AFV: A Study of the American Sense of Humor
It may be the best show you’re not watching on Sunday’s at 6pm. Maybe you miss it because you have forgotten about it. Maybe you don’t catch it because it’s on ABC, one of the dullest television networks in the world, second only to the local cable channel devoted to posting updates and activities taking place at the nearest community college. Either way, the country has ignored this show more than it has ignored Hurricane Katrina victims… yet it’s still on the air year after year. The show I’m talking about is…
This show is delightful. They are celebrating their twentieth year on the air this year, and we’ve been loyal fans for two of them.
After Danny Tanner stopped hosting, I, and all the other dedicated Full House fans of my generation, turned our backs to this magnum opus. But time heels all wounds, and because of reruns and maturity, I have found myself frequently watching this show again.
America’s Funniest Home Videos, hiply referred to now as AFV, is not only a compilation of hilarious home videos, but is also a very interesting look into the American psyche. More specifically it shows what us as American’s think is funny. And when you watch enough episodes, it becomes obvious that our sense of humor is disgusting and perverse. Brace yourself fellow countrymen… below I have listed the shockingly disturbing things that American’s, including myself, think is funny.
Confusing Animals – We cannot get enough of animals not knowing what the hell is going on. As if being a dog wasn’t already confusing enough, we find it hilarious when a laser pointer is jumping around the room and Shadow is doing his best to try and catch it. “How stupid!” we think you ourselves. “Doesn’t a species that has been around for ages know what a laser pointer is?!?”
Lets label this what it really is: animal cruelty. We are taking human dependent mammals and exposing their intellectual shortcomings, all for the sake of a good laugh. It’s torture for the benefit of humor. But as recent history has proved, torture can be pretty funny.
LOL!
People Falling Down – This is my favorite part of the show. But what is shocking is how much the age range of the person doing the falling affects the humor of the clip. AFV has proven that the preferred age range for a comical fall is from 1 -6 years old and anyone over 60… anything in between loses its comedic value. And why is this? Because those ages have the most risk of not surviving their stumble. It’s sick, but it’s true.
Grandma falling down at the bowling alley gets the biggest laughs on the show, yet grandma is fragile. Grandma’s body wasn’t built to fall at the bowling alley. Grandma shouldn’t even be at the the bowling alley. But damn it’s a funny sight when her old bones stumble on the slick bowling lane.
And kids? When their tiny bodies do a flip after a sled accident, the crowd collectively pees their pants. But what are we laughing about? A child who barely avoided a lifetime of paralyzation? Exactly.
You’ll notice that with most videos of people falling, they cut away right after the person goes down. That’s because 47% of the accidents we see on the show result in death. True fact.
Weddings Gone Wrong – It’s the biggest day of your life. You plan for months, sometimes years for this occasion. Tens of thousands of dollars are spent on this special event where you vow to spend the rest of your life with someone else… and we LOVE to watch it go wrong.
The groom pukes, the bride trips, the best man faints, the cake is dropped, the ring girl picks her nose, the horse attached to the buggy goes bizerk and runs away with the bride and groom towards dead mans cliff… we eat that shit up!
American’s love it when something that means so much to someone goes terribly wrong. It’s cruel! It’s like going to the hospital and laughing at the husband whose wife just died during breast implant surgery. But what can we say? As American’s, we love it when things go awry. That’s why we give so much attention to Lindsay Lohan.
A Man’s Genitals Getting Abused – Being a man (sort of), I know first hand how painful it is to be struck in that special area. You can’t breathe, you can’t move, your heart stops, your brain bleeds… it’s the worst. But when I see a kid hit his dad in the crotch with a wiffle ball bat, I laugh so hard that I’m brought to tears.
Seeing an adult male experience the worse pain possible is a delight to all of us, male or female. To add to the humor, after the impact the host will make the obvious, “he won’t be able to have any more kids” comment. This makes us laugh harder. Why? Because it’s true! We just watched a man lose his ability to reproduce! The dreams him and his wife shared of having another child is now shattered… and that’s funny! A hit to the crotch that causes the inability for a man to generate useful sperm is funnier than any Tyler Perry movie.
Unfortunately, there is a flaw to this great eye-opening show…
It is my belief that early on in the development of AFV, producers, government officials, and clergy members started noticing a trend in what we as American’s thought was funny… and they didn’t like it. In the digital age, everyone from around the world has the ability to see what video American’s thought deserved the $100,000 season finale grand prize. And what do American’s find funniest? Torturing animals, people hurting themselves, ruined weddings, and accidental vasectomies.
This show came out in 1989, a year before Operation Desert Storm. In order to get worldwide support for this war, we had to improve our image… and what better way to do that than to fix the voting results on America’s most watched television show of the 1989/90 season? Which is why the video that wins every show is…
Babies and Kids Being Cute! – What a crock! We watch great grandpa trip and fall into a kiddie pool and we laugh til we bleed. We watch a three year old eating ice cream and getting it all over their face, and we think to ourselves, “This is boring. I hope they replay that old guy falling into the kiddie pool again!” Yet at the end of the show, that great grandpa clip is nowhere to be found… but that damn kid eating ice cream is one of the top three finalists for funniest video.
Although this is frustrating to the viewer, there is typically a mildly funny video in the top three where someone gets a little hurt or a wedding kind of gets ruined, so we’re satisfied knowing that this will win. But when the winner is announced, all of our fears come true: the worst video of the show wins the money… and it’s a kid being cute. Kids are cute all the time. They say stuff like “where’s my bubby?” and “Uncle Sean scares me,” and it’s delightful. But it’s not funny. A dog going into an epileptic seizure is funny. A groom puking on his future mother in law is funny. An old man falling off a roof is funny.
What’s not funny is the twisted sense of humor in this country, which is why week after week AFV rigs the results and assures the American reputation isn’t tarnished any more than it already is.
AFV, do the right thing. Let America’s votes count, no mater how sadistic they may be. In your theme song you state, “America, this is you!” It’s time for the unfortunate truth of that statement to be displayed in the weekly prize winners.
