Remember when “America’s Funniest Home Videos” was a sensational new show? It can be very telling to go back through older Arlo & Janis strips and unexpectedly be exposed to enormous, if sometimes puerile, shifts that occur in our culture. Cameras that recorded action on VHS tape were becoming common in homes in the early 90s. They were expensive and bulky and obtrusive, but the YouTube genie was out of the bottle. We just didn’t know it yet. I’m not even going to waste my time or yours trying to enumerate the differences in home videography then and now. (Contestants had to send in a video cassette by mail!) I just wanted to invite you to recall what a big splash that silly now-shop-worn program made on television. We should have known it was going to lead to something huge. And they never picked the funniest video to win.
What’d you expect from a studio audience?
By Jimmy Johnson
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38 responses to “What’d you expect from a studio audience?”
EMB:
As I mentioned, it’s a superb book, and I strongly recommend it.
I’ve neither seen a photo of her or heard her voice, so I cannot comment upon any tenseness.
Ex-professor, New Bern and Cary are fine. Other parts of eastern NC have not fared so well the past few days.
emb – I caught your reference to Lake Aggasiz immediately with a chuckle and wondered how many others would. There is also, of course, Lake Maumee, whose shores are not far south of me. No jet skis there, either.
PS – Love Janis’ attempt to mollify Arlo with a kiss!
Jeff: I thought it was just a “there, there” air-kiss.
Thanks to Nancy, Jackie, & Granny for the good words. I have a former student in each place (they were our babysitters, too) with families, and was concerned. Now they are about old enough to retire – makes one feel one’s years. In those days, students could become friends; nowadays, I imagine too many people would disapprove. I remember driving 730 miles each way, solo, just to attend the wedding of one of them (and saw the other en route)!
Jeff & eMb: I thought Janis was giving a facetiously sympathetic “tsk, tsk”. (Anyone note the special character of one of the words used in that first sentence?)
c x-p: You mean facetiously? Why special?
Yes. It’s one of a very few English words to contain all the vowels once each, and in order. Another such is “abstemiously”.
Like all “reality” shows today it quickly became scripted. A man is filling his gas tank and his pants fall off. Now why was someone filming him to start with? Any projectile of any sort moving with any velocity always hit a male in the groin, rule one of “reality”.
I always assumed the reason for certain situations recurring during that show was someone in the editorial staff thought those were the funny ones. And that raises some questions: What’s truly funny? What portion of the population agrees? How do they select audience members and are they representative of the general population?
Since the show rarely awarded winning status to the videos I liked, I quit watching during the first season.
I can truthfully state that I have never watched any of the so-called “reality” shows, from Funniest Home Videos to Survivor or The Great Race., including any of the ones that require a group of people to share a house. I have enough reality on my own time, thank you, and with a few notable exceptions (Cosmos) prefer to be entertained by the boob-tube. And no, I’ve never watched Seinfeld, either.
Jean, you and me, both some friends send me clips now and then and, like Queen Victoria, I am not amused.
Robb, it’s an ancient Vaudeville saying: “When they aren’t laughing, drop your pants.” 😀