Laughing at ourselves

When I was a teenager, “America’s Funniest Home Videos” was one of the few TV shows my family could agree to watch together. Perhaps because of her training as a nurse, my mother typically viewed the program while peeking through her fingers, anticipating the next ski jump gone awry. Any time you saw a kid with something resembling a baseball bat you knew that someone or something (grandpa? the sliding glass door?) was about to get banged up. From mishaps at weddings to unfortunately-located dog poo, the show featured unrehearsed slapstick comedy in all of its glorious forms.

Tom Bergeron with donated artifacts.

Comedy as a cultural form and feature of American life is documented in the museum’s growing entertainment collections, which include artifacts ranging from costumes to sheet music. Items from “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” a pioneer in comedic reality programming and the longest-running primetime show on ABC, became the latest addition to these collections in a special donation ceremony held on April 8.

One of the artifacts, a mammoth camcorder used to film the first winning video on the show, illustrates changes in technology over the past two decades. Despite the bulky and expensive VHS recording equipment that was available in the 1980s, the show received hundreds of entries in its first season and has received over 700,000 since. Think of all the hijinks and embarrassing moments now being captured via tiny cell phone cameras and broadcast to the world via the Internet. Today, an estimated 80 million people visit YouTube every month to watch scenes that aren’t so different from AFHV’s: lots of precocious babies and even a waterskiing squirrel.

Another donated artifact, an audience voting machine, helps us to trace the show’s influence on American popular culture. The reality-show-with-voting-competition format pioneered by AFHV nearly 20 years ago is now the foundation of some of today’s most popular television shows (can you say “American Idol”?). The idea of an interactive show where the audience decides the outcome—and the performances are put on by Americans from all walks of life—now seems commonplace.

During the donation ceremony, Creator and Executive Producer Vin Di Bona confided that the show never has to rely on a laugh track. As host Tom Bergeron pointed out, I think the show’s footage of human beings and their wacky behavior underscores the universal nature of slapstick. There’s a reason that nuns catching wedding bouquets and dachshunds with live firecrackers are funny. I don’t have the foggiest idea what that reason is but I dare you watch this clip reel from “America’s Funniest Home Videos” without at least one good belly laugh.

Dana Allen-Greil is the new media project manager at the National Museum of American History.

Comments

[James London-DeVaher]

AFHV was a true original. Like candid camera, it is a classic.

I don't think it is near as good now -- because it seems that all of the videos are set up and not random.

A victim of it's own success I suppose.

[Phil Steele]

What I find really exciting about video now is the technological leap that allows anyone with a DSLR camera to shoot professional-looking videos with Hollywood quality. No longer will we have to laugh at precocious babies and skiiing squirrels in grainy, low-def images. Now we have have our laughs and high-resolution, too.

[John Smith]

Its always good to laugh at yourself. If not then what are you able to laugh at and keep yourself going all day long.

These shows never get old and we all like laughing at other peoples expenses whether we like to admit it or not

[Andrew Francis]

We still get this show playing where I am, I really enjoy the animal videos the most, the baby videos are pretty good too.

It is interesting that some things are just timelessly funny and will continue to be funny in to the future.

I have never sent a video in but enjoy watching the show.

[Tom Ellis]

My daughter is 24 and has Down Syndrome, and AFHV is her favorite show. She is even happy to watch reruns. My wife and I enjoy watching with her, it is truly a show for all age groups. And just maybe, one day we'll submit a video that wins a prize!