“Bloopers” to make a comeback

Gail Edwards (left, as guest co-host), Ed McMahon, and Dick Clark

 

Oh goody. A staple of 1980’s and 1990’s television, the blooper show is poised to make a comeback.

Trifecta Entertainment and Dick Clark Productions announced Monday they were launching a brand new version of Bloopers for weekly first-run syndication in the form of two half-hours a week. Up to 120 episodes are planned – which would make it a candidate to be stripped by either 2015 or 2016.

Bloopers has already cleared 16 markets courtesy of Tribune, including WGN-TV in Chicago.

No word on a host (or hosts), but this updated version of Bloopers plans to contain outtakes from TV shows, hidden camera moments, and user-generated content.

Originally aired on NBC as a set of specials hosted by Dick Clark between 1981 and 1983, TV’s Censored Bloopers became a weekly series retitled TV’s Bloopers and Practical Jokes, airing from January 1984 and September 1986 hosted by Clark and Ed McMahon, which would wind up on a lot of TV worst show lists in that era (the practical jokes segments would be a precursor to Ashton Kutcher’s MTV series Punk’d.)

After its weekly run ended, specials returned to the airwaves in 1987 under the title Super Bloopers and Practical Jokes. Bloopers was once again a series for NBC in mid-1998 but without McMahon as co-host or the practical jokes. Bloopers specials later moved to ABC, where they ran until 2004.

The success of Bloopers have helped spawn other funny clips shows including America’s Funniest Home Videos, Roggin’s Heroes, and current syndicated weekly series Whacked Out Sports and World’s Funniest Moments. One of the most notorious ripoffs of Bloopers came in early 1984 when ABC launched Foul-Ups, Bleeps, and Blunders (premiering one day after Bloopers & Practical Jokes did as a weekly series) with painfully scripted dialogue oozing from hosts Steve Lawrence and Don Rickles.

Of course, if Bloopers needs any more material, they can obtain footage from the Chicago Bears’ previous four games.

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