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- Cry, and you’re watching The Real World.
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- Are there any network prime-time TV programs that do not use a laugh track?
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- Alternately, which shows could have most used a laugh track? I nominate: Mary Hartman,Mary Hartman - Runner Up: Prisoner:Cell Block H.
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- MC, feelin’ lucky
Wah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
An infinite number of rednecks in an infinite number of pickup trucks shooting an infinite number of shotguns at an infinite number of road signs will eventually produce all the world’s great works of literature in Braille.
Well, disregarding the hour dramas, “The Simpsons” and “King of the Hill” come to mind. Want to exclude animated shows, too? I think “Newsradio” doesn’t use a laugh track, but I may be mistaken.
“Malcolm in the Middle” has no laugh track. “Sports Night” uses one very rarely (it’s a point of contention between the network and the producers.)
I heard that the makers of MASH (the TV series) didn’t want a laugh track, but the network made them use one.
They compromised and didn’t use a laugh track in the OR.
Didn’t MAS*H quit using a laugh track in its later years? 'course, they weren’t quite as comical near the end either.
I looked in the mirror today/My eyes just didn’t seem so bright
I’ve lost a few more hairs/I think I’m going bald - Rush
MC: Are there any network prime-time TV programs that do not use a laugh track?
ER, Law & Order, Star Trek: Voyager, Providence…
I looked in the mirror today/My eyes just didn’t seem so bright
I’ve lost a few more hairs/I think I’m going bald - Rush
Are we making a distinction here between canned laughter and the response of a live audience? I think it’s fairly easy to tell when laughter is generated or “enhanced”.
I recall reading that Sports Night occasionally has audible laughter but it’s the crew. There’s a show on Showtime about a recovering alcoholic with no track or audience, and it’s almost jarring. It follows every sitcom convention but that, and the absolute silence is disturbing. For some reason, that doesn’t bother me on Sports Night. The deft use of ambient office noise and music more than makes up for it.
Roc Live did not use a laugh track for obvious reasons.
remember when scooby doo and a bunch of those hanna barbara cartoons in the 70’s had laugh tracks? I mean, what was the point?
The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is right now.
I remember Dinosaurs tried it both ways, and was (I thought) much better without it.
Mayor of Snerdville, the home of Mortimer Snerd
“I’m just too much for human existence – I should be animated.”
–Wayne Knight
The makers of the television show MASH agreed to the use of a laugh track except that it wasn’t used in the operating room scenes. (The thought of a laugh track while blood is spurting seemed distasteful to some.)
To see primetime shows without laugh tracks, watch primetime shows from other countries. Most of those don’t have laugh tracks.
Forgot to answer the original post.
Most of the prime-time news programs do not use a laugh track. e.g. Nightline.
$$%#%! And what I posted about MASH had already been said by Revtim. I’m slinking away now.
The point of the laugh track on Scooby Doo… and most other Hanna-Barbara cartoons… is to alert the viewer that one of the characters has just said or done something that was intended to be funny.
Without this vital service, the viewer would have no hope of identifying these occasions and might conclude that it was intended as a drama or a sort of animated newsreel.
I can think of reasons why someone over the age of, say, 8 would voluntarily watch Scooby Doo, but they’re pretty specialized and certainly “entertainment” would not be one of them.
Ally McBeal doesn’t use a laugh track IIRC.
-Frankie
Lack of charisma can be fatal
The Simpsons do not use a laugh track! The only time you’ll hear any laughing on that show is if the characters do it. A laugh track is only used on those foul, peon shows that need it.
The Simpsons using a laugh track. Phah! The nerve of you people.