A (Brief) Sequel to the Stats: A Statistical Analysis of the Clips on "Australia's Funniest Home Video Show"

1. Abstract

The Australia's Funniest Home Videos franchise is either claimed to be one of the funniest shows on television or one of the worst. By analysing and categorising 200 individual clips from 8 episodes of Australia's Funniest Home Videos: Daily Edition, the variety of clips and the potential humour of the clips was measured. The majority of clips fell into one of four categories, with the most common category being people being injured, and almost none of the 200 clips analysed were deemed to be funny. The results of the analysis suggest that the claim that the show consists of people falling and injuring themselves in unfunny ways can be considered as an accurate statement.


2. Introduction

Australia's Funniest Home Video Show is a program that has been running since early 1990, albeit occasionally under different names and with several spin-offs. The name of the show is usually abbreviated to Australia's Funniest Home Videos, however the official name of the show is difficult to pin down. The official Wikipedia page [1] and the IMDb entry on the show [2] are ambiguous as to which format the name takes. Even the show's official website [3] displays ambiguity by referring to the show both ways.

The term "spin-off" is also debatable. Arguably, a spin-off is a show that has it's roots in the original premise, but in general provides it's own unique premise. Every single so called "spin-off" of Australia's Funniest Home Videos is exactly the same thing - supposedly funny videos sent in by viewers. The only difference between all these shows is the name and frequency of the shows airings (for example, daily or weekly), hence it could be argued that these "spin-offs" are actually just the same show. Therefore, one can also argue that the entire "Australia's Funniest Home Videos" franchise can be analysed by examining just the original or a "spin-off" since each is no different from the other.

For this study, the spin-off "Australia's Funniest Home Videos: Daily Edition" was chosen for study. The show airs daily, which makes data gathering efficient, and is nearly identical to all other presentations of the show. Hence, an analysis of this particular element of the Australia's Funniest home Video franchise should be representative of the franchise as a whole.

There are occasionally speculations amongst the general public that "Australia's Funniest Home Videos" are either one of the funniest shows around, or just a half-hour show featuring people falling over and getting hurt. The purpose of this study is to test which of these hypotheses is more accurate.


3. Methods & Materials

200 individual clips from 8 episodes of Australia's Funniest Home Videos: Daily Edition were randomly viewed from episodes airing between 30th August 2011 and 13th September 2011 on the Nine Networks digital channel Go!. Each clip was then placed into at least one of the following categories:
-- Animals Acting Stupidly
-- People Getting Hurt
-- Babies / Kids being stupid
-- People Falling Over
-- Practical Jokes
-- People acting like jerks
-- Other / Unclassifiable

If necessary, the clip was placed into more than one category. For the purposes of this analysis, people engaging in otherwise unacceptable social behaviour (e.g. blowing bubble gum through one's nose) were assumed to be jerks and categorised as such. The number of clips deemed to be funny was also counted.

The raw data collected was then analysed to determine the percentage of clips falling into each category.

The number of clips using "funny" voice-overs or "funny" sound-effects were not counted. While no study has been conducted that analyses how many clips utilise these tools, any brief, unofficial analysis will show that 100% of the clips on the show utilise both of these features. Hence, these effects were not included in the scope of this analysis. Similarly, the amount of canned laughter, real laughter, or no laughter could not be accurately measured simultaneously with categorising the clips, and hence remains a possible future avenue of research.

Unfortunately, the potential of each clip to be so bad as to be "cringeworthy" could not be measured due to current limitations on technology being unable to measure the amount of cringe in a human body.


4. Results & Discussion

The most common categories of video viewed were of people falling over (37.5%) and of people getting hurt (38.5%). The similar statistics between the two are unsurprising since people who fall over are likely to also be hurt, however it should be noted that not every fall was deemed to result in injury, and likewise not every injury resulted from a fall. Just over one fifth (20.5%) of the 200 clips viewed were of animals acting stupidly, and 27% were of babies or children acting equally as stupidly. 14% of clips were of people acting like jerks, which included most, if not all, of the clips featuring practical jokes (3.5%). Only 11 clips (5.5%) of the 200 were deemed to be unclassifiable. This last result suggests that it is easy to group the majority of clips aired on Australias Funniest Home Videos" into one of the other categories used for this analysis. This also suggests that there is a lack of variety in the type of clips aired on the show.

It is often quoted by critics of Australia's Funniest Home Video Show that the show consists of nothing but people getting hurt. While these statistics do not suggest an outright majority of videos consisting of people injuring themselves, the number of clips that do feature injuries or potential injuries (38.5%) is still significant enough that there is a valid argument for this critical view of the show.

Almost none of the clips (1%) were considered to be funny. As such, the mention of "Funniest" in title of the show should be questioned as this has been proven to be statistically incorrect. Hence, this study has proven beyond doubt that the show consists of unfunny clips of people injuring themselves, most commonly as the result of a fall.


5. Conclusions

The show has been statistically proven to be not funny, and potentially confirms the hypothesis that the show consists mainly of people falling and injuring themselves. While there is a small chance that a viewing of an episode of Australia's Funniest Home Videos: Daily Edition will result in the observance of a funny video, the chances are so remote that the viewer is better off not watching the show at all.


6. References

1. "Australia's Funniest Home Videos", Wikipedia Page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia%27s_Funniest_Home_Videos.
2. "Australia's Funniest Home Videos", Official Internet Movie Database Entry, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0267151/.
3. "Australia's Funniest Home Videos", Official Website, http://channelnine.ninemsn.com.au/australiasfunniesthomevideoshow.