Having never seen an episode of it, I tried out the season premier of “The Big Bang” theory. I was surprised to hear a canned laugh track on the show. I thought this practice was a thing of the past as the comedies I watch regularly do not use this old device.
I figure the cross section of people here will probably cover all the current and new situation comedies airing on the major networks. So which still use the phony laugh track? I regularly watch “The Office” and “30 Rock” which don’t and I tried out, and enjoyed, the first episodes this season of “Modern Family” and “Raising Hope” which, as I recall, did not use one.
For a further comedy fix I also watch “The Simpsons” and “Family Guy” which don’t, but it reminds me that three animated series that debuted in prime time; “The Flinstones”, “The Jetsons” and “Top Cat” did use a laugh track. This seemed strange to me even as a child.
Generally speaking, since there have been some exceptions, shows that are filmed with a single camera, like movies, do not have laugh tracks. Shows that are shot before a live audience, like Big Bang Theory, do. The audience laughs at the show. The laugh track just adds “sweetener” in spots (like when they’re on the tenth take and nobody’s laughing at a stale joke). I doubt you can tell when the laughter is live and when a laugh track is being used in those examples. Not using a laugh track to even up the laughter when the audience is laughing anyway probably would sound weirder than using a laugh track.
The laugh track on BBT is not canned, they have a studio audience. For an example of a canned laugh track, watch the latter episodes of Sports Night or MASH.
I have mentioned this before, but years ago I was in the audience of a taping of Perfect Strangers before it had aired on television. That had boom microphones hanging over the audience throughout, to capture the laughs.
I started to notice in the back rows the audience was laughing like hyenas on nitrous oxide. They were guffawing at lines like, “Hello.”
I turned around to see who these lunatics were.
They were the writers (scripts in hand), with a group of close friends there to ensure the writers kept their gigs on the show.
Like a chorus of tipsy schoolgirls, they laughed at ANYTHING - loudly, long and obnoxiously.
When that episode eventually aired on television, guess which part of the audience could be heard laughing…
I didn’t know that “The Big Bang Theory” was taped in front of a live audience. The laughter sounded so canned. For example, Sheldon simply knocked on a door and this was greeted with gales of laughter.
What makes you think the audience laffs coincide with the events on the stage in the final mix? When I edit video, I take room sounds from one source and add it to video from another time and place. No one knows the difference but me (and I ain’t tellin’).
I don’t know if I would like BBT anyway, but the laugh track is SO jarring I can’t watch it. At all. It’s more than annoying.
If that’s a live audience, they need to go to a taped laugh track then, 'cause I’ve never heard a laugh track more annoying, not even on Two and a Half Men <which I don’t like that much but don’t hate, either>
Or maybe their editor just really sucks.
Same here–will not watch a show with a laugh track, particularly when the laughs are inserted after EVERY line. You can tell the difference between canned laughter and real–canned laughter starts at a loud level, maintains that level, and quits at that same level, instead of starting with a few titters by those who got the joke first, then others join in, then some quit laughing before others. It sounds natural. Better to have no non-actors providing the info that “this is funny, here’s where you laugh,” but if the writing is really good I will tolerate the real stuff. Laugh track shows get 5 minutes in our living room and are gone forever.
BBT is a particularly egregious offender, in my experience. I don’t mind it when I do find a joke funny, but hearing an audience laugh at something that truly isn’t funny turns me off very quickly. I don’t mind it as much in MAS*H or Seinfeld because I usually actually find the jokes funny. Friends crosses the line fairly often, too.
The only thing I don’t like about laugh tracks is that they sound like laugh tracks. They need to put in a track that matches the live laughs, instead of falling back on the files recorded in 1983 at a taping of Silver Spoons.
How I Met Your Mother doesn’t have a live audience, but is filmed like it does, so is 100% laugh track. It’s disappointingly obvious, and detracts from what is otherwise a fun show.
I still don’t understand why people hate them so much. There are too many different types of humor to make all jokes funny to everyone. The laugh track adds a bit of hillarity to a joke that wouldn’t be enough to make you laugh out loud on your own.
By and large, we laugh out loud more if someone else is laughing with us. And I definitely feel that on laugh-tracked shows.
What I think people think is the laugh track making a joke not funny is just the joke not being funny.
Is CBS the only network that still has shows with laugh tracks these days? I don’t watch many sitcoms these days, but they only time I hear laughter during a commercial for one is on CBS.
I like laugh tracks. I learn by rote, and I think they single handedly taught me whatever comedic timing I developed as a child; even if I didn’t get a joke when I was 2 or 3 or 4, the TV told me it was funny!
And I think of a sitcom actor much in the same way I think of a stand-up comic. If you were watching a comedy central performance of a stand-up in a closed set studio, with NO ONE laughing, wouldn’t that feel artificial and weird?
I find modern sitcoms not only have no laugh track, they also have very little underscore. All these pretentious smart shows with their poignant silence; at least if they had more music I wouldn’t be so bothered by the lack of a laugh track, but I feel like the soundscape needs to be more busy.
It’s an irony that shows that don’t use audiences are less likely to have people complain about the laugh track. How I Met Your Mother tapes without an audience (and shows the completed episode to an audience later), so the laughs are mild because people aren’t watching it live. On Big Bang Theory and other audience shows, the laughter is loud because people laugh hardest in groups when watching something live.
I don’t know how many people there actually are who won’t watch a show with audience laughter – probably more on the internet than anywhere else, and even they don’t mean it, since the same people watch skech, Daily Show, standup, etc. There’s just something about a sitcom that makes people angry when it’s performed like a play in front of an audience, even that’s no more or less valid than doing it like a movie without an audience.
With the audience, the actors get to hone their timing, figure out what bits (like Sheldon knocking three times) are effective, and the writers get to change jokes that aren’t working. Without the audience, everything can be more subtle and cinematic, but often at the expense of energy. (If you watch The Odd Couple the first season when it had no audience, the performances were duller and the writing was duller because they didn’t have to get audience laughs.)
No multi-camera, live-audience show would be as good without an audience as with one – as the NewsRadio people point out, when they did episodes without audiences they found the performances were much lower energy:
I find it weird that complaints about laugh tracks have actually gotten bigger as laugh tracks have almost disappeared. You’d think people would be happy that shows either use an audience or no laughter at all – instead there’s a campaign to get rid of audiences altogether and have only sitcoms shot without audiences. Why should all shows have the same style of writing and performance?
As stated ALL sitcoms use some form of artifical laughter. Even shows like “I Love Lucy” and “All In The Family” used them. They call it “sweetener.” As one person mentioned if you have to do a retake the laugh isn’t as big the second time around.
I recall reading a blip about “I Love Lucy” and Lucie Arnaz admitted that once in awhile someone gets carried away with the “sweetener” and (as she said) pushed too hard on the pedal and got too big of a laugh
If you listen to OTR (old time radio) where all the comedies were sent out in one take, mistakes and all, it’s easy to hear the difference.
From the George Burns And Gracie Allen Show (radio)
In it’s later years “All In The Family” (and later “Archie Bunker’s Place”) were filmed without an audience and then played to an audience in a theatre to get the laughs
Some show that use children a lot don’t film in front of an audience, 'cause children don’t usually do as well.
You can see audiences go overboard sometimes. If you watch the last few years of “Happy Days,” you can see how the audience going overboard when Fonzie or Chachi walks in, throws their timing off, despite how much they try.