Beadle's About was just nasty, really - it was the TV equivalent of when people play cruel pranks or say horrible things to you and then, when you react in a perfectly understandably upset fashion, they tell you it's 'just joking, just banter' and try to force you to laugh when you really want to cry because of their actions.
I don't object to genuinely funny and harmless pranks, such as the one in the classic Dave Allen sketch - where the banknote is trapped under the wheel of a parked car and then everybody who has noticed it thinks they are the only one who has; and they all pile into the cafe opposite, constantly staring out of the window and waiting for the owner of the car to come and drive off! Things like that, where people 'opt themselves in' are worlds apart from when somebody is deliberately targeted for trauma.
The US Candid Camera Show seemed to be in a similar pleasant, non-cruel vein to that, too. Not The Nine O'Clock News did a brilliantly-observed parody of the Beadle style of 'humour', which exposed the brand of sheer nastiness by taking it to an absurd level, followed by an expectation that the victim must find it all amazingly hilarious, however devastating: