The Bride Is, Er, Excused

By Richard Zoglin

Maybe it was the woman who got her head stuck in a dishwasher. Or the groom who fainted dead away at the altar. Or the fat golfer who rolled down a hill after a mighty swing. Whatever did it, TV viewers have suddenly become hooked on watching ordinary people make fools of themselves. And a new prime-time hit is born.

After just six weeks on ABC's Sunday-night schedule, America's Funniest Home Videos is the newest member of Nielsen's Top Ten. The show's premise is shamelessly simple. Viewers send in funny clips they have shot with their camcorders -- everything from cute baby antics to homemade music videos. The producers sift through the best stuff, organize it around loose themes (sports, animals, weddings) and embellish it with sound effects and wisecracks from host Bob Saget.

Some recurrent motifs have already emerged. There is a surfeit of chairs / collapsing under people, infants spitting up and pets doing idiotic things on cue. But many of the clips are hilarious in the inexplicable way that defines, well, real life. Among the memorable moments: the bride who interrupts her wedding ceremony to announce "I gotta go to the bathroom." And the neighborhood relay runner whose hat is blown off -- right onto the head of the fellow running behind him.

Executive producer Vin Di Bona, who got the idea for America's Funniest Home Videos from a popular Japanese TV show (from which he culls some clips), had to put ads in TV Guide and People magazine to solicit tapes for his first special last November. Now submissions are pouring in at the rate of up to 2,000 a day. The tapes are screened by an overworked staff of 15. Though labor-intensive, the show is a relative bargain to produce: even after giving away a $10,000 prize for the best scene each week, the program costs less per episode than an average sitcom. "The whole idea of this show," says Di Bona, "is to have America produce it for us."

The show's success points up a milestone for the home-video revolution: with VCRs now in 67% of American homes and camcorders in about 10%, broadcast TV is starting to tap home video for material. Two current series, PBS' Sneak Previews Goes Video and the syndicated Inside Video: This Week, provide weekly reviews of movies and other fare released on video. KOIN-TV in Portland, Ore., airs We're Makin' Movies, a weekly show featuring amateur videos sent in by local residents. A syndicated program called $1,000,000 Video Challenge, which will award cash prizes for the best videos in various categories, is being readied for the fall.

The ABC show's popularity has, predictably, inspired a few furrowed brows as well as belly laughs. Some are concerned that the on-camera spills are dangerous and might encourage reckless behavior; Di Bona and crew have rejected some clips for that reason (like one showing a toddler apparently driving a car, while a parent actually steers off-camera). Others are concerned that people may begin to stage scenes specially for the program. That would spoil the caught-in-the-act charm but would hardly be unexpected. Once you give America a chance to produce a show for you, don't be surprised if everybody wants to be a star.

With reporting by Karen Grigsby Bates/Los Angeles