700 Sunday Nights with Network TV's Longest-Running Prime-Time Game Show

[stevearino]

The year is 1988. George "Daddy" Bush, age 64, is U.S. President Elect; the War of the Gulf is in full effect; and rookie TV producer Vin Di Bona (whose Saturday-morning Game Show "Animal Crack-Ups," hosted by Alan Thicke of TV's "Growing Pains," is on its way off the air) is on vacation in Japan with his then-wife, Gina.

During the vacation, Vin caught a glimpse of a Japanese variety show called "Fun with Kato and Ken," a segment of which featured ordinary Japanese citizens sending in their funniest moments caught on film in the hopes of earning the Japanese equivalent of the American dollar; upon his return to his adopted hometown of Los Angeles, California (by way of Cranston, Rhode Island), Vin decided to turn the segment into an American TV Game Show.

Vin eventually re-christened the concept into a TV Game Show called "America's Funniest Home Videos" and soon afterwards hired stand-up comic Bob Saget (then appearing weekly on TV's "Full House") to host the series' Hour-Long Pilot, which videotaped in Summer 1989 at Hollywood Center Studios in Los Angeles and was soon picked up by execs at the ABC Television Network.

"America's Funniest Home Videos" debuted at 8 P.M. ET on ABC on November 26, 1989; 7 weeks later, on January 14, 1990, the show began airing weekly every Sunday night at 8 P.M. ET in a TV Game Show format that's remained little changed throughout the last 32 Combined Seasons, with 3 Studio Contestants per show competing for a weekly Grand Prize of $10,000.

During the series' first 2 seasons, in addition to the weekly Grand Prize of $10,000, the 2nd and 3rd place winners respectively won an RCA TV Set and an RCA Video Camera (later amended in Season 2 to the 2nd and 3rd place winners each winning the RCA Camera while the weekly Grand Prize winner, in addition to $10,000, also won the RCA TV Set).

In addition, the weekly $10,000 Grand Prize winners competed against each other for an additional $100,000 Grand Prize in November, February & May of each season at the end of each sweeps period; by March 1990, "America's Funniest Home Videos" became such a Surprise Hit that Vin Di Bona soon discovered that MANY of the clips sent in were Staged Set-Ups as opposed to spontaneous and unreheasrsed moments, leading Vin to create the Spin-Off Game Show "America's Funniest People," with Vin hiring Impressionist Dave Coulier (appearing alongside Bob Saget on "Full House" at the time) to host the series' Pilot, which was telecast on May 13, 1990 at 8 P.M. ET after an episode of "America's Funniest Home Videos" and was picked up by ABC for the Fall 1990 TV season, with "America's Funniest People" beginning to air weekly every Sunday night at 8 P.M. ET after "America's Funniest Home Videos" as part of ABC's Sunday-night "Videos" hour with Dave paired on "People" with actress Arleen Sorkin (TV's "Days of Our Lives") as host, after the 2nd season, when Sorkin was fired by Vin Di Bona, Dave was paired with Tawny Kitaen (who as I'm sure you know sadly died earlier this Summer at age 59).

The first 2 seasons of "America's Funniest People" (as with the first 4 seasons and Season 8 of "America's Funniest Home Videos") was Videotaped at ABC Television Center in Los Angeles, after which taping moved permanently for the last handful of Season 2 episodes at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, initially at the Animal Actors Stage before the entire Season 3 aired new episodes from Universal Studios in Orlando in September 1992.

In September 1993, both "America's Funniest Home Videos" and "America's Funniest People" permanently moved taping to Hollywood Center Studios in Los Angeles; in May 1994, after 4 seasons, ABC, due to low ratings, cancelled "America's Funniest People," with its Series Finale telecast on August 28, 1994 at 7 P.M. ET after a rerun of "Videos."

Meanwhile, "America's Funniest Home Videos" soldiered on--for a while, anyway--airing new episodes for Season 6 at 7 P.M. ET leading in to the new sitcom "On Our Own" until ITS cancellation mid-season, leaving "America's Funniest Home Videos" to air rerun episodes after new episodes.

In May 1997, after 8 seasons, Bob Saget voluntarily stepped down as "America's Funniest Home Videos" host and was replaced in January 1998 by former MTV VJ Daisy Fuentes (paired with stand-up comic John Fugelsang).

Unfortunately, by this time, after moving to Monday nights at 8 P.M. ET, ratings for "America's Funniest Home Videos" began to falter, and in May 1999, after 10 seasons and 236 half-hour episodes, ABC cancelled "America's Funniest Home Videos" due to low ratings, with its Series Finale (Videotaped at House of Blues in Los Angeles) telecast on August 28, 1999 at 8 P.M. ET

2 years later, on July 20, 2001, ABC successfully brought back "America's Funniest Home Videos," initially airing new episodes on Friday nights at 8 P.M. ET before moving permanently in September 2003 to Sunday nights at 7 P.M. ET--a timeslot its held ever since; TV personality Tom Bergeron (then pulling Double Game Show Duty as "Hollywood Squares" host) became sole permanent Host--a role he retained until March 2014, when Tom announced he was voluntarily stepping down as Host. Tom's final original episode, videotaped at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, aired May 17, 2015.

48 hours later, live on "Dancing with the Stars" (which he hosted from 2005-2020), Tom Bergeron announced that his successor as "America's Funniest Home Videos" host would be Alfonso Ribeiro, best known for his 6-year run as Carlton Banks on TV's "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" from 1990-1996.

"America's Funniest Home Videos" celebrated 700 episodes over 32 seasons on Sunday, October 3, 2021, with Alfonso starting his 7th season as Host; personally, I'm not the only person (OR the first) to call "America's Funniest Home Videos" a Game Show: author Jim Moran (author of "There's No Place Like Home Video," a Great read if you read it on Google Books for free) also calls, in "There's No Place Like Home Video," "America's Funniest Home Videos" a Game Show.

I always thought of "America's Funniest Home Videos" unique as a Game Show because unlike MOST Game Shows, it isn't a Quiz Game a la "Jeopardy!" or a Guessing Game a la "The Price is Right," but still no less a Game Show than "Wheel of Fortune," "Jeopardy!," "The Price is Right" or "Hollywood Squares."

[icecream]

Dude, America's Funniest Home Videos is not considered by most to be a game show, one other person claiming so doesn't make it true. Your previous threads about it here got moved to the reality shows board. And it's not 700 Sunday nights either, AFV has aired on Fridays or Saturdays some seasons...