Much like AFV, America's Funniest People was a half-hour competition on ABC in which comedic videos were played, interspersed with comedic bits and a cash prize for the top three as voted on by a studio audience. Unlike on AFV, the videos presented were skits, impressions, dances, comedy routines, or otherwise scripted/prepared material. Vin Di Bona made this the show's focus after receiving large amounts of obviously staged videos for AFV. Talent scouts often recruited performers for a chance to get their performances on the show.
Debuting in 1990, the show had two more common threads to its parent: a Full House alumnus (Dave Coulier in this case) as host, and Ernie Anderson as announcer. One major difference was the presence of a lovely assistant, a role first held by Arleen Sorkin.
In between the user-submitted bits were original comedy sketches of various sorts. The most famous featured a plush jackalope named Tiny (later "Jack Ching Bada Bing"), who would perform pranks on other people.
The show's third season saw Sorkin replaced with Tawny Kitaen, along with a move to Universal Studios in Florida. It moved back to California for the fourth season, coinciding with a Retool: the show was renamed The New America's Funniest People, the set was redesigned to somehow be even more extremely '90s than before, and new segments were added. These additions were unsuccessful, and the show was canceled after its fourth season. Despite this, ABC continued to air short segments as commercial bumpers on Saturday mornings for over a year afterward, and some of the general premises (including staged comedy videos) would later be assumed into the parent show. TBS reran the show from 1998 to 2003. In 2024, a revival of the show was announced with current AFV host Alfonso Ribeiro.
Tropes present:
- Animated Credits Opening: Random video clips shown on a TV against a cityscape, interspersed with short animated clips of people doing unusual things.
- The Announcer: Ernie Anderson.
- The Cameo: Linda Evans made one on the seventh episode to announce the address to which home viewers could send tapes. She returned on Episode 11 to announce the finalists.
- Early-Installment Weirdness:
- For the first four episodes only, home viewers voted on the videos by calling 1-900 numbers, with the winner being announced at the top of the next show. This switched to in-studio voting just like AFV for the rest of the series.
- The first few episodes also had Dave and Arleen making funny quips over the videos like on AFV, but this was phased out.
- Also, the first couple episodes had almost no clips filmed at shopping malls, suggesting that the producers may have been burning through a backlog of material that they felt didn't fit AFV before actively pursuing specific content.
- Fearsome Critters of American Folklore: Tiny the Jackalope.
- From Special to Series: Much like AFV, it began as a one-hour special before getting spun off into its own show.
- Guest Host: A recurring feature in Season 4, usually culling from other ABC properties.
- Karmic Trickster: Tiny/Jack Ching Bada Bing the Jackalope was portrayed as this, reveling in pranking people who deserve it.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: Much like Saget, Coulier reveled in doing as many goofy voices and impersonations as possible. This was especially true of the jackalope shorts. Some individual performers in clips would cycle through random impersonations as well.
- Opening Narration:
- On the first episode, Ernie just introduced Dave and Arleen. The second episode used the following: "Last week with your telephone votes, you picked the winner of the America's Funniest People $15,000 contest. Who did you vote for? Was it [first video]? Was it [second video]? Or did you vote for [third video]? Now, with the results of your phone votes, here are the hosts of our show: ladies and gentlemen, Dave Coulier and Arleen Sorkin!" For the third through fifth episodes, the last sentence began with "Now, to announce this week's winner drawn from your telephone votes" instead.
- The rest of Season 1 used this: "Tonight on America's Funniest People, the studio audience will make their choices as to who will share in the $15,000 cash prizes. And now your hosts: Dave Coulier and Arleen Sorkin!"
- From Season 2 onward, the intro became a Couch Gag relating to the cash prizes.
- The New era would often open with Ernie teasing upcoming clips and/or the week's guest host.
- Rewind Gag: The second episode featured a clip of a man singing "Pop Goes the Weasel" backwards, which was then reversed itself. As an extension of this, the producers had him sing "It's a Most Unusual Day" backwards and then reversed the footage so that things around him (balloons popping, a man eating a banana, etc.) appear to be happening in revese while the song is still forwards. Halfway through there is even a caption reading "Remember, the tape is playing backwards".
- Signing-Off Catchphrase: "No funny, no money."
- Spin-Off: Of America's Funniest Home Videos.
- Stop Motion: The "Alien Shorts" were recurring shorts featuring claymation aliens.
- Thematic Theme Tune: "Chi-Town, Beantown, every in-between town, looking for the funniest people..."
- Undercrank: The jackalope segments were always filmed in fast-motion.
