Post numbers 31 and 32 over in this thread got me wondering about the laughter heard on sitcoms. If you’ve ever been in a studio audience, what was the experience like? Were there signs indicating when you should laugh or applaud, like the ones on late night talk shows? Any hint of the studio trying to exaggerate the crowd’s reaction?
Ummm, there used to be this show on Nickelodeon called “All That.” It was basically a teen’s SNL, sort of. When I was in middle school we went out there for a filming and we watched. I don’t remember there being a laugh sign to cue us, but it has been a while and the memories have faded. It was a skit based show so most of it was funny. But that show’s gone off the air now, thankfully. I think.
I’ve been to tapings of both *Night Court * and Who’s Line Is It Anyway? There weren’t any laugh or applause signs, but they did have emcees come on to warm up the crowd. The emcee for *Who’s Line * did say that audience reaction was always enthusiastic to the British version of the show, and if we wanted to come second to a bunch of brits, well -
BTW - it was Harry Anderson’s birthday the day of the *Night Court * shoot. Everyone in the audience got cake, Anderson did a little Q&A with us, and John Larroquete saw a cute girl in the fourth row and climbed over the seats to sit next to her. That actually got the biggest laugh of the night.
When I was young teenager in the early 80s, I saw an episode of To the Manor Born being filmed at the BBC TV Centre. I was in the front row and Penelope Keith came and chatted with us and let me stroke her puppy. Afterwards I got Peter Bowles’s autograph.
That’s not some sort of weird British euphemism, is it? 
I got to watch Happy Days being taped. It was the one where they’re all locked in the vault at Howard’s hardware store. As ronincyberpunk said, there were no applause signs or anything, but there were crew members on hand to encourage an enthusiastic response. But I think we all would have responded anyway, because hey, it was Happy Days. Everyone loved it back then. The applause you hear when Henry Winkler first comes on is definitely the real enchilada.
When I first moved to LA I worked briefly as a studio page. I was with the audience for tapings of “Yes, Dear” and the one season show “Committed” (originally called Crazy for You). Audience’s are fairly small for those kinds of shows. There’s defnitely a group mind kind of thing going on with an audience. A joke that you are watching at home, you might only chuckle at, you might actually laugh when you see it live. And a joke live that you would only chuckle at, if everyone else laughs, that might elicit a laugh from you.
I was in the audience for a Jimmy Kimmel show taping. At Kimmel the MC would prompt you when to clap. “Okay when the announcer announces the guest’s name, cheer really loud and then watch for my signal to bring it down.”
Bck in teh 90s I did an internship at the CBC for two weeks. Two days I was on the set of Royal Canadian Air farce.
They taped the show twice with two seperate audiences. The first run I was with the stage sound guy (who worked on the audio the audience heard and the second I was in the control room with the Sound guy there. I thought the audience was fairly enthusiastic but low and behold the control room guy was actually sweetening the laughter by mixing the audience feed with canned stuff.
He said that was the norm for the show as it made the sound fuller.
I wonder if that is standard practice for most live audience shows. Mind you Air farce can be tepid and needs the sweetening more these days.
I was at a taping of Dave’s World in 1994. One of the writers acted as the warmup.
There were no signs telling us to laugh - the only thing the writer said was that if we found something funny, please laugh out loud.
A couple of scenes were done on a stage we couldn’t see and shown on monitors, but they were done ‘live.’
I saw the taping of two episodes of the short-lived “Wolfman Jack Show”, at the CBC facility in Vancouver in September 1976. I don’t remember there being applause signs. Although at the end of each show, Wolfman came up into the audience bleachers to shake hands with people. Both times, he shook mine. I had a cast on my right, so he had to shake my left. I never did see it on TV.
I’ve been in Letterman’s audience a few times. Dave was in a really, really sour mood the first time I saw him. You could feel his contempt for even having to be there from across the studio. He seems really unhappy most of the time. It was actually a little uncomfortable watching the taping. The other times I’ve seen him he’s been a little bit better, though.
Random stuff I noticed:
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The stand-up comedian they use to get the crowd going before the show used the exact same routine each time I saw him. I mean exactly the same.
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Letterman comes out about a minute before taping to talk with the audience. Again, he really seems to have nothing but contempt for the crowd. I’ve read that The Simpsons writers based Krusty the Clown largely on Letterman…and it’s easy to see why when you see him answering questions from the audience.
*You’re asked to applaud and laugh but to refrain from hooting and whistling during the show.
*There is a definite hierarchy at work during the taping of Letterman’s show. It’s clearly obvious just who and who isn’t allowed to approach Mr. Letterman during commercial breaks. It seems that everything has to go through his producer…the woman who sits off to his side during the show.
*I was surprised at how many quick huddles around Letterman’s desk there were during the little pre-recorded ‘bits’ during the show. He’d introduce something like “George W. Bush Talks To Children” or something, the lights in the studio go down and for the next ten seconds there’d be a frantic little meeting between Letterman and his producer.
*I was surprised to see ‘re-takes’ of a few of the ‘ad-libs’ between Dave and Paul. The two chatted a bit before Letterman introduced a segment, and the producers ran the wrong clip. Letterman was really pissed off. He wasn’t kidding around, or chastising his crew in a jokey manner. I thought he was gonna storm off the set. You definitely get the feeling he’s like this more often than not. He was swearing and everything. Very uncomfortable for the studio audience. Anyway, before they re-ran the clip, Dave and Paul tried to remember what they’d said before, and then they did a re-take. Another screw-up. Letterman really lost it this time! More swearing! More yelling. They tried it again. Dave and Paul did their lines again, and this time the right clip played. The audience went crazy, cheering and applauding. Watching the show later, I was impressed by how smoothly edited the final result was. But you’d have had to have been there to realize that the audience was actually laughing and cheering because they managed to play the right clip! Their reaction had nothing to do with the joke.
*Finally, the show is really not performed for the studio audience. They’re an afterthought, there to make noise and basically provide a laughtrack. The show is for the TV audience, plain and simple. I realize that this if probably obvious to most of you…but it was interesting to see it in person.
I was in Letterman’s audience (I know that isn’t a sitcom, but it is the closest I’ve come.) I was disappointed in that they tell you to laugh. A woman came out while we were standing in line and said: Dave’s night depends on you. The more you laugh the better he will be. If you think it might be funny but aren’t sure, laugh anyway and decide on the ride home.
Was once in the audience for a local comedy show (*Almost Live! *) that was also on Comedy Central/Comedy Channel for a while.
I get that vibe from the girl/intern (what’s her face) whenever she does a bit with letterman. It always seemed to me like she just hates his guts and is scared shitless of messing up but secretly wishing she would so she could get fired and stop with all the BS type of thing.
That’s some interesting info about Letterman’s show. I never suspected that some of the banter between Dave and Paul is re-shot. He definitely does have a bit of a reputation for being cranky, though. I think I’d like to see that sometime before he retires.
The only actual sitcom I’ve been to was Roseanne in '94. There was some comedian out there to keep the audience entertained between scenes, and a band. Only one scene had to be reshot, why I don’t know, the first take looked fine to me. No one blew a single line or anything throughout the whole taping, and it was over relatively quick. I noticed when it aired that a few lines were different from what I had heard in person. I think they tape the dress rehersal with no audience and cut in footage here and there.
Recently I saw a taping of Mad TV, and boy, it got tedious by the end. Endless reshoots, massive amounts of time between sketches, half the show being performed out of the audiences view. And then everything I saw taped was scattered out over several weeks worth of shows.
But the best taping I’ve been to was The Price Is Right. Rod Roddy came out first to warm up the crowd. Most of the instructions were on what to do if you get called up: don’t run up on stage when you hear your name (I can’t believe people still do this), look enthusiastic no matter what crap we roll out, enter contestants row from stage left etc. There were a lot of mishaps that day, games breaking down and stuff like that. When the crew needed time to fix something, Bob Barker would sit onstage and field questions from the audience, sometimes for up to half an hour or so. Very cool that he didn’t just disappear into his dressing room like most celebrities would.
I was in the audience for *Kids In The Hall * a few times; they had a head writer (not cast member, tho) warm up the crowd and they have a band as well called Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet that keeps the crowd up. There’s no signs that I saw for laughter or applause and to tell the truth they wouldn’t have been necessary. The guys really rock and even when they blow a line it’s funny. One taping had a technical problem w/ an effect (blood spurting from Dave’s head) and after a few takes it wasn’t quite as funny. But then Dave said something about how the CBC should never have built the studio over an old Indian burial ground, which got us going again. I know they also recorded us watching bits that were on film, I saw the audience later in the broadcasted show.
FYI, when there’s a skit where the Kids are ‘smoking pot’ it sure **smelled ** real…
I second what someone here said about Letterman’s female assistant (the one in the varsity jacket who helps w/ the audience games) really seeming to despise him. Like if she could throw the stuff to him from up the aisle she would.
I was told the exact same thing (probably the same woman) when I went to a Letterman taping and was really put off by the whole experience. Of course they are going to ask you to applaud and be enthusiastic, but they were so condescending and horrible I’d never go back.
The Daily Show, by contrast, was much friendlier all three times I’ve been there.
I have mentioned this in other threads - I have been to lots of tapings of shows, but one of the first I ever went to, and one of the worst, was Perfect Strangers.
In the back of the small audience was a group - obviously the writers, their friends and family and people who owe them money…there were lines in the show like, “who’s knocking at the door” and the group would hoot and howl with laughter. The answer would be, “I don’t know. Answer the door.” and the group would go nuts, I mean stark raving crazy with laughter. At one point, half of the studio audience was turning around to see what lunatic asylum had been admitted to the taping of the show…it was so overboard, it was embarrassing. Throughout the show they were guffawing and rolling in the aisles.
I don’t know if anyone watched the first episode of Julia Louis Drefus’s new show The Old Christine…but if you heard the hysterical, non-appropriate laughter in the background - well, that is pretty much the norm for padded audiences filled with the writers’ friends.
When I went to see the Tonight Show (with both with Carson and again with Leno) the laughter was real…they had mikes throughout the audience and I am sure they turned up the mikes nearest those who laughed the loudest, but at least they were not insane employees of the show overdoing it.
BTW, you didn’t ask, but America’s Funniest Videos actually hires extras to sit in the audience (hence the suits and ties on guys and nice dresses on the women) and pays them $50 to sit there for hours on end, and laugh over and over at the constant re-taping of the unfunny, scripted “ad libs”…I know as I was once on an extra call list and they were always calling me to go there…I was never that hungry or desperate to sit for hours on end and laugh at those stale jokes.
The Tonight Show. As many have mentioned for other shows, there was a warm-up comedian.
Someone told us explicitly that studies show they get better ratings when there is plenty of laughing, so although there was no sign, they strongly encouraged it.
Also Jay came out for a few minutes beforehand to joke around with the audience. He struck me as being quite the little ladies-man, actually, making a number of explicit cracks about some of the young female audience members’ jigglies.