1942–1960 · NBC

People Are Funny

Art Linkletter did it to the audience, not for them

Art Linkletter's programme was an experiment in what an audience would agree to do on request, and the answer turned out to be almost anything. Some of the stunts ran for weeks. One of them, notoriously, involved a balloon released with a wallet attached to test whether a stranger would return it. As a document of what mid-century America thought was funny, it is more revealing than most of the comedy of the period.

25 broadcasts · 7 years held · Hollywood

Surviving broadcasts of the NBC series. Recordings held by the Internet Archive.