America's Funniest People

America's Funniest People
Created by	Vin Di Bona
Presented by	Dave Coulier Arleen Sorkin (1990–1992) Tawny Kitaen (1992–1994)
Narrated by	Ernie Anderson
Theme music composer	Dan Slider
Opening theme	"Lookin' for the Funniest People", performed by Peter Hix
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	89
Production
Running time	22–24 minutes
Production companies	Vin Di Bona Productions ABC Productions
Original release
Network	ABC
Release	May 13, 1990 (1990-05-13) – August 28, 1994 (1994-08-28)
Related
America's Funniest Home Videos

America's Funniest People is an American

. Dan Slider composed the theme song, which was performed by Peter Hix.

Format

The format was similar to America's Funniest Home Videos, with the main difference that while America's Funniest Home Videos spent the majority of its time with accidental follies captured on tape, America's Funniest People focused on people intentionally trying to be funny, doing things such as telling jokes, doing impressions, singing, dancing, performing scripted material, attempting wacky stunts, pulling pranks, etc.

Like America's Funniest Home Videos, America's Funniest People featured a contest for funniest video, with the first prize winner receiving $10,000 and the 2nd and 3rd prize winners receiving $3,000 and $2,000 respectively. However, unlike Funniest Home Videos, which relied on studio audience voting to determine the winner, Funniest People selected its winners via telephone vote for its first five episodes,^[1] with the winners announced at the beginning of the next show; the show switched to having the studio audience select the winner afterwards, like its parent show. Also, unlike its parent show, there was no $100,000 grand prize finale.

Jackalope vignettes

Originally known as "Tiny the Jackalope", or simply "The Jackalope", Jackalope sketches involved a creature attacking people by playing mean tricks on them (usually as punishment for people who had been mean themselves). Typically, the main target was a muscular man who absolutely despises the creature. The character's catchphrase was, "Fast as fast can be, you'll never catch me!" Host Dave Coulier did the voices for all characters in the Jackalope skits, which were played at a faster pace than other clips. The Jackalope was later renamed "Jack Ching Bada-Bing" in a "Name the Jackalope" contest.

This Old Shack

A series of shorts that center around bumbling, clumsy carpenters, Joe-Bob and Randy-Bob, who use haywire methods to remodel houses.

Alien Shorts

The Alien Shorts feature claymation miniature aliens who attempt to take over planet earth, but are constantly defeated by humankind's daily routines and habits.

Whiz on Wheels

A recurring bit scripted as advertisement for the fictional Whiz on Wheels company, who perform services improperly and too fast to be good, causing more damage than they fix. They claim to be faster and cheaper than competing companies.

Comedy Mini-Movies by Dennis M. Miller and Jason Cardwell

Dennis and Jason first produced an Indiana Jones spoof for America's Funniest Home Videos called "Pasadena Jones and the Satire of Doom". They then moved over to America's Funniest People for its initial season and produced a dozen videos which aired every other week. Although there were several videos with original characters, there were also spoofs of Rambo, James Bond, and Dirty Harry.

In the Dirty Harry spoof, Harry was downgraded to a

movie, asking the suspect "What I have here is a VHS video cassette, the most popular format in the world, and the question is, punk... did you rewind it?"

"Dunk Your Parents"

For the show's 1993-1994 season, a new game show segment called "Dunk Your Parents" was added, hosted by Skip Trippendale (Coulier), in which a kid contestant could drop one of their parents into a pool of water, similar to a

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

". If the parent answered the question correctly, the other parent had to take their place. If not, that parent remained in the chair. The climax of the segment was when the child pushed a button to release the seat out from underneath the parent, dropping them into the water below.

On some occasions, instead of a question, the parent would have to complete a Beat the Clock-esque stunt (but these were often nearly impossible to complete).

"Prank Patrol"

When the show changed format and became The New America's Funniest People for the 1993-94 season, a new segment was added called the Prank Patrol. 5 kids would run around various parks and locations near

, and Lance Robinson. Pranks consisted of exploding ice cream cones, a man in a gorilla suit, a squirting drinking fountain, a remote control bat, an exploding trash can, and a hand in a jar of candy. Sean Daly was also in this episode

"Weird Sports"

A recurring segment centering on bizarre sporting events such as Rocky Mountain Rock Fishing, Pizza Diving, Meatball Miniature Golf, Brazilian Bicep Bowling, etc. Actor/comedian Dan Sachoff had hosted this segment in later seasons.

"Cool Ways to Scare Your Mom"

A recurring segment centering on the comedy duo Schwartz and Chung where Caleb Chung (inventor of the Furby) would teach viewers a simple sight gag and then show it to his mom, played by Gary Schwartz. The segment was first introduced by Full House actress Jodie Sweetin.^[2][3] The reactions were mad, homemade special effects. The duo appeared 11 times in the run of the show.

Production

The 30 minute pilot for the series was produced in May 1990. It was called (and the special and series originally promoted as)

logo. When the pilot proved successful, the series went into full production in the fall as America's Funniest People. In future airings, the pilot's title card was retroactively changed to reflect the new permanent name and logo of the show, though a careful viewer would still notice America's Funniest... Part II branding behind the studio audience.

Full House's Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen made guest appearances, as they also did on America's Funniest Home Videos. The bulk of their visits to People took place once their collective popularity with kids and pre-teens took off. Their most notable appearance was in the fall of 1992, when they plugged their first single, "Brother for Sale", from the release of Mary-Kate and Ashley: Our First Video.

It was produced by

In 1992, Sorkin was dismissed by

During the 1992-1993 season, the entire production moved to

Hollywood Center Studios

. This reflected the addition of new themed segments, some special guests, and the new practice of having a guest co-host (usually a star from another ABC series) join Coulier and Kitaen each week. However, these changes were not enough to improve the show's failing ratings, and it was cancelled at the end of that season. The network continued to air repeats until late-August.

During the latter half of the show's run, and for at most a year after it was canceled, short 30-second segments from America's Funniest People ran in commercial breaks during ABC's Saturday morning lineup. These would usually consist of excerpts from longer segments, usually featuring young kids telling jokes or engaging in stunts.

The show's premise would later integrate to AFV.

Syndication

Repeat episodes of America's Funniest People aired on

TBS

from 1998 to 2003.

Seasons

Seasons In The Series:	Episodes In The Series:	Episodes In The Season:	Host(s) & The Number Of Seasons & Episodes Hosted:	Premiere:	Finale:
Special/1	1-25	25	Dave Coulier (4 seasons, TBD) Arleen Sorkin (first 2 seasons [1 & 2], TBD) Tawny Kitaen (final 2 seasons [3 & 4], TBD)	May 13/September 8, 1990	May 19, 1991
2	25-48	23		September 22, 1991	May 15, 1992
3	48-66	18		September 20, 1992	March 28, 1993
4	66-89	23		September 18, 1993	June 5, 1994
Series	Episode Total:	89	With All Host(s)	May 13, 1990	TBD

References

External links

• Variety - The New America's Funniest People TV Shows Review
• America's Funniest People at
  IMDb