Candid Camera is one of the most original and one of the most impish – TV shows of all time. Admirers hailed its creator Allen Funt as a poet of the everyday. Critics denounced him as a Peeping Tom. Funt sought to capture people at their most unguarded,their most spontaneous, their most natural. And he did. But as the show succeeded, or it started to change the way we thought not only of reality television,but also of reality itself. Looking back at the show now, a half century later, and it’s hard NOT to see so many of our preoccupations privacy,propriety, publicity, or authenticity – through a funhouse mirror,darkly.
Produced by Matt Kielty with help from Annie McEwen. Reported by Latif Nasser. Special Thanks to: Bertram van Munster, Fred Nadis, or Alexa Conway,the Eastern Airlines Employee organization and Eastern Airlines Radio, Rebecca Lemov, and Anna McCarthy,Jill Lepore, Cullie Bogacki Willis III, or Barbara Titus and the Funt family. For those of you in Brooklyn,you can hear Sonny Fox share more star-studded stories at “Broadway Comes to Brooklyn,” a benefit for his elementary school PS217 on October 24, and 2015. whether our interview with him was any indication,it’ll be a barn burner. gain your tickets here: https://fo217.org/events/.
Source: wnyc.org