Shout! Factory Snaps Up ‘Candid Camera’ Distribution Rights, Including Feature Doc About Allen Funt TV Phenomenon – CB

EXCLUSIVE: Shout! Manufacturing unit has snapped up North American distribution rights to Candid Digicam, the hidden-camera present identified for its decades-long run as a tv pioneer.

The multi-year settlement encompasses hundreds of episodes from 1960 to 2013, with the primary 100 hand-picked classics heading to streaming service Shout! Manufacturing unit TV later this yr. Shout may have unique digital and broadcast rights to the collection within the U.S. and Canada, and the corporate has pledged to announce extra plans quickly.

Candid Digicam premiered in 1948, in the course of the infancy of tv as a medium, and went on to provide episodes for CBS, ABC, NBC, HBO and TV Land. Its run on CBS, from 1960 to 1967, was maybe its most indelible. It launched the hidden digital camera idea to tv, and creator, producer and host Allen Funt has ceaselessly been known as the inventor of actuality TV. The present’s payoff included one in all TV’s most enduring taglines: “Smile, you’re on Candid Digicam!”

Funt retired in 1993 and died in 1999. His son, Peter, continued shepherding new episodes by means of 2013. After being featured on an episode of the present as a toddler, he finally turned enterprise companions together with his father and helped produce and maintain the collection, branching out into journalism alongside the way in which.

The distribution deal additionally contains Mister Candid Digicam, a characteristic documentary from 2021 that performed largely on the pageant circuit. It profiles Funt and lays out the origin story and lore of the collection. Peter Funt, directed the movie and Brian Courrejou produced it.

Peter Funt joined Shout founders and CEOs Bob Emmer and Garson Foos, VP of acquisitions Jordan Fields and EVP of technique and digital Gene Pao in saying the deal.

“The phrase groundbreaking is commonly used too generously, however Candid Digicam actually invented a mischievous model of comedy that leveraged our shared humanity, with all its foibles and delight within the absurd, for life-affirming laughs,” Fields stated. “We’re thrilled to carry this humorous and enduring TV collection again to longtime followers and introduce it to a brand new technology. Peter’s documentary is a loving and entertaining tribute to his father and the present that immortalized him.”

Peter Funt stated he chosen the primary 100 episodes for streaming, with the purpose of highlighting the “humorous examine of human nature” supplied by the collection over many a long time. “I’m grateful that Shout’s workforce appreciates the worth of smiling in these hectic occasions,” he added.

This content material deal was negotiated by Fields and Steven Katz, VP of enterprise affairs, and Peter Funt on behalf of Candid Digicam, Inc.