When you count up all the time I have ever spent watching television to see what programs I have watched the most over the years, coming out strong in the top three is going to be America's Funniest Home Videos. Yes, there seems to be a soft spot in my heart for the show made famous by showing middle aged men getting punched in the crotch by their toddlers.

My personal relationship with AFV, as we fans secretly call it, stretches back to the show's early days. Bob Saget, then still on the red-hot Full House, was the host of the show when I originally found it. Saget stayed in that role for eight years, introducing thousands of clips showcasing wacky things happening to ordinary people.

At the time, knowing him exclusively from his Full House role, I found Saget to be a bore. At the sophisticated age of 13, I felt I was above the watered-down pap he was feeding the audience. Focusing so much on his corny jokes, I missed the underlying subversion that Saget was attempting to add to the show. At times, he seemed pained to be giving a particularly bad joke or he would react when a pun failed to land with the audience. Years later, I would come to think of this as the David Letterman style of comedy, though Saget was never as caustic as Letterman. His humor on this show may not be deep, but it can be satisfying. Needless to say, I no longer mind watching an old edition of America's Funniest Home Videos as long as Saget is on it.

The same can not be said for the single season that Daisy Fuentes and John Fugelsang co-hosted. The season seemed more about the extremely short skirts that Fuentes sported than about actually watching clips. This season you can skip.

But then, Tom Bergeron rode in, took over hosting duties, and the show hasn't looked back since. Now, I know that Bergeron is not everyone's favorite host. He's a little bland and mugs for the camera a bit too much at times. But, he's perky and he knows that he's not the star of the show.

The real stars of the show are the baby who makes a funny face while he's pooping and the cat who does a back-flip when startled by a moving novelty Christmas tree. It's all about the old people who fall down when dancing and the dumb teenager who tries the rope swing that doesn't quite have the tensile strength required for a round trip. The pinata birthday party that always goes awry and the person falling off the roof. And the men constantly getting hit in the crotch.

I would like to make a few postulates, here and now. Without America's Funniest Home Videos, there would never have been a show like Jackass, which almost had to be sold as AFV with a limited cast. Viral videos wouldn't have gotten off of the ground without someone recording a funny moment, forgetting to send it in, and then just uploading it to YouTube. AFV was a communal show that required the audience to do most of the work, and in that way helped plant the seeds for Web 2.0 before most homes even had computers. It's a stronger cultural influence than you might imagine.

These days, my schedule calls for me to work until 8:30 PM twice a week. After coming home on these nights, I'm usually too tired to want to follow any sort of narrative flow. Reruns of AFV are the perfect solution for my wife and me. We can watch 10 second long stories that usually end in a laugh. We'll save the well-written, densely constructed fiction for other times. That stuff is great but sometimes, simple is better.

According to Wikipedia, the show has been picked up for a 20th season, starting in October. I'll be there. And I bet I won't be the only one.

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