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September 7, 2027 will mark 100 years from the day when electronic television made its first appearance on Earth.  To generate interest in the Centennial,  this website and accompanying podcast is going to Count Down the Top 100 Milestones from the First 100 Years of Television over 100 weeks until September 7, 2027.
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Before Survivor, before The Real World, before all The Real Housewives and The Celebrity Apprentice, there was Allen Funt. 

Allen Funt’s concept for a television show was deceptively simple: what would people do if they didn’t know they were being watched by a hidden camera?

From that simple premise, on August 10, 1948, Allen Funt brought an entirely new kind of program to the ABC-TV network. Candid Camera was unscripted, unrehearsed, and genuinely real.  Decades later, the genre Funt pioneered would morph into the “everybody knows there are cameras” format now known as “reality” TV. 

Like almost everything else on television in the 1940s, even Candid Camera had its origins in radio – a medium with no camera.  The original concept  was called Candid Microphone, and captured the spontaneity of ordinary people reacting to contrived situations. Unsuspecting subjects were caught off guard by talking mailboxes, elevators speaking gibberish, or a stranger asking them to hold an invisible dog on a leash.

Despite the absence of a visual element, Candid Microphone was a popular program, and Funt’s timing was perfect. He knew that to really sell the premise, people needed to see the reactions. Television arrived just in time for Funt to share the double-takes, baffled stares, and slow dawning recognition on a person’s face. When television came calling, Allen Funt was there to take the call. 

For once, the transition to television was relatively easy.  Funt’s formula didn’t require a lot of experimentation, trial runs, big budgets or big names. There would be no multi-camera studio setup, no sets, no performers, no orchestra or announcers.  All Allen Funt needed was a small, easily concealed 16mm film camera, a microphone, and preposterous situations to put people in. 

Funt’s crew hid their gear in stores, parks, offices – anywhere humans could be caught unsuspecting – and staged harmless pranks: a car with no driver, a receptionist who failed to notice a man turning green, a water fountain that sprayed sideways and a telephone booth that locked the caller in were among the predicaments that Funt whipped up for the hidden camera.  

Stealth, timing, and the wacky, unpredictable aspect of human nature were his currency. Confusion, disbelief and exasperation were the emotional payoff.

And when the prank had run its course, Allen Funt came out of the shadows with the punchline: “Smile! You’re on Candid Camera.”

Candid Camera‘s hook was its easy relatability. In a landscape still mostly dominated by theatrical pretensions, Candid Camera was loose, immediate, and genuine. The participants weren’t professionals, they were unwary innocents caught in the act of being themselves.  Anybody watching knew it could just as easily have been themselves trying to follow a street sign that kept changing directions, or walking past a statue that waved and winked at them. 

Allen Funt himself was part of the show’s appeal. Affable, deadpan, and unassuming, he introduced each segment with just enough mischief to let viewers in on the game. He was neither a clown nor a showman. His reassuring presence wrapped a compassionate atmosphere around the whole enterprise: the jokes were never cruel, the targets were never humiliated. Funt wasn’t out to victimize anyone, he was just trying to bring a little bit of the authentic and absurd of the human experience to television. 

After its 1948 debut on ABC, Candid Camera was a fixture somewhere on the TV dial until well into the 1960s.  It served as a recurring segment on The Garry Moore show before returning  to a stand-alone format, and Funt was often joined by co-hosts Durward Kirby and Bess Myerson.  At its peak, Candid Camera drew millions of viewers, proving that you didn’t need scripts, stars, or studio sets to make compelling television. 

It is no stretch to suggest that Allen Funt’s clandestine pranks set the stage for entire categories of television to come. Candid Camera was a direct ancestor of shows like Real People, America’s Funniest Home Videos, and Punk’d, as well as the explosion of “reality TV” that swamped the medium 1990s and 2000s. But unlike many of those later iterations, Funt’s show maintained a tone of gentle fun. There was no prize, no competition, no humiliation. Just the warm, quiet comedy of being recognizably human.

Evolving technology was a factor in the show’s ongoing appeal.  As equipment got smaller and more mobile, Funt’s ability to go unnoticed improved. Candid Camera liberated television from the confines of a sound stage.  It could go out into the world, find stories on the street, and bring them back into people’s homes.

In its singular way, Candid Camera tapped into something deeper than humor. It bridged the divide between public and private and poked holes in the discomfort of being watched. Long before so-called “reality” shows blurred the line between performer and audience, Candid Camera asked a critical question: how do we change when the camera is on?

Candid Camera was always more than a novelty or a low-brow bit of mischief. It was one of the first projects to crack open the fourth wall between the media and the real world. It invited the public onto the stage. And it planted the seed for a whole genre of television that still thrives today.

Allen Funt remained involved with the show for decades, handing off hosting duties to his son Peter in later years. The format was revived many times, including in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, proving that the core idea never really got old.

In the years before he died in 1999 at age 84, Allen Funt sometimes joked that the real reason some people dismissed the show was that they were always worried they might be on it. 

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Among the most classic Candid Camera segments is this one featuring the car that split into two parts.  There’s much more on the Candid Camera Gold YouTube Channel. 

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