Greetings, America's Funniest Home Videos Screeners

February 6, 1994

Congratulations; your ability to stare at a television combined with your mastery of the numbers one through ten means you now qualify to make upwards of $4.75 an hour screening the countless VHS tapes sent into America's Funniest Home Videos HQ. You are now the conduit between thousands of hours of goof-ups and our millions of regular viewers, granting you the role of cultural tastemaker as well as someone who may qualify for up to 20% off damaged merchandise in the ABC Store. You'd be surprised how much distressed Phenom t-shirts outperform store-bought chamois in absorbency tests.

That said, most of the videos you watch won't be fit to air; as much as we'd like, the majority of submissions will never make it into high-performing montages like 1992's "Fainting Bride Montage '92" and 1993's "Fainting Bride Montage '93." While you'll be tasked with rating the videos during your screening, certain types of content should immediately be flagged in an effort to protect Mr. Vin Di Bona and his enterprise from legal action. While the many snuff films we receive as cries for help must be viewed to completion to ensure they're not hilarious pranks, we advise you regard the following notes before we pass these clips on to Mr. Bob Saget for his signature "man of three voices" comedic narration.

• Trampolines may seem like comedy gold, but they can also cast a dark shadow over a family due to their ability to inflict partial or complete paralysis. Because roughly 5% of our submissions feature some form of trampoline accident, please ensure the person or people injured are able to walk or retain consciousness for up to five minutes after the point where we would typically insert a hilarious BOING sound.
• Who doesn't love a fat person spilling a tray of oversized food on their oversized body? I'll tell you who: white caucasian males ages 18-35, who are the main reason Arby's has invested so heavily into our production. If the video you're watching features the spillage of a food item too ethnic to feature as a "spicy" appetizer at your local bar and grill, please rate it a "1" and move on. If we can't help them move 10 million gallons of horsey sauce by sweeps week, we're going to have to come crawling back to Hardee's.
• Animal videos have been the bedrock of America's Funniest Home Videos since its inception. But if you should see anything that features a cat jumping into and subsequently knocking over a fully decorated Christmas tree, please note the tape number and set it aside. For reasons we can't quite understand, this is the only thing our German audience wants to see, so we'd like to save this content for Das Lustige Videomagnetband.

• Clips of babies and/or toddlers kissing each other can be heartwarming, so long as the participants stay below certain bases. At the first sign tongues or a crowd of rowdy, drunken family members encircling them and hooting, please place the offensive video in a nearby evidence bag, making sure to clearly label it while noting that your fingerprints may incriminate you.
• If you should happen across any submission that features a mischievous jackalope and his comical antics, please understand that this content was mistakenly submitted to our show instead of America's Funniest People. Should this happen, mark the tape, set it aside, and at the end of the day, destroy it by any means necessary. That freak Dave Coulier has been coasting off of our good name for too damn long.
• Occasionally you may stumble across a tape that features footage of a sickly girl with a face covered by wet, matted hair crawling out of a well and walking steadily towards the camera. This has happened more than you'd think, and since we have no use for such footage, please feel free to take these tapes home and pass them on to your friends.

Thanks again for your hard work, and remember: America, America, this is you. Especially if you have inner ear issues while standing in front of party-sized sheet cakes.

– America's Funniest Human Resources