Just for Laughs Gags, the seven-year-old show spawned by the Montreal comedy festival, has sold six half-hour episodes to ABC in the U.S.

The hidden-camera, practical-joke series will be revamped, with existing segments shown before a studio audience and a host, in the same style as ABC’s America’s Funniest Home Videos. The eps will debut with the fall season.

‘Obviously, I’m extremely pleased and excited about this,’ says the show’s executive producer, Pierre Girard. Just for Laughs Gags, which airs in Canada on CBC, is already a hit internationally, with its practical jokes selling to 125 countries and 95 airlines. Girard says the airline exposure proved crucial in getting the ABC deal; an exec saw the show on a flight and liked it. ‘I’ve been trying to break into the American market with this show for five years,’ Girard says.

‘We’re a show with heart,’ says Girard. ‘No one is ever made fun of or put down. We are always laughing with the people, not at them. That is always clear. If someone’s uncomfortable with the gag, we don’t show it.’

The new packaging for Just for Laughs Gags will include new graphics, a studio audience and the host, whom they have not yet chosen.

‘We need someone who has no ego – someone who can play straight man to all the gags we come up with,’ says Girard, who says shooting will take place in July in L.A.