New Wisecracker Calls the Shots

“America’s Funniest Home Videos” returns to ABC tonight for what amounts to its 11th season after a two-year absence as a regular series; still, don’t expect to find Bob Saget delivering the wisecracks.

Instead, Tom Bergeron of “Hollywood Squares” takes over as host of a new one-hour format, which for the next eight weeks will award $15,000 in prize money to the craziest and funniest videos submitted by viewers: $10,000 for the favorite clip chosen by the studio audience, $3,000 for second place and $2,000 for third. All $10,000 winners are eligible for the $100,000 grand prize, to be presented at a later date.

The host may be new but the formula is unchanged. The season premiere includes videos of household accidents, a dog who catches hockey pucks and a woman getting revenge on a cameraman after she is suddenly awakened.

Bergeron, who received an Emmy Award for outstanding game show host last year for “Hollywood Squares,” began his career as a disc jockey for his hometown radio station in Haverhill, Mass., and later was host of several programs at Boston’s WBZ-TV as well as two Emmy Award-winning shows for children.

In 1993, Bergeron became host of FX’s morning show, “Breakfast Time,” which was relaunched on Fox in 1996 as “Fox After Breakfast.” He has also served as a fill-in anchor on ABC’s “Good Morning America” and CBS’ “The Early Show.”

Bergeron, who lives with his family in Connecticut, recently talked about his hosting roles on “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and “Hollywood Squares.”

Question: Since you live in Connecticut, what is your shooting schedule in Los Angeles for “Hollywood Squares” and “America’s Funniest Home Videos”?

Answer: After years of working in live television and radio, when I got the “Squares” job, it was like being semiretired in terms of the schedule. I fly out on a Friday and we’ll tape five shows on Saturday and five shows on Sunday. Unless I’m doing something else in L.A., I get on a plane Monday, and I’m back home for dinner. We do 36 taping days a season on “Hollywood Squares.”

We shot 16 hours of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” this spring and shot it around my “Squares” schedule. We shot everything in a one-month period.

I lived in a hotel most of the spring. My family came out during the kids’ school vacation just so the kids wouldn’t forget what I looked like without makeup and lighting.

Q: How did the gig on “Funniest Videos” come about?

A: There was a very serendipitous turn of events. I spent a lot of years in Boston doing TV and radio. I keep going back and doing some charity appearances. I have also hosted the New England Emmy Awards quite a few times. I happened to be hosting a year or so ago and [“Funniest Videos” executive producer] Vin Di Bona was getting a lifetime achievement award.

It was one of those nights where I hadn’t really planned everything. I was improvising. Sometimes that can be wonderful and sometimes it can give off the scent of rotting cheese. But somehow everything I was doing that night was working. Vin’s mother was sitting at our table, and unbeknownst to me she leaned over to him and said, “Hire him.”

My kids loved [“Funniest Videos”], and that was a big impetus for me to take it as well, because my daughters, who are now 12 and 10, always watch it when the reruns with [former host] Bob Saget come on. I thought that would be fun--to do something they really enjoyed watching.

Q: Did you get the opportunity to improvise a lot on “Videos”?

A: My sense of humor is a little different than Bob’s--a little drier maybe and more ironic. And I don’t do the high-pitched voices as well. So I said to Vin, “I would really like to be able to have some control over the tone of the humor.” He was really good with that, and it was a very collaborative environment [with the writers]. They knew when we were on the set shooting and suddenly I decided to go running off when something came to me, they just let me go.

Q: I know that because of a ratings decline, there will be some changes in “Hollywood Squares” this season. Would you discuss what’s new for this upcoming season?

A: I think the key changes are going to be that the bluff is going to be really accentuated. What we have found in the research they do through focus groups is that tick-tack-toe is not brain surgery. What makes the show really work is when you as a viewer and the contestants themselves have to decide is this a real answer or is this person smoking me.

It was interesting. To get some of the stars to the point where they would bluff more regularly was a little difficult. One of the stars on the show told me offstage once, “I know we are supposed to bluff, but I don’t want to go out there and look stupid.”

What I started doing late in the third season, and I’ll do it all the time in the fourth season, is really hit at the top of the show that these stars have been encouraged to bluff. That is, in essence, the cornerstone of the show. What happens is that it’s much more entertaining. Also, we are going to pick up the pace of questions--just get more questions in. We are finding you can get the comedy and byplay in, but keep the pace of the show a little quicker.

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“America’s Funniest Home Videos” airs tonight at 8 on ABC. The network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children). “Hollywood Squares” airs weeknights at 7:30 on KCBS-TV.