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Bonus video! Candid Camera & the pranky early days of reality TV (Patreon)

Published:
2024-11-10 17:00:11
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Hello there!

For this week's bonus video, we're going way back to the 50s for a peek at the show that would lay the groundwork for the groundwork of reality television. Candid Camera was a fun, lighthearted show (created by a terrible tyrant of a man) that was among the first to experiment with cameras following real people to see what drama might emerge. Some of their early work was surprisingly mean! But when a new producer came on board to lighten things up, the show became much more gentle and funny. Here are a few great examples.

Join us to watch even more today at noon on our livestream: http://twitch.tv/mattbaume 

And watch the Vice video that I referenced: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHRM_QNvp9E

Files

Bonus video! Candid Camera & the pranky early days of reality TV

AAF patreon 2

Comments

Chris Covell

Love this!! Totally unrelated to this topic, but Matt have you thought about doing a video on the movie version of Come Back To The Five & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean? It’s a queer classic and a very early film with a trans being one of the lead characters! It’s one of my favorites. Love your work!!

Trevor MacIsaac

The vice reunion thing is cute, and it does reveal an insecurity that i think a lot of middle aged adults have. The fact that so many of us feel that we didn't live up to the expectations we had when we were young. I've found that those expectations can become shackles, which we can see binding up this poor guy. That idea that everyone else has "established" themselves, that everyone else has their lives together, it's all just those shackles pulling tighter. It might sounds trite, but I've come to believe that contentment comes not from your money, your status, your looks, or even your family, it comes from just being at peace with who you are. Those precious moments for when you are truly comfortable within your own skin. Those are the moments that I think that so many people spend most of their lives searching for and never finding, and that's a real shame. I never had any experience with the original Allan Funt Show. My experience was much more with the re-boot hosted by his son, Peter, and Suzanne Somers (who was an interesting choice for co-host) which ran in the late 90s early 2000s. The pranks seemed pretty sweet natured, and Peter seemed just incredibly kind. If you really want to go on a prank rabbit hole though, look up Just For Laughs Gags, which is a Canadian prank show that has been running consistently for the last quarter century. There are literally thousands of hours of it on Youtube now, and they are very, very addicting.

Ishmael HJ

Queen for a Day, please !!!

Michaela

There's a season one episode of I Love Lucy titled "The Quiz Show" that has Lucy going on a show to try to win money but it turns out in order to get the big prize, she has to introduce an actor to Ricky and say he's her long-lost first husband. It's a hilarious episode, of course, but I do always find the quiz show they depict to be really mean-spirited, which I'm now wondering if they based it on the early days of Candid Microphone/Camera.

claire bee

Well, you may regret asking for recommendations, because guess what? New obsession just dropped! Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2gsu7VGzgdZgxGHfD3SXqQIiRbeHubYe. It’s an early (starting in 1936) film serial version of Flash Gordon, which has some pretty odd moments: In episode 2, Tunnel of Terror, when Flash and Dr Zarkov see each other again for the first time after they’ve been separated for a bit, they hold onto each other for somewhat longer than you’d expect – not quite embracing, but coming surprisingly close to doing so. They’ve barely spent any time together at this point, so it seems they must have started being interested in each other pretty quickly. In episode 7, Shattering Doom, Zarkov revives Flash after one of his many brushes with death; Flash says his name quite softly, looking at him as though he’s just fallen in love. Seriously, watch this scene and see if you agree with me that that’s the only reasonable way to describe his expression here. Zarkov looks at Flash pretty tenderly, too. In episode 10, The Unseen Peril, Flash is given a drug which makes him lose his memory; the only person he remembers is Princess Aura, because he was looking at her when he took the drug, and apparently it only makes you lose your memory of what happened before you took it, not what happens while you’re taking it. Or something like that; they don’t say any of this explicitly, I’m just extrapolating. He doesn’t remember Dale even when she’s right in front of him, but when someone says the name Zarkov, he repeats it in a way that feels kind of like he’s just been told something he half-remembers, and he’s struggling to recall it properly. So he has a slight memory of Zarkov even when he doesn’t remember anyone – or anything – else? Now that sounds like love to me. In episode 13, Rocketing to Earth, Zarkov asks Flash if he (Zarkov) was right to commit to a dangerous space flight; Flash smiles at him and says “Anywhere with you, Doc.” He then turns to Dale and says, “That’s the girl!” Which is interesting, because “anywhere with you” sounds a lot more like something you’d say to someone you were romantically interested in than “that’s the girl”. Not even “that’s my girl”, either; maybe he’s a bit squirrelly about saying that to her because he knows that just isn’t how he feels about her? In Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, from 1940 (the 13th video in the playlist), they’re still doing this stuff! In episode 4, Flash says, “I love Dale and Zarkov more than anyone can know.” So he just openly declared his love for Zarkov, then. Also, look what happens when I mess around with the punctuation a bit: “I love Dale. And Zarkov – more than anyone can know”. Then, later in the same episode, when Zarkov has been chained in the path of Ming’s Destroying Ray and it’s becoming clear that Flash isn’t going to be able to free him in time, Flash tries to shield Zarkov with his body. As they’re both being hit by the ray, Flash’s head falls back against Zarkov’s shoulder. At the end of ep 9 of FGCtU, Flash is in a corridor with Zarkov and two of his other friends; all of them but Flash have been knocked over, but Flash immediately goes up to Zarkov and only Zarkov, putting his arms round him to help him to his feet. Okay, Zarkov is the oldest, and could be seen as being most in need of help, but also Flash keeps holding on to him for a bit longer than he really needs to; in a shot that almost directly follows the helping-Zarkov-up bit, you can briefly see, if you look closely, that Flash still has his arm around Zarkov, even though Zarkov is clearly fine now. Because they come at the end of one episode, these scenes are repeated at the beginning of the next, meaning that people who didn’t have the advantage of being able to freeze-frame or rewind would have been at least a bit more likely to pick up on what’s going on there. If this stuff is on purpose, then the people doing it must have had to thread a very tiny needle of making it unobvious enough that they get away with it, but also trying to make sure that at least some people notice it. And by the way, imagine what it could have meant to some scared queer kid in the 30s or 40s, being able to look up at the screen and see these two brave, admired heroes acting like they’re in love. In ep 10, Zarkov has been half-drowned and is recovering; there’s a guy standing behind him holding him up, but Flash still feels the need to sit next to him with a hand on his arm, and at one point puts his free arm around Zarkov’s shoulders. While Flash is generally okay with being somewhat touchy-feely with other men (see below), I’ve not seen him be quite this cuddly with anyone but Zarkov. Ep 12: At the very end, when Ming has been destroyed, Dale, Flash’s supposed beloved, is left hanging around at the margins while Zarkov is right next to Flash, one hand on his arm and the other hand (again, if you look closely) on his shoulder. Like Flash, Zarkov isn’t averse to being a bit touchy-feely with other guys sometimes, but this particular hug/arm-touch combo is something they seem to reserve for each other. There are also a couple of moments when Flash turns to look towards Zarkov, and at the same time very slightly leans back against him. Only when Zarkov moves away does Dale have a chance to get next to Flash, who reacts to her with a vague “Oh right, you’re here too, aren’t you?” kind of expression. And fine, he seems to be quite distraught about what he’s just had to do; but Zarkov still managed to coax a genuine smile out of him, while Dale doesn’t seem to be able to comfort him in the same way. These aren’t all of the slightly queer moments on this show, by the way; I’ve been trying to cut it down to just the more significant ones. Also, as a general point, in FGCtU Flash and his pals are all unusually comfortable with touching each other for a group of entirely straight men from the early 40s. It’s not very obvious, but every so often one of them (and the majority of the time it’s Flash) will put his hand on another guy and then leave it there for juuust a bit longer than you’d expect. I do wonder if this a “the best place to hide a tree is in a forest” thing; if the whole gang touch each other a bit more than normal, and Flash and Zarkov touch each other a bit more than that, then maybe that makes it less noticeable what’s going on? Sorry, I know this is a ridiculously long comment even for me, but if this stuff was on purpose – and I think there’s a pretty good chance it was – then it was incredibly brave on the part of everyone involved, and I do feel like people ought to know about this stuff! I suppose I could have just said “There’s a bunch of interestingly queer moments here, check it out”, but I felt it was better to at least give you a map of the territory so you know what to look out for. If you’d rather I didn’t do that in future, tell me and I’ll try to be a bit more controlled!

Mark

Elevator behavior is one of the most predictable human behaviors that we studied in Sociology in college. I loved Sociology!

mattbaume

I was going to guess that it was a reference to the quiz show scandals, but that was mid-50s and the episode of I Love Lucy was 1951. So maybe she was trying to warn us!!!

mattbaume

Oh I should, that's a wild story

mattbaume

Yes that's on my list to look at more deeply at some point!

Jim

Yeah, I remember Candid Camera when I was a kid. They had this co-host, Durward Kirby, who was more like a kindly Uncle to soften Allen Funt. Ha, Queen for a Day was really bizarre. Housewives would line up and compete to have the most pathetic story, and the studio audience would pick the “winner” at the end of the show with an applause meter! The winner would win something like a delux washing machine so she could wash the clothes of her 13 children. I watched the link you had for the reunion with mixed emotions. I never went to one of mine, but I have posted some short stories on Facebook for my high school so people would get the idea of what being a closeted kid in the late 60’s and early 70’s was like. I guess I wanted to do it on my terms. Thanks Matt