There were shows in the first season that had very little laughter from the studio audience, because they (Python) were new and weren’t yet pulling in people who appreciated their humor. Then there was the fourth and final season which didn’t get much laughter either, but that was because they were running out of steam. Cleese had left by then, which might have something to do with it.
So these are episodes I could imagine some clueless TV executive (on either side of the Atlantic) would try to spice up with an added laugh track, though I’ve never heard them that way myself. I’m pretty sure all the episodes are in their naturally recorded state on the DVD collection.
These two are kind of in line with my thinking. If a show is good, the laugh track is not noticeable because I am also laughing. Is Seinfeld any less great because it has the laugh track?
But when I watch some of the Disney zitcoms with my kids (think Hanna Montana or Suite Life), I find myself REALLY noticing the laugh track. It’s like they took the laughter from Seinfeld, and dumped it onto a show without even syncing it with the so called jokes. Sometimes, I don’t even know why the laugh track is making noise. I assume technical error…or bad writing…
Plus, I’ll be honest. I like the sounds of laughter. I’m not a stooge who NEEDS the laugh track to know when something is funny, but for some reason I enjoy the sounds of other people enjoying something. That is the only reason I still go to the movies instead of waiting for DVDs. For some reason, even the recorded laughter makes me smile. It is a quirk. I admit.
That said, I do not need a laugh track to enjoy a show. Arrested Development and Scrubs are two of my favorite shows. My Name Is Earl and Entourage are also hilarous.
And finally, no laughtrack thread (there have been others) would be complete without someone mentioning that the track on Married With Children was practically a character in itself!
I know it’s already been said, but How I Met Your Mother is a really, really funny show. Just bear with it and you won’t even notice the laugh track after 2 or 3 episodes.
It’s interesting to review NBC’s Thursday lineup, starting in 1984 when The Cosby Show pretty much ensured that it would remain a sitcom haven for all eternity. It was steadily laugh-tracked[sup]*[/sup] (with Night Court being the worse offender in my estimation) through 2002 when Scrubs came along. The lineup went firmly non-track in 2006 after the demise of Will and Grace.
Maybe we’re maturing as a culture.
[sup]*[/sup] Some of the one-season shows like Daddio or Union Square might have been trackless, but I don’t recall.
Maturing as a culture? Because there’s no audience laughing along? When you see a comedy in the theater, do you look down with disdain at the other people laughing next to you?
I really don’t think no laugh track (or to be accurate, no audience laughter, as most of the highly popular NBC Thursday night comedies had live studio audiences) = “mature,” and by the same token, the lack of an audience isn’t a guarantor for sophistication. (I’m looking at 30 Rock here… funny as hell but not exactly sophisticated.)
Frasier, Cheers, Seinfeld, All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, Newhart, News Radio, MAS*H … these are all adult, sophisticated comedies (well, maybe not Cheers so much…) that I’ll put up against almost any modern single-camera production. I actually find the oldstyle shows (multi-camera, fixed set, live audience) to have a warmer ‘feel’ to them. Maybe because they’re more like a play and the actors get insta-feedback from their audience. Performing for an audience is a two-way medium; even though the actors don’t literally acknowledge the crowd watching them, there’s definitely a different vibe. I think it shows. You can tell the difference between shows that once had an audience, then gave it up for a season (like Red Dwarf): something of the magic seems to die.
Not that I think shows like The Office or Arrested Development are lacking for not having an audience – those ‘fly-on-the-wall’ pseudo-documentaries would never work, obviously. And shows like this can be more intimate, quieter, or conversely over-the-top through camera work in a way that the fixed set shows can’t accomplish.
Basically they each have their benefits and I’m glad that I can enjoy both formats, as I’d be very sorry to have missed out on some of these amazing comedies.