, Saget would visit, attempt to interact with, and pretend to watch the show with the actors (with a pre-recording of Saget appearing on the TV set). These opening gags were scrapped after the fifth season. In Season 5, the show introduced an animated sidekick named "Stretchy McGillicuddy" (voiced by Danny Mann, and dropped after said season), who regularly teased Saget and did other bizarre things; one episode featured Stretchy—who often uttered the catchphrase, "Don't get a little touchy, Bob, I'm just a little stretchy!", in his appearances—appearing on the two large set monitors and Bob had to turn him off with a remote. Saget ended each episode with the tagline, "Keep those cameras safely rolling", and then saying something to his wife who was implied to be watching the show at home (the latter joke was phased out towards the end of the seventh season, in the midst of Saget's deteriorating marital issues with first wife Sherri Kramer, whom he would divorce in 1997).
The success of AFHV—which regularly placed in the Nielsen Top 5 ratings during its first season (even temporarily unseating the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes as America's most-watched network television series in March 1990), and finished in fifth place among all network programs for the 1989–90 season—quickly led ABC to order a pilot for a spin-off: America's Funniest... Part II aired on May 13, 1990 as a half-hour special that was hosted by Saget's Full House co-star, Dave Coulier (who played Joey Gladstone on the sitcom); as was the case with AFHV following its debut special, ABC immediately picked up America's Funniest... Part II as a weekly series for its 1990–91 fall schedule. Retitled America's Funniest People, it debuted as a series on September 9, 1990, with actress/producer Arleen Sorkin joining Coulier as co-host. (Sorkin was replaced by model Tawny Kitaen for the show's third and fourth seasons.) The series focused on videos featuring people intentionally trying to be funny by doing celebrity impressions, committing pranks, and performing short amateur comedy routines, among other things.[28]
For its first four seasons, America's Funniest Home Videos aired on Sunday nights at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time;[29] when the spin-off premiered in September 1990, AFHV—then entering its second season—was paired with America's Funniest People (following at 8:30 p.m.) to form an hour-long home video block. Beginning with their respective fifth and fourth seasons in September 1993, ABC made America's Funniest Home Videos and America's Funniest People the lead-off programs of its Sunday prime time lineup, moving them both an hour earlier (to 7:00 and 7:30 p.m., respectively) to replace Life Goes On, which ended its four-season run that May; this also gave both shows a formidable rival in 60 Minutes, which had regularly beaten its 7:00 competitors in the ratings since CBS permanently moved the newsmagazine to Sundays in 1975.[30] In May 1994, ABC canceled America's Funniest People after four seasons due to declining ratings, and decided to put the freshman sitcom On Our Own (a co-production of Miller-Boyett Productions and Warner Bros. Television, both of which were also behind Saget's other series, Full House) in its former timeslot for the 1994–95 fall schedule;[31] after On Our Own was put on hiatus that December following an initial run of 13 episodes (it would return as part of the Friday TGIF comedy lineup in March 1995 to complete its abbreviated 20-episode season), the network chose to expand America's Funniest Home Videos to one hour with back-to-back episodes, with that week's new episode occupying the first half-hour, followed by a repeat from a previous season to fill the remaining time.
On February 1, 1996, ABC debuted another spin-off of AFHV, World's Funniest Videos;[32] taped at Walt Disney World in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, this series—like America's Funniest People—was also hosted by Coulier, alongside actress Eva LaRue (then playing on the ABC soap opera All My Children in the role of Dr. Maria Santos). 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.[33] However, due to low ratings, ABC put the series on hiatus a few weeks after its debut,[34] before cancelling it outright after only one season and burning off the remaining episodes that summer. For Saget's final season on AFHV (1996–97), two new episodes aired back-to-back for several weeks over the course of the season, which increased the episode order that year to 30.
Saget himself 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 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 (longtime parent company Capital Cities/ABC had then recently completed the sale of its assets to current owner The Walt Disney Company).[35] [36] [37] His former Full House castmates—except for Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen—appeared for the penultimate episode of Season 8 (airing on May 9, 1997, in a special Friday broadcast as part of ABC's comedy-centered "3D Week" programming stunt), preceding Saget's final episode as host, the season-ending $100,000 grand prize episode (aired in its regular slot on May 18). (The two final Saget episodes were rebroadcast on September 21, 1997,[38] the day before production commenced on Season 9.[39])
Saget returned to America's Funniest Home Videos on three different occasions—first, to co-host a 20th anniversary special edition episode alongside future host Tom Bergeron, which aired on November 29, 2009 (which was three days shy of AFVs actual 20th anniversary date of its premiere on the air on November 26, 1989); a cameo appearance at the end of Bergeron's final episode on May 17, 2015, where he was driving a golf cart and to co-host a 30th anniversary documentary special (AFV: America... This Is You!) alongside Bergeron and current host Ribeiro, which aired on December 8, 2019 (his last appearance prior to his death in early January 2022).
After Saget's departure from the series, ABC sidelined America's Funniest Home Videos from the network's 1997–98 fall schedule; in the late fall of 1997, ABC decided to put the series on its Monday lineup as a replacement for the TV adaptation of Timecop, which had been pulled from the schedule after five episodes due to persistently poor viewership.[40] The first two episodes of the ninth season (the eighth and ninth to be taped in production order) aired as a "sneak peek" on November 21, 1997, as part of the TGIF lineup, before the remainder of the season began airing regularly in the show's new Monday slot on January 5, 1998. This season featured new hosts, an overhauled look (including new full-title and abbreviated logos, which were later modified in Season 15 and partially overhauled in Season 26, and a new set augmented by a balcony-linked, double-flight bent staircase surrounding a large center-stage monitor, ditching the living room set-up used throughout the Saget era), and a new ska punk instrumental rendition of the "Funny Things You Do" theme song—similar in style and tone to The Mighty Mighty Bosstones' 1997 single "The Impression That I Get"—composed by Dan Slider (which remained in use for the 2000–01 specials and the entirety of Bergeron's run as host as well as being featured in Alfonso Ribeiro's 2015 hosting audition tape). The show began to be alternately called AFV at this point, with references to the abbreviated name being used in most on-air parlance going forward (though America's Funniest Home Videos remained the show's official title).
Comedian John Fugelsang and model-turned-television personality Daisy Fuentes took over as co-hosts of the show.[41] [42] Three new writers—among them, Mystery Science Theater 3000 alumni J. Elvis Weinstein and Trace Beaulieu—joined holdover scribe Thicke on the writing staff, replacing Saget and Arnott. Like Saget had done during his run in certain videos within clip packages, Fugelsang and Fuentes humorously narrated the clips shown (either observationally or by exaggerating certain circumstances leading to the comedic moment). Owens was succeeded by an unknown announcer, who was subsequently replaced for the tenth season by voice actor Jess Harnell, who still holds this position to this day. With ABC reserving the Sunday 7:00 p.m. ET slot for The Wonderful World of Disney beginning that season (ironically putting the anthology series—which returned to broadcast television after a six-year run on the Disney Channel—directly against Fox's new AFV-inspired series The World's Funniest!),[43] the show changed timeslots several times over the next two seasons: after leading off ABC's Monday night lineup (at 8:00 p.m. ET) for Season 9,[44] the network moved AFV to Saturday nights at the start of Season 10 (1998–99);[45] the show was later moved to Thursday nights in March 1999, opposite the first hour of NBC's "Must See TV" comedy lineup and airing directly against the top-rated Friends.[46]
Ratings for the show suffered during this period, due to both less-than-satisfactory reception to the new hosts and changes to the show's format as well as the timeslot changes. Both Fuentes and Fugelsang left the show after two seasons in 1999. Their last original new episode—which aired on August 28, being delayed from the prior episode which aired April 29—was taped at the House of Blues in West Hollywood, California. Until the 2019 special AFV: America... This Is You!, showcasing footage from the tenures of the other AFV hosts, the only honorable mention of Fugelsang and Fuentes and segments showcasing their run was the two-part 300th episode AFV special in November 2003 (during the early years of the Bergeron run). While Fugelsang has not been seen in new recent never-before-seen footage on the road or in-studio on AFV since his and Fuentes’ departure, Fuentes was featured in interview segments discussing their time on the show for America... This Is You!, while both Fugelsang and Fuentes conducted further interviews for the America... This Is You! podcast.
In May 1999, ABC announced that it would discontinue America's Funniest Home Videos as a regular weekly series after its tenth season,[47] but allowed the format to continue as a series of thematic specials hosted by various personalities, including ABC sitcom stars D. L. Hughley (of The Hughleys) and Richard Kind (of Spin City), and future AFV host Tom Bergeron. Concurrently, Vin di Bona Productions produced a season intended for selected international markets, with Kerri and Mike Kasem (both children of legendary radio DJ and voice actor Casey Kasem) as hosts.[48] The show moved to a much smaller soundstage on a set that featured various video screens and monitors (resembling iMac computers) placed on shelves.
A home video-exclusive special, America's Funniest Home Videos: Deluxe Uncensored, was released on VHS and DVD in June 2000; hosted by Steve Carell and taped on the set used for the ninth and tenth seasons of the original series run, it featured somewhat more risqué content than that allowed on the television broadcasts (in a format similar to the 2019 Videos After Dark specials). A sports-themed special, AFV: The Sports Edition, hosted by ESPN anchor Stuart Scott, would later air on ABC in 2005 and was rebroadcast every New Year's Day along with occasional broadcasts before NBA playoff games (with a post 8:30 p.m. ET) tip-off until 2008. These specials (except for the special sports edition) were not taped in front of a live studio audience, with pre-recorded applause and laugh tracks were used during commercial bumpers and just before, during, and after video packages being used instead.
In October 2000, ABC announced that America's Funniest Home Videos would return as a regular weekly series, ordering an eleventh season consisting of 13 episodes.[49] On February 3, 2001,[50] the show returned in its third format, this time with Bergeron (who was also hosting the syndicated Hollywood Squares at the time) serving as host. Episodes were expanded to a full hour (instead of the back-to-back half-hour episodic structure used from 1995 to 1999), and aired on Friday nights at 8:00 p.m. ET; however, it went on hiatus for two months during the 2001-02 season due in part to the September 11 attacks and also because of ABC's decision to fill the Friday lineup with specials and a new, but short-lived lineup of reality and drama series (The Mole II: The Next Betrayal, Thieves and Once and Again, of which Thieves was cancelled after only ten episodes, the first eight of which aired); AFV returned to the schedule (via reruns of the previous season) in December 2001, and began its twelfth season as a midseason replacement in February 2002. A new set (with a studio audience) was introduced—featuring a pillar with several monitors—when Bergeron's first season began.
With ABC moving The Wonderful World of Disney to Saturdays for the 2003-04 season, in September 2003, the show returned to its former Sunday 7:00 p.m. Eastern timeslot, still in its hour-long format (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 comedic voiceovers similar to Saget's style to some clips from time to time during the eleventh season. Changes to the set for that season included the replacement of the round video wall by a curved video wall, the pillars being recolored to blue (sometimes other colors), the addition of curved light borders hanging through the set, and lights under the center stage with return of the abbreviated "AFV” logo.
For Season 18 (2007–08), the series began allowing viewers to upload their video submissions online at ABC.com; it would later direct viewers to submit their videos to a new standalone website, AFV.com, beginning with Season 23 (2012–13), in addition to the existing practice of submitting videos via standard mail.[51] In Season 22 (2011–12), AFV released an iOS app on the App Store, allowing Apple mobile device users to record and directly upload videos for submission to the show; a version for Android devices was released the following season.
The final six seasons of Bergeron's run as host fell during two major milestones in the series’ history. In 2009, in commemoration of its 20th season, the show started its "Funny Since 1989" campaign and broadcast a special 20th anniversary episode on November 29, featuring a guest appearance by Saget in his return to AFV for the first time since his 1997 departure. Both Saget and Bergeron ended that episode with a pinata party skit and a nod to the Star Wars lightsaber fight scenes during the closing credits (Disney, owner of show co-producer ABC Entertainment and its namesake network, would coincidentally later acquire the franchise through its 2011 purchase of Lucasfilm), with the design of the pinatas resembling the two hosts.
On March 7, 2014, Bergeron announced on his Twitter account that he would step down as host of AFV at the conclusion of its 25th season.[52] The series commemorated its silver anniversary for its 2014–15 season, and broadcast a 25th Anniversary Celebrity Celebration special on February 15, 2015, in which Bergeron and ABC sitcom stars Anthony Anderson, Tracee Ellis Ross (both co-leads of Black-ish) and Cristela Alonzo (of Cristela) recounted memorable videos from the show's history, with one of three nominees from the pool being awarded a Disney Cruise Line vacation grand prize. Bergeron's penultimate episode (the last episode he hosted from the show's soundstage and the final (and season 25's second) $100,000 show of his tenure) aired on May 10, 2015, incorporating periodic montages of funny home videos that defined the show's then-25-year run. His final episode as host, which was also the 25th season finale, aired the following week on May 17; taped on-location at Disneyland for that season's edition of the annual "Grand Prize Spectacular” (which utilized various formats since 2005, and featured one of the two (formerly three) $100,000 winners from the current season winning a Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, or in earlier seasons, an Adventures by Disney vacation package), AFVs 25th anniversary and the Disneyland Resort's 60th Anniversary Diamond Celebration (which began on May 22, 2015) 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 golf cart driven by Saget in a special cameo appearance. (Bergeron's 15-year run is the longest hosting tenure for the series to date.)
Bergeron would later make an in-studio guest appearance alongside his successor, Alfonso Ribeiro, in the Season 26 "Grand Prize Spectacular" finale (aired on May 22, 2016), in which he played the show's final audience participation game segment ("Who Breaks It?") and won an Ribiero AFV pillow and socks. He was featured alongside fellow hosts Ribeiro, Saget and Fuentes in the 2019 special AFV: America...This Is You!.[53] [54]
On May 19, 2015, two days after Bergeron's final episode aired, ABC announced that Alfonso Ribeiro (known for his role as Carlton Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) would take over as host of America's Funniest Home Videos starting with its 26th season (premiering on October 11 of that year). Bergeron formally introduced Ribeiro's new role as host during the latter's guest performance on the 20th season finale of Dancing with the Stars. (Ribeiro competed during and won the previous season; coincidentally, as Bergeron had done from the dance competition series’ 2005 debut until his 2015 departure from AFV, Ribeiro would later begin co-hosting DWTS, in addition to his existing AFV duties, in 2022.)[55] [53] [56] Prior to becoming host, Ribeiro appeared on the show's March 8, 2015 episode playing an audience participation game (called "Who's Makin' That Racket?") alongside then-host Bergeron.
Ribeiro continued Bergeron's concept of humorously narrating clips, sometimes making extensive use of rhymes in his voiceovers. While some of the Bergeron-era clip segments, the in-studio audience and background parts of the Bergeron-era set props remained intact and/or continued into the first five years of Ribeiro's hosting tenure, the stage was updated to feature a metal floor layout and stairway connected to a puzzle-style cube screen composed of smaller sized flat-panel TV screens, while new segments (developed especially for Ribiero's run) were incorporated into the show. Audience participation games introduced during the Bergeron era were eliminated for the 27th season (2016–17). Additional set props such as arrow-styled flat-panel monitors and lit color-changing tables (where selected audience members not assigned to the bleacher areas sit) were added to the AFV set in 2019.
For its 28th season (premiering on October 8, 2017), AFV was displaced from its longtime 7:00 p.m. ET slot to make room for the reality competition series The Toy Box (which was in its second and final season), resulting in the former being moved to 8:00 p.m. ET. Periodically over the course of three months (between November 26, 2017 and February 4, 2018), the show employed a “repeat/new” episode scheduling format similar to that employed during the later Saget and Fugelsang/Fuentes eras, with new episodes in the 7:00 p.m. hour (occasionally reduced to a single hour block due to holiday movie presentations and specials airing in 8:00 p.m. slot during the holiday season), before permanently returning to the earlier slot on February 11, 2018. On October 29, 2018, ABC renewed AFV for two more seasons, extending the series for its 30th and 31st seasons (premiering on September 29, 2019 and October 18, 2020, respectively). On December 8, 2019 (following a new episode in its regular slot), ABC broadcast AFV: America, This is You!, a retrospective documentary commemorating AFVs 30th anniversary; the special featured appearances by creator/executive producer Vin di Bona and four of the five hosts—Ribeiro, Saget (in his final AFV appearance before his death in January 2022), Fuentes and Bergeron—and chronicled the show's development and pop culture status.[57]
Production was suspended before the completion of the 30th season due to the COVID-19 pandemic; in lieu of its standard “grand prize” season finale format, a quarantine themed special, AFV@Home, aired on May 17, 2020; similar in concept to CBS's AFV-styled The Greatest AtHome Videos (which aired its initial special two days prior) and incorporating hosted segments recorded at Ribeiro's Los Angeles home, the special featured humorous videos submitted to the program and culled from various social media platforms that were filmed mainly during stay-at-home isolation.[58] [59] [60] The series returned to the studio for its 31st season (which premiered on October 18, 2020), however, studio segments utilized a virtual audience—a concept first used for the last three episodes of season 30 prior to the in-studio production shutdown—to comply with federal social distancing guidelines, consisting of audience members appearing and interviews with the grand prize nominees being conducted via videotelephony on the various set monitors.[61] [62] On June 11, 2021, the fourth offshoot of the franchise, , premiered on Nat Geo Wild (which ABC acquired through its 2019 purchase of most of 21st Century Fox’s assets).
On January 9, 2022, during the 32nd season (which premiered on October 3, 2021),[63] [64] original host Bob Saget was found dead in his room at a Ritz Carlton hotel near Williamsburg, Florida, a day after his stand-up comedy performance in nearby Orlando. (Saget's passing was announced during an ABC News special report that interrupted the end of a new episode airing that night.) The show paid tribute to him in the January 16, 2022 episode, which opened with a dedication to Saget by Alfonso Ribeiro, clips of Saget's tenure as host, and a brief discussion between him and Bergeron from the 2009 20th anniversary special, along with a standard pre-credits dedication;[65] a tribute segment featuring clips from the Saget era was featured in subsequent episodes for the remainder of Season 32. After two years of using a virtual audience, the 33rd season (which debuted on October 2, 2022) returned to using an in-person studio audience, although nominees for the weekly grand prize contest would continue to appear via remote; the cash amounts for the videos selected for the weekly prize contest were also increased for the first time since AFVs series debut, doubling the first place prize to $20,000 (from $10,000), second place to $6,000 (from $3,000), and third place to $4,000 (from $2,000).[66] For Season 34, in addition to standard hour-long episodes in the show's regular timeslot, ABC aired edited half-hour versions of AFV episodes from the previous season on selected Sundays during the early fall to fill airtime following Wonderful World of Disney film presentations scheduled to end prior to the conclusion of the network's Sunday lineup. (Although Ribeiro is a SAG-AFTRA member—being exempted from the strike under the separate Network Television Code contract—and co-executive producer/head writer Mike Palleschi and co-writer Erik Lohla are WGA members, the series was not affected by the SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes, the latter having ended four days before Season 34's October 1, 2023 premiere.)
After every half of the season, the winners from the preceding episodes are brought back to participate in a contest to win an additional $100,000 in the semifinals. (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 in season 9, as well as seasons 12–14.) 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 and eleventh season. This format was used until 2002. Due to COVID-19, the 2020 season did not feature the traditional confetti, streamers, or live audience (although the virtual audience is shown instead; however a small amount of the live audience, now sitting in tables and not voting for the winner, and finalists standing up on the stage in a rock stone and gate, returned in Season 33), and the winner was chosen by remote video chat (the top three $20,000 winners in the $100,000 show, and the two $100,000 winners in the Grand Prize Spectacular are allowed to appear on stage in Season 33).[67]
Beginning in Season 15, at the end of each season, the $100,000 winners from the preceding episodes are brought back to participate in a grand prize contest in the grand finals to determine which video earns the title of "America's Funniest Home Video", serving as the season finale (except in Seasons 16 and 20, in which it is the episode before the finale). Starting in Season 17, it became known as the "Grand Prize Spectacular".
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.[69] It placed within Nielsen's Top 5 highest-rated weekly series within weeks of its debut;[70] by March 1990, AFHV became the No. 1 primetime series for a short time. AFHV finished the 1989–90 season in the Top 10 most watched shows, with an approximate average of 38 million viewers[71] 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.[72] In 2016, a study by The New York Times 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".[73]
Beginning with the show's 21st-season premiere on October 3, 2010,[74] America's Funniest Home Videos began broadcasting in high definition. Many viewer-submitted videos were recorded in standard definition and were subsequently stretched horizontally to fit screens. Since the 2012–13 season, videos recorded in 4:3 standard definition are carried in their original format with side pillarboxing. This continued to be the case for videos recorded on mobile devices recorded at a vertical angle. Since the conversion to HD, the series features advisories to viewers to tilt their mobile devices horizontally when recording in order for clip submissions to fit 16:9 screens without reformatting.
In 2014, all Tom Bergeron era episodes of the show originally produced in standard definition were remastered for widescreen and high definition broadcast compatibility, which involved cropping and stretching, with certain parts, such as the end credits switching to its original 4:3 aspect ratio after the first few seconds, and production logos, remaining in its original 4:3 aspect ratio. Video clips recorded in standard definition and airing since the show began broadcasting in high definition are also reformatted and stretched for widescreen compatibility.
Repeats of the show began airing in broadcast syndication in September 1995.
The initial off-network syndication package consisted of the entirety of seasons 1-5, and the first 12 episodes of season 6, and was distributed by MTM Enterprises. This package aired on various local channels, TBS from October 2, 1995 – 1998, and USA Network from 1998 to 2001. 20th Television then assumed syndication rights from their purchase of MTM Enterprises in 1997, and continued on with the initial package, and issuing a new package with the remainder of seasons 6 through 8. Hallmark Channel notably aired both packages from August 5, 2001 to 2002, and various other channels carried the new package as well, but most stuck to the initial 5 1/2 season deal. Seasons 6–8 aired on ABC Family (now Freeform) from January 2002 to October 2007, usually on Tuesday through Saturday mornings, and occasionally on Sunday nights if a movie was not shown, being the last to air said seasons. After 2001, Buena Vista Television began distributing the show, and with it came two revamped packages: seasons 1-5 and 6-8. The first 5 seasons aired among networks such as PAX TV (now Ion Television) every Monday through Thursday night (later Monday through Friday night) from October 6, 2003 to April 11, 2005,[75] and Nick at Nite for a short time from April 30 to October 12, 2007.[76] The Saget era continued in local syndication for some time, finally ending up again on Hallmark Channel beginning on January 4, 2010. They were due to air all 8 seasons of the Saget run, but due to constantly changing timeslots, they never got past the tail end of season 5.[77] The Saget era ceased its syndication run on February 25, 2010. Internationally, all 8 seasons aired on DTV in Russia, TVB Pearl in Hong Kong, and the 5 season package aired on networks including Omni 2,[78] Sun TV,[79] Omni British Columbia[80] and TVTropolis[81] in Canada.
The John and Daisy seasons (seasons 9-10) aired on WGN America (now NewsNation) from 2006 to 2014. The guest specials from the 1999-2001 period are known to have been syndicated on WGN as well. Both eras were never offered in off-network syndication, and the foreign market Kasem season was not syndicated abroad. Internationally, all 3 eras aired on various networks, including the Kasem season on TVNorge, and the John/Daisy seasons on DTV in Russia.
The Tom Bergeron seasons began airing on both WGN and ABC Family in fall 2004, with seasons 15-19 gradually being added to syndication as they completed their original runs on ABC. WGN continuing its run until 2018, and ABC Family replacing the Saget run with the Bergeron run in October 2007, airing it until 2014 on Tuesday through Saturday mornings, and occasionally on Sunday nights if a movie was not shown. Disney-ABC Domestic Television (the successor of Buena Vista Television) began offering seasons 11-19 in off-network syndication in 2009, airing on select Fox, MyNetworkTV, The CW, and various independent stations until 2013. Various local stations replaced the Saget run with this run as well. In 2014, after the introduction of the widescreen remasters, a new packaged was introduced, with all 15 seasons of the Bergeron run. WGN aired seasons 11-19 from this package, TBS began reairing the show with seasons 18-23 and 25 from 2014-2017, and UPtv then picked up seasons 20-25 in 2016, with its last airing on December 31, 2019, marking the end of the Bergeron years in syndication. Internationally, hour long episodes in the USA and Canada are split into two half hour parts, with a new opener and closing taped for each part. All references to the show being an hour long are also edited out. This practice continues into the Ribeiro years. This era has aired among networks such as RTL Klub in Hungary, TVB Pearl in Hong Kong, DTV in Russia, and it currently airs on PRVA Plus in Serbia, along with the Ribeiro era. In Canada, seasons 11–25 aired on ABC Spark,[82] CMT,[83] DejaView,[84] YTV and Yes TV[85] in some capacity until 2022. Since September 16, 2023, reruns of seasons 11-15 are now being shown on GameTV.
The Alfonso Ribeiro seasons (seasons 26–31) began airing on TeenNick on September 12, 2022, and finished airing in April 2023. The series returned to its schedule on November 20, 2023. The series returned to Nick At Nite on February 13, 2024, starting with season 31. This era aired internationally on TVB Pearl, and currently airs on PRVA Plus in Serbia, along with the Bergeron years.
Generally, a few to most AFV episodes from seasons 11-25 are available on Disney+ and Hulu, i.e., the Bergeron run in its remastered form, with availability varying at random based on platform's publishing decisions.
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).
| Title | Release date | Studio | Included Episodes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Best of America's Funniest Home Videos[86] | June 27, 1991 | ABC Home Video CBS-Fox Video | Clips from first season with new Bob wraparounds | |
| America's Funniest Pets[87] | January 1, 1992 | ABC Home Video CBS-Fox Video | Clips from second season with new Bob wraparounds | |
| America's Funniest Families[88] | January 1, 1992 | ABC Home Video CBS-Fox Video | ||
| America's Funniest Home Videos: Animal Antics | October 12, 1999 | Slingshot Entertainment | N/A | |
| America's Funniest Home Videos: Deluxe Uncensored | June 6, 2000 | Slingshot Entertainment | ||
| America's Funniest Home Videos: Family Follies | June 6, 2000 | Slingshot Entertainment | ||
| America's Funniest Home Videos: Volume 1 with Tom Bergeron | July 26, 2005 | Shout! Factory | Season 11 Episodes 2, 4-10, 12, 14-16 (2001), The 300th Episode Parts 1 & 2 (Season 14 Episodes 6-7; 2003) | |
| America's Funniest Home Videos: Home for the Holidays | October 4, 2005 | Shout! Factory | Season 7 Episode 11 (1995), Season 8 Episode 14 (1996), Season 14 Episode 8 (2003) | |
America's Funniest Home Videos: The Best of Kids & Animals 3-Disc Set
| December 27, 2005 | Shout! Factory |
| |
| America's Funniest Home Videos: Nincompoops & Boneheads | June 13, 2006 | Shout! Factory | Salute to Boneheads (Season 7; 1996)), Nincompoop-A-Rama (Season 11 Episode 3; 2001) | |
| America's Funniest Home Videos: Sports Spectacular | September 12, 2006 | Shout! Factory | Athletic Supporters (Season 12 Episode 1), Season 12 Episode 14 (2002) | |
| America's Funniest Home Videos: Love & Marriage | September 12, 2006 | Shout! Factory | Matrimony Mania (Season 11 Episode 1; 2001), Season 12 Episode 8 (2002) | |
| America's Funniest Home Videos: Salute to Romance | January 9, 2007 | Shout! Factory | Season 10 Episode 14, Season 10 Episode 22, Stupid Cupid (2000) | |
| America's Funniest Home Videos: Motherhood Madness | April 17, 2007 | Shout! Factory | A Tribute to Moms (2000), Season 13 Episode 24 (2003) | |
| America's Funniest Home Videos: Guide to Parenting | July 17, 2007 | Shout! Factory | Guide to Parenting (Season 6; 1995), Season 8 Episodes 28 and 29 (1997) |
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.[89] Imagination Games released a DVD game in 2007.
An America's Funniest Home Videos micro movie viewer was released in 1990.[90]
AFV has been broadcast around the world from many countries. Here is a list of international versions:
| Country | Network(s) | Aired | Local title |
|---|---|---|---|
| Super RTL | 2005–2018 | Upps! – Die Pannenshow | |
| ITV | 1990–2022 | You've Been Framed | |
| TVP1 | 1994–2009 | Śmiechu Warte | |
| TVE1 | 1990–1998 | Videos de Primera | |
| TV3 | 1991–1997 | Låt kameran gå | |
| Nine Network | 1990–2014 | Australia's Funniest Home Videos | |
| TF1 | 1990–2008 | Video Gag | |
| TROS | 1990–2004 | De Leukste Thuis | |
| VTM | 1990–2004 | Videodinges | |
| SBS 6 | 2002–present | Lachen om Home Video's | |
| Canale 5 | 1990–2013 | Paperissima | |
| Czech Television | 1995–2010 | Tak neváhej a toč! | |
| Chile | Canal 13 | 1991–2002 | Video Loco |
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