Peter Funt brings decades of pranks in Candid Camera to the stage at Sunset Center.

There’s something Peter Funt doesn’t want you to know about the storied Candid Cameraseries. By his count, about 60 percent of the scenarios were shot within five miles of Alvarado Street in downtown Monterey.

“If we introduced a segment by saying, ‘We went to Denver,’ you know it wasn’t in Monterey,” he says. “But if we say, ‘We went to a coffee shop,’ you can safely assume it was in Monterey County.”

The ruse makes sense to the program host, who took over after his father’s successful run as host in the 1960s – an era when the phrase “Smile, you’re on Candid Camera” entered the national vernacular. The Funt family call Monterey Peninsula home and kept offices related to the show here, even when spending time at the studios in Los Angeles.

To Allen Funt and then Peter Funt, the population of Monterey County was a cross-section of the U.S. “It’s all here,” Funt explains. There is no identifiable accent, no tilt toward one generation. “So many people are transplants, anyway. That’s our secret ingredient.”

Which makes “8 Decades of Smiles” – part retrospective, part celebration, part variety show and part audience participation improv at Sunset Center on April 27 – like a homecoming. The event closes out a national tour that even a veteran like Funt finds difficult to describe.

“Do we roll out a TV set? Or is it some historical treatise?” he asks. “It’s easier to say what it’s not, because it is none of those.”

Candid Camera always eluded easy definition. The appeal of a show based upon hidden cameras and public pranks – some outlandish, like stopping motorists at the state line and informing them Delaware was closed – shared space with reality TV, comedy and social observation.

Because the jokes often turned on issues most viewers could relate to, episodes from the decades have become fodder for scholars. Universities have used the Candid Camera archives for research projects, watching people’s behavior.

Funt and his staff have reels dating to as far back as the 1940s. One of the few pieces that wasn’t saved is personal to Peter – his first appearance on television. Allen sent his then-3-year-old son out on the streets of Manhattan with a shoe shine kit, hawking shines at the astronomical rate of $10 per shoe.

The archives, Funt says, remain a good watch: “People are still people. I find that fascinating. I’m looking for laughs and for insight on how people behave.”

CANDID CAMERA: 8 DECADES OF SMILES WITH PETER FUNT happens 8pm Friday, April 27. Sunset Center, San Carlos and Ninth , Carmel. $19-$39. 620-2048, sunsetcenter.org.