Funniest Giggles of All Time

For New Year's, one of the cable channels ran a marathon of America's Funniest Home Videos, one of my favorite shows on TV. We watched quite a few episodes, including one from 2005 that was naming the Funniest Home Video of All Time, awarded with a $250,000 grand prize (I really need to take more videos and get myself into that market...). The winner was a great video of a mom laying in bed surrounded by her 6 month old quadruplets (!). Dad was videotaping and making a funny noise, and every time he did, all four of the babies erupted in laughter simultaneously. You couldn't help but laugh with the babies each time. You can see it on YouTube here.

Growing up, our family watched America's Funniest Home Videos together every Sunday evening. We quickly learned that of the three finalists for the Funniest Video award, the winner would be the video with the animal or the baby, presumably because the voting audience thought the animals and babies were so cute that they deserved to win. If the final 3 videos contained both an animal and a baby, usually the baby won, even if it wasn't the funniest video. As a child, this frustrated me occasionally when I thought the video of the falling teenager or adult mishap was funnier.

I've entered a new era of my life, however. I now think all baby videos are the sweetest, funniest videos ever. Tyler and I watch AFV just for the baby videos. If one of us is up around the house and a baby video comes on, we call the other over to watch it. Having a baby of my own has completely changed the way I watch AFV. I think the voters at the episode naming the Funniest Video of All Time must have been parents.