''The World's Funniest!'' is an American

reality show Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s ...

that aired on

Fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

in 1997. Hosted by

James Brown James Joseph Brown (May 3, 1933 – December 25, 2006) was an American singer, songwriter, dancer, musician, and record producer. The central progenitor of funk music and a major figure of 20th-century music, he is referred to by Honorific nick ...

and announced by Mark Thompson, the show had a format similar to ABC's ''

America's Funniest Home Videos ''America's Funniest Home Videos'', also called ''America's Funniest Videos'' (abbreviated as ''AFV''), is an American video clip television series on ABC, based on a recurring segment on the Japanese variety show '' Fun TV with Kato-chan and ...

''. It featured funny clips from TV shows,

bloopers A blooper, or gag reel, is short clip from a film, television program or video production, usually a deleted scene, containing a mistake made by a member of the cast or crew. It also refers to an error made during a live radio or TV broadcast o ...

, and humorous TV commercials. Unlike ''AFHV'', there was no contest element, and viewer-submitted videos were not rewarded with prizes. The show was hosted without a

studio audience A studio audience is an audience present for the recording of all or part of a television program or radio program. The primary purpose of the studio audience is to provide applause and/or laughter to the program's soundtrack (as opposed to canne ...

, with laughter backing during clips provided via a

laugh track A laugh track (or laughter track) is an audio recording consisting of laughter (and other audience reactions) usually used as a separate soundtrack for comedy productions. The laugh track may contain live audience reactions or artificial laught ...

. The series aired on Fox until 2000 and was generally scheduled on Sunday nights at 7 PM ET, or after NFL football on the East Coast during the football season, allowing for easy joining in progress without much consequence to viewers. ''The World's Funniest!'' was based on a series of specials on Fox titled ''Oops! The World's Funniest Outtakes''. It is unrelated, outside of sharing a title and concept, to the later Fox series '' World's Funniest'' (formerly known as ''World's Funniest Fails''), produced by

Dick Clark Productions Dick Clark Productions, LLC (DCP, stylized in lowercase as dick clark productions or dcp) is an American multinational television production company founded by radio and TV host Dick Clark. The studio primarily produces Awards ceremony, award sh ...

Broadcast history

References

External links

TV.com listing IMDB listing
1990s American comedy television series 2000s American comedy television series 1990s American reality television series 2000s American reality television series 1990s American video clip television series 2000s American video clip television series 1997 American television series debuts 2000 American television series endings American English-language television shows Fox Broadcasting Company reality television shows {{US-reality-tv-stub