Not being a linguist, I can’t really describe the difference, but there often is one. If you listen to Spanish-language TV or a recent Britcom, you can hear a difference. It can be subtle, but there is one.
Robin
I’m confused. Where did the quote above come from? I haven’t seen anything in the Staff Report or in this thread talking about Scooby Doo.
Good staff report, Robin. I understood the reason behind the laugh track, but I enjoyed reading about the details of editing it, the digital laugh tracks, and so forth.
One of the original questions asked about Scooby Doo, and why it had a laugh track, so I had a sentence about it. :shrug:.
Thanks for the compliment!
Robin
I remember a gazillion years ago when the Tornadoes released “Telstar” that I could tell they were British, even though they only sang:
Ah, ah-ah.
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah.
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah, ah,
AH!
Ah, ah-ah ah, ah,
Ah, ah-ah ah, ah,
Ah, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah
Ah, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah
Ah.
(And this was before the British Invasion, so the idea of a British pop record was rather extraordinary.)
The original version of the article had a line about Scooby Doo in it, but it appears to have been edited out of the final version. Alas!
Yes, with apologies, it is the situation with announcing Staff Reports on the Friday before they appear. That’s usually the first time the author sees the edited report, and so there can be changes between the early email announcement and the final Tuesday version.
Actually, since Staff Reports (a) only appear online and (b) are written by fallible human beings, sometimes there are even later revisions to Staff Reports.
I dislike the concept of canned laughter, but I also understand its purpose.
If you think about it, laughter is really a social function, something we do with other people. We may occasionally laugh when we’re alone, but not often, and not for very long.
Years ago, I heard Roger Ebert say that when he’s watching a new movie comedy alone in a critics’ screening room, he rarely laughs- somehow, it feels pointless. But he may laugh hysterically when watching the same movie in an audience that’s in on the gags with him.
Most of us probably grasp Ebert’s point. I mean, as soon as you hear a funny joke or read a funny comic strip, isn’t your first reaction to share it with everyone you know?
Well, many of us are alone when we watch television. And we’re less likely to laugh when we’re alone. Canned laughter creates the illusion that we’re in a crowd, laughing along with a lot of other people.
Is it annoying? Occasionally- but to me, it’s only REALLY annoying if and when the canned laughter is disproportionate, when you find yourself thinking, “Oh turn down the laughs, it wasn’t THAT funny!”
First off, congratulations!
Second, I would like to hear more about accented laughter. I thought a laugh was a laugh in any language. If, for instance, someone edited Spanish laughter to an episode of a sitcom, would the viewers sense something was off and not laugh as much? Similarly with American laughter on an episode shipped overseas? Are there some foreign language laughters that are more or less funny to American ears?
one of the advantages of a live studio audience when recording a sitcom is immediate audience feedback. shows will often shoot a few different versions of a scene with different lines to test out the reaction of the audience. if something isn’t working and they aren’t getting laughs, they will change the script right there during production. it happens on occasion.
I remember this happening during a Friends retrospective. It’s almost as if the writers were editing the script based on audience reaction.
For instance, during the show in Las Vegas, Phoebe said getting married in Vegas wasn’t really getting married, that it was valid only in Vegas. Monica set her straight, and Phoebe got this horrified look on her face.
IIRC, there was going to be a bit about Phoebe explaining how she got married in Vegas, but the audience got the joke without the explanation, so they just had her say, “Oh well” and that was that.
Hate canned laughter, it’s not real laughter unless it comes out of a jar.
Truthfully, I can’t tell the difference, either, but that’s because I’ve never heard a mismatch between, say, American English dialogue and Spanish laughter. In a show produced in Spanish, with a Spanish audience, the laughter sounds natural to me. (I spent about an hour watching Spanish TV the other night. I can’t remember the name of the show but it did have a live audience.)
I am going to go out on a limb and make an educated guess to the effect that some American shows are dubbed into other languages for foreign audiences, so the laugh track would most likely be changed, as well. I have seen American shows dubbed into Spanish, and the laughter was definitely different, but I’d always ascribed that difference to a laugh track versus a live audience.
School starts again in a week. I’ll ask my Spanish professor (who is a native Spanish speaker) if she can tell the difference.
Robin
Wash it off with water, and you can get most of that awfull canned taste off of it. 
I talked to my Spanish professor today, and she told me that Latin American audiences tend to be more reserved in their applause. Americans are louder and more raucous.
Based on her response, my thinking is there are cultural factors that differentiate not only laughter, but any sort of audience response, which is, after all, part of canned laughter.
Robin