| TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes | |
|---|---|
Gail Edwards, Ed McMahon, and Dick Clark, host a 1980s episode of Bloopers |
|
| Also known as | Super Bloopers & New Practical Jokes Super Bloopers and Practical Jokes |
| Genre | Reality Television Comedy |
| Written by | Bryan Michael Stoller Karl Tiedemann |
| Directed by | Bill Davis Bryan Michael Stoller |
| Presented by | Dick Clark Ed McMahon |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Carson Productions (NBC) Dick Clark Productions |
| Distributor | Sony Pictures Television (1984-86 episodes) Trifecta Entertainment (2012 version) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC ABC (Syndication in 2012) |
| Original airing | January 09, 1984 - September 15, 1986 1991 - 2007 |
TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes is a television series and a group of television specials that aired in the United States by NBC and, later, ABC from the 1980s to the mid-2000s (decade). The NBC run of this series was co-produced by Carson Productions and Dick Clark Productions, with the ABC run produced only by Dick Clark Productions. The series will return to television as a first-run syndicated series in September 2012.
Contents |
The series was predated by two separate series of specials, one devoted to television and film bloopers -- humorous errors made during the production of film and television programs, or on live news broadcasts—and the other a series of specials featuring classic television commercials. The TV's Censored Bloopers specials were hosted by longtime TV producer Dick Clark starting in 1982 (and were dedicated to 1950s TV producer Kermit Schaefer, who had pioneered the concept of preserving bloopers) and the Television's Greatest Commercials specials, which also started in 1982, were hosted by Ed McMahon (which he continued to co-host even as he moved on to co-host the weekly Bloopers series). Both sets of specials garnered high ratings, and following a combination special (TV's Greatest Censored Commercial Bloopers), in the fall of 1984 it was decided to combine the two programs into one series, hosted by Clark and McMahon. Beginning with Super Bloopers, Charlie O'Donnell would be added as announcer (to intro both McMahon and Clark, and to announce bloopers in the "Coming up next" bumpers).
Besides dividing the show between bloopers and classic TV advertisements of yesteryear, the show also featured at least two practical joke segments per episode, featuring celebrities caught in Candid Camera-like situations (a forerunner of the later series Punk'd). Like the Blooper and commercial segments, the "practical jokes" were first seen in a television special, "Johnny Carson's Greatest Practical Jokes"--hence Carson Productions' involvement in the series.
Other regular features included:
As the original two-year weekly run of the series progressed, adjustments were made to the format and eventually the commercials were phased out along with other segments, leaving only the bloopers and practical jokes behind. It was also renamed Super Bloopers & New Practical Jokes.
The series ended as a weekly offering in 1986. In 1991, Clark (who produced the show) continued to host a subsequent series of specials with titles including TV's Censored Bloopers (with a short-lived weekly version in 1998), and just plain Bloopers as the practical joke element was ultimately dropped; these specials were aired on-and-off by NBC until as late as 1998, often appearing as "filler" for cancelled series and as a low-cost summer replacement series, where it often outdrew its competition of mainly reruns. In later years, most bloopers shown tended to come from NBC-produced programs only.
In 1998, Clark moved his Bloopers specials to ABC, where new specials were made periodically up until 2004, when Clark suffered a stroke and was unable to continue. (although ABC continued to air reruns of the specials as late as 2006, and the specials frequently appeared on the TBS Superstation) Like the later NBC specials, the ABC specials mostly focused on bloopers taken from productions made by ABC and its parent company, The Walt Disney Company. In addition, network logos for stations affiliated with networks other than ABC are censored.
ABC revived the Bloopers format in early 2007, with John O'Hurley hosting the first installment, Celebrity A-List Bloopers, on March 17. Dick Clark Productions again is the producer.
On December 20, 2011, Dick Clark Productions and Trifecta Entertainment announced that the series will be revived for syndication under the title Bloopers. This updated half-hour version will feature new footage and hidden camera moments as well as user-generated videos, which is a new element. The series has already been cleared by Tribune Broadcasting's O&Os and will debut in September 2012.[1] A host has not been announced; Clark has since been incapacitated due to a stroke, while McMahon died in 2009.
During the show's original two-year run on NBC, it sparked a number of imitators on other networks, most notably the ABC series Foul-ups, Bleeps & Blunders; the ABC series never matched the NBC version in the ratings, although it did show the first American network transmission of bloopers from Star Trek. After Bloopers left NBC, it launched its own similar series, Most Outrageous Moments, which lasted until 2009.