Series Description

The America's Funniest Home Videos TV show is a comedy series on ABC that began as a 30 minute show and then expanded to 60 minutes after five years on the air. Fans sent in their own hiarious home videos and some of them would be shown on each episode. The studio audience and viewers at home would then vote for their favorite and the video with the most votes would win $10,000 for its owners and make them eligible for the $100,000 season end grand prize!

America's Funniest Home Videos Cast

Bob Saget .... Host (1989-1997)
Daisy Fuentes .... Co-Host (1998-1999)
John Fugelsang .... Co-Host (1998-1999)
Miscellaneous Hosts .... See Trivia Below (1999-2000)
Tom Bergeron .... Host (2001- )

America's Funniest Home Videos Trivia:

The series is based on a Japanese TV series called, "Fun TV". The second and third best videos on America's Funniest Home Videos receive monetary prizes each week.

America's Funniest Home Videos was originally intended as a one time TV special that aired in November of 1989. It got such high ratings that ABC decided to bring it back in January of 1990 as a series!

During the 1999-2000 season, ABC stopped airing AFHV as a weekly show but still aired some specials hosted by different ABC sitcom stars including Richard Kind of "Spin City" and D.L. Hughley of "The Hughleys".

Viewers at home loved the fact that they could participate in the program by calling a "900 number" on their telephone and vote for the video they though was the best. More than 250,000 votes came in during the first episode of America's Funniest Home Videos!

Due to the length of this series' name it's often referred to by the entertainment industry by the acronym "AFHV". ABC referred to it as the even shorter "AFV".

Most of the entries on America's Funniest Home Videos are of people getting practical jokes played on them, dangerous accidents, and funny staged situations. Kids and pets are often featured in the videos.

Bob Saget was one of television's most popular stars when he began hosting America's Funniest Home Videos. He had already starred two years as the loving father (Danny Tanner) on the huge hit series, "Full House". He would continue in that role for another six seasons while also hosting AFHV! He continued as host for another two seasons after Full House ended.

AFHV was extremely popular right from the start! ABC cashed in on its success by spinning off the series immediately on a show called, "America's Funniest People" which ran for four years. They tried again in 1996 with "World's Funniest Videos" but that only survived one season. Other networks also tried to capitalize on the success of home video programs with series including "The Planet's Funniest Animals" on Animal Planet, "The World's Funniest!" on FOX, "The World's Funniest Moments" on myNetworkTV, "Funniest Pets and People" in syndication (mostly on WGN - Chicago superstation), and "It Only Hurts When I Laugh" on TruTV. "The Planet's Funniest Animals is, however, the only one of those that was reasonably successful.