Springfield family makes it to final 3 on America’s Funniest Videos

Look out, Springfield: there’s about to be some local celebrities around.

The Amidon family will be featured as finalists on this Sunday’s episode of ABC’s long-running reality video show, America’s Funniest Videos, which will start at 7 p.m. Kevin Amidon, who works as a teacher and tutor at Lincoln Elementary School, said the video was shot while he and his 14-year-old son Broc, who is a freshman at Catholic Central High School, were driving back from visiting the Cincinnati Reds training camp in Phoenix.

“He was exhausted and we have a history of trying to scare each other,” Amidon said. “So I went to ask him a question, not knowing his phone was near the window, and when he jumped, it just flew out. We were doing about 75 down the highway, so there was no going back for it.”

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Amidon said once they submitted the video and it was chosen for air, they were flown out to Hollywood and were able to meet host Alfonso Ribeiro during the show’s taping.

“He’s a laugh a minute,” Amidon said. “He was a really nice guy, too. Very down-to-earth and just kind.”

What he wasn’t expecting was a local connection to the show. Amidon said one of the staff who is responsible for hyping up the crowd in the studio knew the Springfield area and even knew Broc’s history teacher at his high school, Mitch McCurdy.

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“We laughed about it,” Amidon said. “We even took a selfie with him and sent it to the McCurdys. It was something else.”

Amidon went on to say that he can’t talk about who will ultimately win Sunday night, but the celebration is going to be kept mostly to family only. At the very least, whatever prize the family will win won’t be going toward a new phone for Broc.

“He got that replaced pretty quick,” he said. “After we got home, he had a new one about four hours later.”

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