America's Funniest People (abbreviated as AFP) is an American reality show on ABC that debuted on May 13, 1990 as a 30 minute television special America's Funniest... Part II, aired after America's Funniest Home Videos. The green-lit series, then named America's Funniest People for the fall season, aired as a weekly half-hour prime time series from September 9, 1990, to June 5, 1994. It was hosted by Dave Coulier and Arleen Sorkin from 1990 to 1992. Tawny Kitaen replaced Sorkin in 1992. The announcer was Ernie Anderson. Dan Slider composed the theme song, which was performed by Peter Hix.
Contents
Format
The format was similar to America's Funniest Home Videos, with the main difference that while America's Funniest Home Videos spent the majority of its time with accidental follies captured on tape, America's Funniest People focused on people intentionally trying to be funny, doing things such as telling jokes, doing impressions, singing, dancing, performing scripted material, attempting wacky stunts, pulling pranks, etc.
Like America's Funniest Home Videos, America's Funniest People featured a contest for funniest video, with the first prize winner receiving $10,000 and the second- and third-place prize winners receiving $3,000 and $2,000 respectively. However, unlike Funniest Home Videos, which relied on studio audience voting to determine the winner, Funniest People selected its winners via telephone vote for its first five episodes, with the winners announced at the beginning of the next show; the show switched to having the studio audience select the winner afterwards, like its parent show. Also, unlike its parent show, there was no $100,000 grand prize finale, therefore having only non-tournament exhibition rounds.
Jackalope vignettes
Originally known as "Tiny the Jackalope", or simply "The Jackalope", Jackalope sketches involved a creature attacking people by playing mean tricks on them (usually as punishment for people who had been mean themselves). Typically, the main target was a muscular man who absolutely despises the creature. The character's catchphrase was, "Fast as fast can be, you'll never catch me!" Host Dave Coulier did the voices for all characters in the Jackalope skits, which were played at a faster pace than other clips. The Jackalope was later renamed "Jack Ching Bada-Bing" in a "Name the Jackalope" contest.
“This Old Shack”
A series of shorts that center around bumbling, clumsy carpenters, Joe-Bob and Randy-Bob, who use haywire methods to remodel houses. The shorts are a parody of the PBS home improvement program This Old House.
Alien Shorts
The Alien Shorts feature claymation miniature aliens who attempt to take over planet earth, but are constantly defeated by humankind's daily routines and habits.
“Whiz on Wheels”
A recurring bit featured parody advertisements for the fictional Whiz on Wheels company, who perform services improperly and too fast to be good, causing more damage than they fix. They claim to be faster and cheaper than competing companies.
Comedy Mini-Movies by Dennis M. Miller and Jason Cardwell
Dennis and Jason first produced an Indiana Jones spoof for America's Funniest Home Videos called "Pasadena Jones and the Satire of Doom". They then moved over to America's Funniest People for its initial season and produced a dozen videos which aired every other week. Although there were several videos with original characters, there were also spoofs of Rambo, James Bond, and Dirty Harry.
In the Dirty Harry spoof, Harry was downgraded to a video store detective. After chasing a suspect all over San Francisco, Harry finally cornered him in an alley. He reaches into his jacket, and slowly pulls out a VHS movie, asking the suspect "What I have here is a VHS video cassette, the most popular format in the world, and the question is, punk... did you rewind it?"
"Dunk Your Parents"
For the show's 1993–94 season, a new game show segment called "Dunk Your Parents" was added, hosted by Skip Trippendale (Coulier), in which a kid contestant could drop one of their parents into a pool of water, similar to a dunk tank. The kid chose the parent that they wanted to dunk. That parent then sat on a chair over the water. The parent was then asked a trivia question, usually involving a list — for example, "Name the seven dwarfs in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs". If the parent answered the question correctly, the other parent had to take their place. If not, that parent remained in the chair. The climax of the segment was when the child pushed a button to release the seat out from underneath the parent, dropping them into the water below.
On some occasions, instead of a question, the parent would have to complete a Beat the Clock-esque stunt (but these were often nearly impossible to complete).
"Prank Patrol"
When the show changed its format under The New America's Funniest People branding for the 1993–94 season, a new segment was added called the Prank Patrol. Five kids would run around various parks and locations near Los Angeles, performing pranks on unsuspecting visitors. The Prank Patrol consisted of Brady Bluhm, Elena Epps, Raushan Hammond, Lindsay Ridgeway, and Lance Robinson. Pranks consisted of exploding ice cream cones, a man in a gorilla suit, a squirting drinking fountain, a remote control bat, an exploding trash can, and a hand in a jar of candy. Sean Daly was also in this episode
"Weird Sports"
A recurring segment centering on bizarre sporting events such as Rocky Mountain Rock Fishing, Pizza Diving, Meatball Miniature Golf, Brazilian Bicep Bowling, etc. Actor/comedian Dan Sachoff had hosted this segment in later seasons.
"Cool Ways to Scare Your Mom"
A recurring segment centering on the comedy duo Schwartz and Chung where Caleb Chung (inventor of the Furby) would teach viewers a simple sight gag and then show it to his mom, played by Gary Schwartz (known for voicing Demoman and Heavy in the video game Team Fortress 2). The segment was first introduced by Full House actress Jodie Sweetin. The reactions were mad, homemade special effects. The duo appeared 11 times in the run of the show.
Production
The 30-minute pilot for the series was produced in May 1990. The pilot special was titled (and the series originally promoted as) America's Funniest... Part II, as it was shown immediately after America's Funniest Home Videos and developed as an extension of the parent series’ format. As with his co-star, Funniest Home Videos host Bob Saget, at the time the series aired, Funniest People host Dave Coulier co-starred as Joey Gladstone (whose character was the best friend of Saget’s character, Danny Tanner) in the popular ABC sitcom Full House. The logo used in the pilot episode was a slightly modified version of the original 1990–97 AFHV logo. When the pilot proved successful, ABC ordered the series—retitled America's Funniest People—into production for the 1990–91 fall season. In future airings, the pilot's title card was retroactively changed to reflect the new permanent name and logo of the show, though a careful viewer would still notice America's Funniest... Part II branding behind the studio audience.
Coulier’s Full House co-stars Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen (who played Michelle Tanner) made guest appearances, as they also did on America's Funniest Home Videos. The bulk of their visits to Funniest People took place once their collective popularity with kids and pre-teens took off. Their most notable appearance was in the fall of 1992, when they promoted their first single, "Brother for Sale", from the VHS release Mary-Kate and Ashley: Our First Video.
The series was produced by Vin Di Bona Productions, and co-produced through a subsidiary, Gina Communications Corporation (named for Di Bona’s then-wife and production consultant for both Funniest Home Videos and Funniest People, Gina Di Bona), the latter of which was assigned the copyright credited in the byline at the end of the closing credits. The show was originally taped at The Prospect Studios (then known as the ABC Television Center) in Burbank, California, on the same soundstage used for America's Funniest Home Videos at the time. During the back half of the 1991–92 season, five episodes of the show’s second season were taped on-location at the Animal Actors Stage at Universal Studios Florida in Orlando.
In 1992, Sorkin was dismissed by series creator/executive producer Vin Di Bona. In response, Sorkin filed a lawsuit against Di Bona, claiming that she was dismissed from the show due to her race, after ABC Chairman Dan Burke had suggested to Di Bona that Sorkin be replaced by an African-American or a person of another ethnic minority. Sorkin sought $450,000 for lost earnings, and an additional unspecified amount for harm to her professional reputation and emotional injury. Sorkin additionally claimed that after she denounced the move as unfair, Di Bona changed plans and hired Tawny Kitaen, who was white, to succeed her as co-host. Randy Davison was invited to be on multiple episodes, doing impersonations of Edith Bunker and Popeye as Elvis.
Syndication
Repeat episodes of America's Funniest People aired on TBS from 1998 to 2003, concurring in part with the 1989–94 Saget-era episodes of America’s Funniest Home Videos airing on the cable channel. The series typically aired as overnight filler programming when movie presentations were scheduled to conclude before the start of the regular daily schedule.
Revivals
Proposed ABC revival (2025)
In May 2024, Vin Di Bona Productions and ABC announced that a revival of America's Funniest People was in development. Eight episodes were planned, though the remainder of the proposed episodes were never produced; instead, on June 15, 2025, it aired as an hour-long special episode of America's Funniest Home Videos, intended as a backdoor pilot. The special, which featured videos and in-studio performances (similar in concept to the 1993–94 season format), was co-hosted by Alyson Hannigan and AFV host Alfonso Ribeiro.
VH1 revival
On September 14, 2026, VH1 and V10 Entertainment (which acquired a controlling interest in Vin Di Bona Productions in 2023) announced a revival of America's Funniest People had been ordered to series, with comedian Ms. Pat—whose BET comedy court show, Ms. Pat Settles It, was concurrently renewed for a fourth season at the time of the announcement—as host (unlike the original ABC version and the 2025 special/aborted revival, this iteration will not feature a co-host). This version is described as a "comedy competition", in which each episode will feature "outrageous creator-led content, savage jokes, wild stunts, pranks and bad decisions -- and the kind of unforgettable social content you can't believe someone actually posted," with three content creators competing head-to-head for a cash prize.