I was sitting here at the computer with my back to the TV listening to the laughter on a sitcom (darhma and greg actually). The people were cracking up over the most mundane of one liners (“what’s up paper cup”) uproarious laughter! I could actually hear one guy getting choked up he laughed so hard. And the laughter only lasts for a micro burst too just the right length so that the next clever line can be spoken.
Most of the one liners in sitcoms are only mildly amusing and I never catch myself laughing out loud atany of the jokes, (well…maybe on seinfield once or twice) so I can’t imagine millions of people sitting in front of their TV’s guffawing and laughing as hard as the laughter is on sitcoms. Just struck me as strange.
Do TV sitcoms use live audience laughter these days? The credits say at the end of some of the older sitcoms “filmed in front of a live audience”. I read somewhere that they used to use old radio laugh tracks from the 30’s and 40’s on some of those comedy programs like Dick Van Dyke and Mayberry and that those people you hear laughing have been dead for some time…man that is a weird thought ain’t it?
I watched a taping of ‘The Nanny’ with Fran Drescher (sp?). The audience laughed a lot, even when they ran through the whole thing a second time. I don’t know if they used our laughter or a track.
The Dick Van Dyke Show was filmed in front of a live audience. Carl Reiner said they never added canned laughter. In fact, they actually had to cut some because it was too long!
For business reasons, I must preserve the outward signs of sanity. - Mark Twain
I read something once (don’t ask me where–I forget) about laugh tracks. It said that when a show is taped for a live audience, they do use the audience’s laughs. But they make the laughter fit what they want. Like they’ll electronically alter it to make the laughs longer, shorter, louder, etc., depending on what they need. Also, it said that some tracks are occasionally reused.
I never hate myself in the morning. I sleep till noon.
–Sig line courtesy of Wally
I could never stand the cartoons that used a freaking laugh track. I always detested the Flintstones for that reason, and a couple of other Hanna Barbara (or whatever) cartoons for that reason. Even as a kid, I felt that it was insulting to my intelligence.
BTW, I read a short story somewhere about an old couple (or maybe just one guy) who had lost a son in Vietnam, and was obsessed with recovering the past. Aside from collecting psychadelic rock posters and other 60s stuff, this old person/couple would use recording equipment to isolate the sounds of live studio audiences from 60s TV shows. Then they would sit in their living room and listen to nothing but the laughter of the dead, over and over. I thought it was a really creepy story, and it was the first thing I thought of when I saw the title of this thread. Has anyone else read or heard of this short story?
I’ve always just assumed that all sitcoms with laugh tracks used canned laughter in addition to the laughter from the live audience, but I don’t know that for a fact.
In the live audience, I have heard that they will plant a person(s) who they know to have uncontrollable fits of laughter at the stupidest things. The theory being, of course, that the person will laugh at all the stupid jokes, and the laughter will be contagious, giving a good laugh track.
A young friend of mine, a freshman in college, is from Los Angeles. As he tells it, the TV studios there usually don’t have a problem getting live audiences for their popular shows, but what about the not-so-popular ones? (I’m thinking “Unhappily Ever After” as a prime example) Well, they pay audience members, but not very much - like $5-$8 a day - to come in and laugh at their shows. Area high schools get in on this as club fund-raisers, and he says he’s spent many a Saturday afternoon for like 4, 5, or 6 hours laughing uproariously at bad shows.
So that at least answers why these people are falling-down laughing at stupid lines and hooting and hollering in all the right places (like every time Christina Applegate walked into a room on “Married, With Children” for example).
Don’t get me started on those damn laugh-tracks . . . There are a good number of otherwise OK sitcoms I refuse to watch simply because the laugh track falls out of its chair and wets its pants everytime someone walks in and says, “hi!”
That new show ‘Titus,’ for example—I have never watched it, don’t know if it’s any good or not. But on the promos, the damn laugh-track was so loud everytime anyone on the screen even blinked, that I refuse to give the show a try.
One of the resons I love Sports Night is the absence of a laugh track. I think it is one of the more intelligent shows on network tv, and they realize that the viewers don’t need to be told what is funny. Unfortunately, I have heard rumors that last night’s episode will be the last.
Hey, Revtim! You haven’t been in MPSIMS much lately, have you? Good ta see ya!
Anyway, I also like animated shows for their lack of a laugh track. The “Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase” mocked the laugh track tradition to good effect in the Moe segment.
Moe: Hey, I wrote the book on love!
Grandpa: Yeah—“All Quiet On the Western Front”!
Audience: Oooooooooooh?
Moe: Aw, kiss my dishrag!
Audience: BWAAAAHHHAAAAAHAA!
“His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,
His hair is as dark as a blackboard,
I wish he was mine, he’s really divine,
The hero who conquered the Dark Lord.”
