Ah, Bernice. Forever our inspiration. But DEFINITELY our “Extra Sugar” inspiration when she spends an entire episode attempting to land a whopper of a home video for what would have been brand-new must-see TV: “America’s Funniest Home Videos.”
Bernice didn’t succeed, but thousands of people have and we’re here to talk all about it.
Here are our sources for this week’s segment:
The first-ever AFV winner, The Dishwasher Lady (starts at about 3:04 and then again at 6:08), v. the most-recent AFV winner, from season 34: The Running of the Bulldog
Variety’s “Where are they now?” write-up of previous AFV winners
Entrepreneur article about the viability of AFV in a digital-first world
And, just for funsies, here’s a list of the 10 funniest home videos ever shown on AFV, as selected by writers from the show
Come on y’all, let’s get into it!
Or listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Amazon Music.
Transcript
Nikki: Hi, Salina.
Salina: Hey, Nikki.
Nikki: And hi, everybody.
Nikki: Welcome to this week's extra sugar.
Nikki: So Bernice's hilarious attempts to land a real whopper of a video for America's funniest home videos got me thinking all about AFB.
Nikki: And actually for Bernice, it was America's funniest unsolved mysteries.
Salina: I think that's right.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Well, we're going to go with America's funniest videos because that's actually a thing.
Salina: Although that concept, not the worst thing I've heard.
Nikki: Funniest unsolved mysteries.
Salina: Yeah, maybe.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Like what happened to my pants that day?
Nikki: The zipper broke and my pants fell down in a meeting.
Salina: Right?
Nikki: Yeah, that would be very funny.
Nikki: Would you cringe, Salina, if I used the term classic to refer to AFB?
Nikki: I think she quit the podcast, my friends.
Nikki: I finally pushed her over the edge.
Nikki: I undoubtedly consider it a classic.
Salina: He just kept past my answer completely.
Salina: Good.
Salina: Do it faster.
Nikki: Well, you weren't giving me an answer.
Salina: Well, I was thinking, I mean, it's been on more than 25 years.
Salina: Yeah, I think that's when it's considered a classic.
Nikki: Right?
Nikki: That's what I think, yeah.
Nikki: So, sure, you would cringe if I called it a classic or.
Nikki: Sure, I can call it.
Salina: We can call it a classic.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: At a minimum, it was a really big part of my childhood and honestly, even my adulthood.
Nikki: So I thought we could talk about it today.
Nikki: What it is.
Nikki: We can talk about some memories and talk about some behind the scenes stuff along the way.
Nikki: Hold on.
Salina: Classic is judged over a period of time to be of the highest quality and outstanding of its kind.
Salina: Okay?
Nikki: It is singular in the world of funny home video TV compilation shows.
Salina: It's still on.
Nikki: It's kind of up there with tosh.
Nikki: .0.
Salina: All good.
Nikki: So I'm calling this segment, I'm just going to limit Salina's involvement in this segment.
Nikki: I'm calling this segment belly laughs to belly flops.
Nikki: An ode to America's funniest home videos.
Salina: She just doesn't want to hear me say shot in the nuts again.
Nikki: Yet here we are.
Nikki: So what is America's funniest home videos?
Salina: I just said it.
Nikki: That was a consider them all rhetorical questions from this point forward, Salina, I'm going to mute your mic.
Salina: You're giving me belly.
Nikki: Giving.
Nikki: I think you're giving yourself belly laugh.
Nikki: No.
Nikki: Every time you use the word nuts, you laugh harder.
Salina: No, your reaction to me makes me laugh.
Salina: Don't worry, it's still about me.
Salina: Go on.
Nikki: So if you didn't piece it together.
Nikki: From Salina's generous description of the show.
Nikki: What did you call it?
Nikki: Shots to the nuts.
Salina: America's funniest shots to the nuts.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: Do you piece it together from that or from Bernase's video camera and all of her ill attempts at recording something hilarious or you know the name?
Nikki: It's an american TV show compiled using viewer recorded funny videos.
Nikki: The videos usually feature some kind of unintentional physical humor, like shot in the nuts or maybe some pranks.
Nikki: So AFB originally aired on ABC as a special in 1989 and then debuted as a regular weekly series in January 1990.
Nikki: So it's kind of a baby when this episode of Designing women aired.
Nikki: I think it's worth saying, and you've alluded to this, Salina.
Nikki: On May 16, 2023, ABC renewed Afe for a 34th season, which premiered in October of 2023.
Salina: It's insane.
Salina: It must be way easier now, though, right, to compile these and just share.
Nikki: Yes.
Salina: With your phone and everything.
Nikki: Yes.
Salina: It's like unending content.
Salina: Smart from their point of view.
Nikki: Right?
Nikki: I don't want to get ahead of myself.
Nikki: I don't think I talk about this.
Nikki: We actually watch this show with kids sometimes because it is really funny humor that everybody gets.
Nikki: I will talk about that in a minute.
Nikki: But they do like pieces that are throwbacks to the.
Nikki: So they also, in addition to taking new video content, they also rehash the old stuff.
Nikki: So it does, in a way, become very never ending because now they've got 34 years worth of stuff, plus new stuff.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: So America's funniest home videos is based on the 1986 to 1992 Tokyo Broadcasting System variety program.
Nikki: I'm not going to say this properly, so let's just get it out of the way.
Nikki: Katochan Kenchan Gokichen TV, also known as Fun TV with Kato chan and Ken chan, it featured a segment in which viewers were invited to send in video clips from their home movies.
Nikki: So ABC still pays a royalty fee to TBS holdings, which is the company that aired that show, for the use of the format of the show, although that show is no longer in production.
Salina: We really don't come up with anything on our own, do we?
Nikki: Nope.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: Nope.
Nikki: Except us, of course we come up with things on our own.
Salina: Right?
Nikki: So according to the Wikipedia entry on AFV, originally the show's production process featured a group of screeners who viewed the submitted tapes and graded them on a one to ten scale based on how funny they were.
Nikki: The videos graded the highest were then sent to the show's producers, and then on to the creator and director, Vin Debona and another producer for final approval.
Nikki: Videos that feature staged accidents, people being seriously injured, the abuse of animals, or those that otherwise don't meet network standards are just not accepted for broadcast.
Salina: Although a lot of the knocks look really hard.
Nikki: They do, yeah.
Nikki: Somewhere in all my perusing, I stumbled across an article of a person who auditioned to be the host and then was instead sent to the writer's room for a tryout as a writer.
Nikki: And throughout that process, they shared some behind the scenes stuff on how the videos come to be and especially how the scripting is done, because the host sort of sets up these chunks of video with funny one liners or little anecdotes.
Nikki: And they talked a lot about how many videos end up on the cutting room floor, either because they're just not funny or because they're, like, super inappropriate for the family friendly format of AFV.
Salina: Which means they have even more footage.
Nikki: That's exactly right.
Nikki: And those poor people who used to screen, I couldn't find more recent coverage of how they grade the videos anymore.
Nikki: That was old.
Nikki: That was from the early 90s when the show started.
Nikki: They would sit and grade everything.
Nikki: I imagine there's still a process they have to watch everything.
Nikki: And can you imagine sometimes you watch it and there's some videos that just aren't funny.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: And that was the best that they had.
Nikki: So they must have had some really not good stuff.
Salina: Oh, definitely.
Nikki: Anyway, in each.
Salina: Weird stuff.
Nikki: Weird stuff.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: In each week's episode, three videos are chosen to participate in a studio audience voted tournament.
Nikki: The first prize is $20,000 in cash.
Nikki: The runner up wins 6000, and then third place wins 4000.
Nikki: Not surprisingly, those numbers have inflated over the years.
Nikki: The most recent numbers I found before these, these numbers are double that.
Nikki: And those were from, like, 2016, I think.
Nikki: So it's gone up good.
Salina: That's better than some reality competition shows where they're gone for a really long time from their real lives and they're like, here's $100,000, but you probably lost their job.
Nikki: I think about that a lot, actually.
Nikki: Not in this segment.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: But I do think about that.
Salina: Anyway.
Salina: It's good prize is what I'm saying.
Salina: Good price.
Nikki: But then the first place winner advances to the semifinals and is put into running for $100,000 semifinals prize, which is awarded twice throughout the season.
Nikki: And then those semifinalists are then promoted to the grand finals, and those videos compete for a vacation package sponsored by Disney.
Nikki: They also then, of course, earn the title of America's funniest home video.
Salina: And that is probably worth a million dollars.
Nikki: Probably.
Nikki: Especially because it's an ABC show.
Nikki: So they probably pull out like all the stops because they're related with Disney.
Nikki: Sure.
Nikki: So one important component of the show is the host.
Nikki: That's because they deliver monologues to set up segments or they provide narration to the videos.
Nikki: So originally Vin Debona, remember, that's the creator and the director.
Nikki: He only wanted one guy for the gig.
Salina: So think Bob Saget.
Nikki: Late eighty s and ninety s.
Nikki: It's not Bob.
Salina: Was Bob.
Nikki: Good guess.
Salina: A host at one time.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: Only one person towards the end of the.
Salina: He wanted Eddie Murphy.
Nikki: Oh, that's a good guess.
Salina: He would think that he would get Eddie Murphy.
Nikki: He wanted John Ritter.
Salina: Oh, that would have been lovely.
Nikki: But John wasn't available.
Salina: He was doing problem child.
Nikki: That's correct.
Nikki: And thank God for that.
Salina: Thank God.
Nikki: When we do our early 90s movie screening, we will be watching problem child.
Salina: I'm a problem child two person myself.
Nikki: Problem child, too.
Salina: That's with the little girl too, which I really like.
Nikki: Yeah.
Salina: She was extra mean.
Nikki: She was mean.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So they had a couple more false starts after John wasn't available.
Nikki: Ultimately he turned to Bob Saget, who at the time was starring as Danny Tanner on ABC's full house.
Nikki: Interestingly, Debona didn't even realize that that's what he was doing at the time.
Nikki: He knew him as a comedian and I think someone had introduced them or something.
Nikki: He didn't even know he was on full house.
Salina: Right.
Salina: Because I think people our age were really surprised whenever we learned that Bob Zaga is a comedian.
Nikki: He's a comedian.
Salina: He's dirty.
Salina: Exactly.
Salina: The dad from full house.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: And he's like fairly dirty, actually.
Nikki: Or was.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Sorry, I'm trying to remember now.
Nikki: If this is in here somewhere, I'll just figure it out.
Nikki: I also saw an interview with Bob Saget from shortly before he passed away and he talked a little bit about the time he spent on America's funniest home videos.
Nikki: And it was a very family friendly format.
Nikki: He really enjoyed it.
Nikki: There's some drama, which I'm going to get to in a minute.
Nikki: But a lot of his choices at that point in his career had to do with wanting to appeal to the most number of people.
Nikki: And he was Danny tanner on full house.
Nikki: And then after a while he was like, I can't be Danny Tanner from full house forever.
Nikki: I have to move on and try different things.
Nikki: Anywho, toward the end of Bob's tenure on the show.
Nikki: So he hosted for eight seasons.
Nikki: We encountered a bit of a Delta Burke situation with him at the end.
Nikki: So according to the Wikipedia entry on AFV, he got tired of the repetitive format and was ready to move on.
Nikki: Here you go.
Nikki: But he was held to his contract, which led to a really frustrated host.
Nikki: Apparently.
Nikki: He vaguely went through the motions of hosting.
Nikki: He would occasionally get out of character and make uncomfortable remarks.
Nikki: So for what it's worth, I commit to a bit.
Nikki: So I really did try to track down any of these awkward remarks from the later years.
Nikki: And I did find 1997 recording where I would say, yeah, he seemed a little unenthusiastic about being the host.
Nikki: He made a joke about being furloughed.
Nikki: Like, it kind of landed flat.
Nikki: It was a really uncomfortable, like, something's happening here joke.
Nikki: I think if I didn't have this backstory, though, I might have just thought he wasn't funny.
Nikki: I would have just thought, this guy is not a very funny host.
Salina: He doesn't even know what he's doing.
Nikki: He doesn't even know what he's doing, which is really funny, because I remember the one thing my parents used to say when we would watch AFB, because we would all sit down as a family and watch the show.
Nikki: They hated him as a host.
Nikki: They just did not think he was funny.
Nikki: And that makes me wonder, was it around this time we were watching it and was he really trying to get out?
Nikki: And so it wasn't that he wasn't funny, it was just that he wasn't in it.
Salina: Yeah, I think that actually is hitting on something that was always problematic for me about this show is like when you met, I kind of blocked it out.
Salina: But, like, the little writing things that they do to tee it up, I understand that it's to introduce someone falling, and that makes sense to do that, but it was just humor that never really worked for.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: So after the Bob years, about a dozen people cycled through the gig as the show itself cycled through a few different formats.
Nikki: The most noteworthy hosts have been Tom Bergeron.
Nikki: He's also the host of Dancing with the Stars, but he took over when the series returned to a weekly format in 2001, and he would go on to host 15 seasons.
Nikki: He was the longest running host to date.
Salina: It's so crazy because definitely the first person I'm thinking of is Bob.
Nikki: Bob Saget, right?
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: And then Alfonso Ribe, that's Carlton.
Nikki: He began hosting in 2015, so that's not to discount.
Nikki: Though, of course.
Nikki: Daisy Fuentes's brief stint as a co host in the late ninety s.
Nikki: Oh, she was there too.
Salina: There's a name I haven't heard in a while.
Nikki: She was there too.
Nikki: Go to Coles.
Nikki: I think she still has a clothing line.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So like I said, I have a lot of really clear memories of watching AFV with my family.
Nikki: We'd all sit together and watch it in what will come as a surprise to no one.
Nikki: I love the physical humor as a family.
Nikki: We don't love when people actually get hurt, but we really do love, like, painless physical humor.
Salina: I love that you're taking that stance as a family.
Salina: As a family.
Nikki: On behalf of the.
Salina: You're protecting your reputation.
Nikki: Correct.
Salina: And the reputation of your family.
Nikki: That's accurate.
Salina: With your clarification.
Salina: Thank you.
Nikki: Thank you.
Salina: It's good to know that you're not evil incarnate.
Salina: Go on.
Nikki: My kids also really love the animal humor.
Nikki: So I don't remember this from when I was a kid watching it, but they definitely do it now.
Nikki: They have entire bits that are dedicated to animal humor.
Nikki: And my kids love when those come on.
Nikki: There are also, like, copycat AFB shows.
Nikki: There's one on Animal Planet all about animal humor, which my kids really like.
Nikki: I don't have any standout videos that I remembered that I just really had to share with everybody.
Nikki: I also don't think it would really translate for me to just sit here and tell you about that one time the guy fell off the trampoline.
Nikki: But we have turned on the 90s version of AFB a time or two in the last few years.
Nikki: And there's a good solid chuckle in there every now and then.
Nikki: Bob Saget's not the.
Nikki: I didn't think he was the funniest host ever, as much as I remember.
Nikki: But there's some funny videos.
Nikki: I did have an operating theory going into today's segment that the videos from the 90s have a slightly different tone than videos from today.
Salina: Kind of a little meaner.
Nikki: Yeah, that's what I thought.
Nikki: I just sort of assumed they'd feel different.
Nikki: I think we've talked before about how humor today, like on TV in particular, we've sort of had this tangential conversation.
Nikki: Humor today is just different than it was when designing women was on the air.
Nikki: And so I had this theory, like, maybe the videos look different or feel different.
Nikki: So what I thought, Salina, is that we should test the theory.
Nikki: And the way that we can test the theory is to have you watch the first ever winning AFV video compared with the most recent winning video.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: So we're going to try something wacky.
Nikki: If it goes badly, I'll just delete it from the whole episode.
Nikki: No one will ever know.
Nikki: But I'm going to play it for you.
Nikki: And I want.
Nikki: Except the Patreons.
Nikki: I'll probably leave it for them just so they get their money's worth.
Salina: You know what I mean?
Salina: Absolutely.
Nikki: So I'm going to play for you the dishwasher lady, which is the first ever grand prize winner on Afe from all the way back in 1989.
Salina: Do I need to be moving?
Nikki: No, not yet.
Nikki: I'm going to do it on my phone.
Nikki: I'm going to need a logistical moment because our producer didn't show up today.
Nikki: Tim took a sick day, so that was from way back in 1989.
Nikki: Then I'm going to play for you the running of the bulldog, which was the Season 34 grand prize winner, which was just awarded in 2023.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: Both of the videos, I think, include a brief intro from the host, so folks can generally follow along with you while you react.
Salina: Okay?
Nikki: Hode, please.
Nikki: All right, here you go.
Nikki: The dishwasher lady.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: Make sure the volume is up.
Nikki: It's not.
Nikki: Don't worry.
Nikki: My phone's completely off.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: It's all falling apart.
Salina: Patreon.
Salina: Okay.
Speaker C: One of the videos you'll see tonight is going to win $5,000.
Speaker C: It's America's funniest home video.
Speaker C: That's a lot of blank tape.
Speaker C: Once you buy a camcorder, you have to realize your life is never going to be the same.
Speaker C: You could turn life's little surprises into a special, a movie of the week, or, who knows, a hit series.
Speaker C: And the really big box had a completely superficial life, just like mine.
Speaker C: Helen Wolf of Cleveland was in the kitchen when she ran into a spot of trouble.
Speaker C: She called for help, but her caring husband, Bill, ran for the camera instead.
Nikki: Could you explain the situation here, Helen?
Speaker C: Could you please give us an update on what the problem is?
Salina: Do you want me to talk?
Nikki: I want you to react to it however you feel.
Nikki: It's an ancient looking video.
Salina: Well, we were alive, so that feels good.
Nikki: Barely.
Nikki: This is horrible.
Salina: Look at this.
Nikki: Which part seems horrible?
Nikki: That he's making fun of her.
Salina: Yes.
Salina: Oh, now we're onto a baby change.
Nikki: Okay, then it's going to pick up.
Salina: Stuck.
Salina: I will be so scared.
Nikki: It'll pick up again.
Nikki: They come back to it later.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: So he says, let's see if Bill helped her out.
Salina: They're divorced now.
Nikki: What did he just do, Salina?
Salina: He pinched her b***.
Salina: This is we would be getting divorced.
Nikki: I would kill him.
Salina: The dogs are on top of her now.
Salina: He thinks he's hilarious.
Salina: I bet you he didn't unstack that dishwasher.
Nikki: Salina's gotten mad.
Nikki: We're going to move on from this one.
Nikki: Salina's gotten mad.
Nikki: So that was not humorful for you.
Salina: Did that work for you?
Nikki: Sort of my takeaway, yeah.
Nikki: So I want to show you.
Salina: I don't care, but did you find it?
Salina: No.
Nikki: No.
Salina: Okay.
Nikki: Absolutely not.
Salina: Absolutely not.
Salina: I'd kill them, but I want to.
Nikki: Talk about it in a minute after you see this one.
Nikki: So, like I said, this next one is the winner from this most recent.
Nikki: It's the most recent winner.
Nikki: Okay.
Nikki: We actually saw this one.
Nikki: We watched this one.
Nikki: You can press play.
Nikki: So it's in a playroom.
Nikki: A little girl in a playroom.
Salina: Oh, no.
Salina: This is not going to end well, is it?
Nikki: This one's called the running of the Bulldogs.
Salina: I mean, I already like the setup.
Nikki: More, so they've got a balloon that they've released their dog on, and the dog's, like, losing its mind.
Nikki: Right.
Salina: He's just come in the room.
Nikki: Okay.
Salina: And now he's kind of running around.
Salina: Oh, he ran into the dresser.
Salina: He's hitting it around with his nose.
Salina: The kids are screaming.
Salina: Oh, God.
Salina: It's just, like, chaos.
Salina: As he's trying to bounce it off of his nose.
Salina: He's knocking everything over.
Salina: They still have those easels.
Salina: They do.
Salina: Wow.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I mean, just bouncing all over the place.
Salina: He's having the time of his life.
Nikki: He's having a blast.
Salina: Day of his life.
Salina: Best day happening right now.
Salina: He's chasing his know.
Salina: He's tired.
Salina: It's like me, when he's got tired, he's looking for the balloon.
Salina: It's lost.
Salina: Someone is talking in Landon's room.
Salina: That's for you.
Salina: It's probably Landon, so it's probably.
Nikki: I'm going to guess it's my son.
Nikki: So, what I wanted to ask you, between those two videos, one, were either of them funny to you?
Nikki: I don't always think you can judge funniness by how hard someone.
Salina: Um, the first one, yeah.
Salina: I mean, that's like a hard pass for mean.
Salina: I get it.
Salina: Look, they're in a relationship.
Salina: I might poke a little bit with Casey if something like that happened.
Salina: I think there's just something about it being a dishwasher involved that brings up some gender things for me.
Salina: It's not not funny, but I am almost surprised that that took home the grand prize.
Nikki: It's crazy, right?
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I'm a little surprised.
Salina: I'm going to be honest with you.
Salina: I feel a little similarly on the second video.
Salina: It's funny, but it went on about 5 seconds too long.
Salina: And I think I just expected, again, a grand prize winner to be funnier.
Nikki: Than that.
Salina: Because to your point, you said Tosh .0 earlier or whatever.
Salina: There are so many of those kinds of shows where we're getting glimpses into people's lives that I just expected the content to be a little funnier.
Salina: But I thought it was very cute.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: So it struck me that the original winner was, like, super diaristic.
Salina: They both have dogs.
Nikki: They did both have dogs.
Nikki: There were some dogs climbing on the lady in the dishwasher one.
Nikki: The first one was, like, really long, and it was kind of a time.
Nikki: They had to come back to it twice in the episode because it was that long.
Nikki: They had to split it up.
Nikki: It was like a time cap still of life in 1986, which is when it was originally filmed.
Nikki: Just a little longer.
Nikki: The kitchen looked really brown and dark.
Nikki: The dishwasher looked really old.
Nikki: It was clearly the same camcorder that Bernice was using in this episode of designing women.
Nikki: It was just very old, and it's just a long video.
Nikki: There was never any punchline.
Nikki: It was just sort of like a married couple messing around.
Salina: Right.
Nikki: The newer one was one part of.
Salina: The married couple messing around.
Nikki: She had a good sense of humor about it, though.
Nikki: She was laughing inside the dishwasher where she was stuck.
Salina: Okay.
Salina: A little bit to hear that part.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: I'm sure they did talk to that couple that night.
Nikki: I think they did.
Salina: It would have been, I think, better landing for me if I had heard just how good humor and some people are.
Salina: You know what I'm saying?
Nikki: Some people are.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: I guess she let him send it in just full of good humor, the ICE cream.
Nikki: Right?
Nikki: Good humor ICE cream.
Nikki: That's right.
Nikki: The newer one was glossier, shinier.
Nikki: It was a little more fast paced just because we had the dog running back and forth.
Salina: Literally fast paced.
Nikki: But it was more or less the same thing.
Nikki: It was a silly thing that a family did together.
Nikki: It wasn't anybody getting hurt.
Nikki: It wasn't the huge physical humor.
Nikki: It was just something like a glimpse into some family's life and something that really made them laugh that day.
Salina: A slice of life.
Nikki: Slice of laugh.
Nikki: I just feel like there's something.
Nikki: Exactly.
Nikki: I feel like there was something to that.
Nikki: But I will say a couple of things.
Nikki: One, I was expecting to see a massive difference in the two.
Nikki: Like I expected the one in 1989 maybe not to be as funny because it's going to be a little low definition.
Nikki: You couldn't really see as much.
Nikki: I figured the humor was different.
Nikki: I did expect the more recent winner.
Nikki: I didn't realize that was the grand prize winner, that it would be funnier.
Nikki: I really thought I was just going to.
Nikki: We laughed about it.
Nikki: We chuckled for sure.
Nikki: As a family.
Nikki: We all really enjoyed it.
Nikki: But it wasn't a huge belly laugh that I was expecting.
Nikki: I will say I didn't include this in the show notes at all or in my notes, but I did find something from, like an.
Nikki: Ask me anything from an America's funniest home videos winner, a past winner.
Nikki: And they said part of the reason they picked the winners, not to take any of the shine off anything, but who could travel to go be on set and win the prize.
Nikki: That makes sense.
Nikki: And if a family couldn't win, then they couldn't win the prize after COVID.
Nikki: And during COVID they switched to virtual.
Nikki: So they don't travel a lot of families anymore.
Nikki: A lot of the winners are done by Zoom or whatever.
Salina: Isn't it amazing?
Salina: It took a pandemic to figure that out.
Salina: Technology that's out.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: Yeah.
Nikki: So before we move on completely from those two things, I did want to share the Panasonic omni movie HQ video camcorder that Bill the husband used to record that dishwasher video was donated to the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of History in 2008.
Salina: Oh, that's funny.
Nikki: Bill passed away in 2022.
Salina: That's not funny.
Nikki: Not funny.
Nikki: But he lived a long life.
Nikki: It seems like he and his wife, whose name I didn't, I don't remember now.
Nikki: But they were happy together.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: They had a happy life.
Salina: Yeah.
Salina: That's good.
Nikki: The other thing I found in all my digging is sort of what you were alluding to a minute ago with Bill, and I think it's Nancy.
Nikki: It was his wife's name.
Nikki: Like, what happened?
Salina: That's literally my grandparents names.
Nikki: I'm pretty sure her name was Nancy.
Nikki: Yeah, but what happened to, like, AFB winners?
Nikki: We had that one episode where I gave all the sad stories of lottery winners.
Salina: You want to give some sad stories now?
Nikki: Absolutely not.
Salina: Round the sucker out.
Nikki: Absolutely not.
Nikki: These all felt like much happier endings.
Nikki: I think the amount of money they won, kind of like you said, $100,000 is not an insubstantial amount of money.
Nikki: Right.
Nikki: It's a good winning.
Nikki: It's not millions and millions.
Salina: Probably don't quit your job, right?
Salina: I mean, you can if you want.
Nikki: To, but not don't do that.
Nikki: So I'm going to put the whole article in the show notes, but there were several instances of families using the money they won just to get out of scrapes or jams, like they were maybe in a tough financial spot.
Nikki: And then they won the money and it kind of got them above water.
Nikki: New houses were bought, college funds were started.
Nikki: It seems like it was just enough money to kind of buoy them for a bit and then move them toward a new future, which I thought was really nice and a far cry from the lottery episode that was just sad.
Salina: And scary and criminal.
Nikki: It was.
Nikki: So the last thing I want to talk about, we also kind of talked about at the top of the show is like, the future of AFV.
Nikki: It kind of feels like the elephant in the room to not talk about how a user generated TV show even exists in the same world as TikTok and YouTube, where all of this stuff is on demand all the time and you're not watching TV the same way you used to.
Nikki: Whatever was on on Sunday night is what we watch now.
Nikki: You can watch whatever you want.
Nikki: I think there's probably a not insubstantial number of people who are going to hear this segment and think like, dang, that show is still on that who's watching it.
Nikki: But the other side of that coin is the 4.3 million people who still tune in every week to catch new episodes in the most current season.
Nikki: So I found a 2018 entrepreneur article that puts it this way.
Nikki: Sure, online content has greatly reduced the number of newspaper subscribers, but there are still millions of readers like me who enjoy flipping through the Sunday Times that's delivered to my door.
Nikki: Hip hop music is extremely popular, but so is classic rock.
Nikki: Veggie restaurants are all the rage, but millions still consume big Macs every year.
Nikki: Cargo shorts may be out of style, but like so many other nerdy dads, I still wear them.
Nikki: This is a good product, delivered to a faithful audience.
Salina: Well, they're back.
Nikki: Cargo shorts.
Salina: Yeah.
Nikki: Kyle will be thrilled.
Salina: They're making a Richard also.
Salina: So a little of something for everyone.
Salina: If we're in the agent Taylor content, then this content is for someone.
Nikki: Got it.
Nikki: So we've talked about how I am self aware enough to know that I don't have the greatest track record of maintaining a high standard of excellence when it comes to my choice of entertainment.
Nikki: But I stand by the Mays family's love of AFV it is something I enjoyed with my parents and siblings growing up.
Nikki: We gasped a lot, we groaned a lot, but importantly, we laughed a lot.
Nikki: And ultimately, I think that's what AFV is about.
Nikki: It's bringing families together in a really wholesome way.
Nikki: And you don't have a lot of wholesomeness anymore, so it's nice.
Salina: I'm like, meanwhile, me and my mom watch Eddie Murphy's raw.
Nikki: Yeah, well, there's something for everyone.
Salina: Something for everyone.
Salina: And it's good.
Nikki: Stand up.
Salina: Well, there you go.
Salina: I'm not sure how it looks through today's politically correct lens, but it sure was funny when I was it doesn't matter how old.
Nikki: So we will be back next week with lightheartedness in the form of sweet tea and TV's take on designing women.
Nikki: But that is it for my segment on America's funniest video.
Nikki: In the meantime, I think everyone knows how this is going to go.
Nikki: I'm going to entice them to leave a rating or review.
Nikki: They're going to go do it.
Nikki: They're going to follow along with us on all the socials.
Nikki: And then they'll come back next week for our all new episode of Sweet Tea and TV because we are rounding out season five of designing women.
Nikki: So thanks for tuning in, America.
Nikki: This has been this week's extra sugar.
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