America's Funniest Home Videos

It's good, clean and funny. But in their zest to cram in as many pratfalls and bean balls as they can, the producers concentrate on the mishap and almost never on the aftermath. Everything is edited down to tiny bites.

I'm ashamed to admit it in front of my more serious colleagues, but I think the show can be very funny. Of course, like everything else on TV, some of it hits, a lot of it misses. But in the midst of the pain, cruelty, ridicule and abuse, not to mention boredom, somebody falls into a manhole and I find myself bursting out laughing. [29 Mar 1990]

How much hipness can be injected into any program that relies on endless footage of folks falling on their faces, losing their pants and getting knocked silly?

The only thing more uneven than the quality of the videos is host Bob Saget's comic commentary.

The times may be ripe for featherbrained entertainment, for aggressive escapism. ... I suspect that ... 'America's Funniest Home Videos' may eventually tumble as fast as it soared. The predictable diet of cute kids and animals, weddings and sports, is already somewhat numbing. [1 Mar 1990]

Downright megabominable, a half hour of mostly violent, amateur-produced slapstick whose biggest victims are inevitably its smallest participants. Children.