This 10-DVD set of the best episodes from Candid Camera is a big hit in our house. I wasn’t sure our 11-year-old daughter would appreciate the older, black-and-white skits but she laughed harder than my wife or I did.
It’s fun to watch people placed in surreal situations to see how they react. For instance, in one scene the Candid Camera crew set up a one-hour photo shop along the main street of a town. People would drop off film and they’d be told to return in an hour to pick up their prints. As soon as they left, the crew would change the camera shop into a dry cleaners, complete with new signs. The same clerk (a cast member) who took the film from the customer would now be wearing a different outfit. When the customers returned, they tried to hide their befuddlement and asked the clerk for the prints. The clerk would tell them that they were in a dry cleaners, not a photo lab. The customers refused to believe their eyes and ears.
In another scene, a messenger was instructed to pick up some papers at a house, take them somewhere else to get signed, and then return the papers to the house. As soon as the messenger left, the crew removed the house (which was just a false front) leaving an empty lot. Then one of the crew members stood in front of the lot adjusting a “for sale” sign. The messengers would walk walk back and forth past the lot, unwilling to accept the fact that the house had disappeared. Then the crew member would interview the poor messenger and ask them if they needed help.
Other skits are simpler but just as fascinating. I liked the bit where a crew member would ask a person walking by to hold one end of a tape measure while he went around the corner. Then the same crew member would ask another person around the corner to hold the other end of the tape. The crew member would then walk away from both victims, who were now each holding one end of the tape. After a few minutes, one of the victims would typically walk around the corner, see the other fellow holding the tape, then return to his original spot and continue to hold his end of the tape.
Candid Camera is surreal street theater of the highest order. You can buy the set on Amazon or rent it on Netflix. Interestingly, YouTube hardly has any Candid Camera segments on it.