Has anyone been in the studio audience for a sitcom?

I remember hearing the laugh of a kid on several Family Matters episodes!

 

Did he do that?!

 

I would have loved to be in the studio audience for The Golden Girls..

 

Never got to see a taping, but me and a buddy of mine tried out for The Gong Show and got to meet Chuck Barris. We never did get on air, tho.

 

Not to get side tracked, but I never knew this is how canned laughter worked. It looks like a typewriter! I am interested in dissecting this technology I find it fascinating!

 

At some point in almost every I Love Lucy episode, Lucy will get into some sort of situation and someone in the audience can be heard saying "Uh oh!"

That's Lucille Ball's mother

 

The guy behind the laugh track machine demonstrated it on the Dick Cavett Show in the early '70s; I don't know if that episode can currently be seen anywhere.

 

One of the kids in my old neighborhood, many, many years ago decided to pattern his own laugh after the "Hoo-hoo, ha-ha" guy. You know, the one that turns up in MASH, Brady Bunch, Laverne & Shirley and so forth. He forever earned his nickname, "Hoo-hoo". He looked like one, too! And, now, 30+ years later, he still laughs like that. Sad and strange.

And that canned laugh at 1:02 in the clip above.. The woman going, " Ho, ohhh!" has to be the most overused one in the Andy Griffith show, especially early on. Someone re-e-e-ally liked that one!

Now, back the the thread, proper!

 

The history of the laugh track:

http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/blogs/the-long-strange-history-of-the-laugh-track

 

Where it all began (for TV anyway) -- The Hank McCune Show:

FF to 2:33

 

Yeah, when actors start ad-libbing and being unable to stop laughing, it can get pretty crazy.

I have seen occasions where after the third take where somebody cracks-up on camera, they just keep going, finish the scene, and after the audience goes home, they reshoot the scene without an audience and beat on the actor not to screw it up. It's particularly rough because the actors know the entire crew has gone into overtime, so it might literally be another $50,000+ an hour when this happens.

That's a Desliu laugh from their SFX library. Andy Griffith shot on the Desilu Las Palmas lot, and I think there was a lot of cross-pollination with laughs and effects like this.

 

It always used to crack me up to walk around sitcom sets and run up the "stairways to nowhere." I remember on the Life with Lucy set, there was a card table, cards set up for solitaire, and three chairs so that the actors could wait for their cues. There was also a red light to the side to remind the actor when their "entrance" was coming up soon.

Tape sitcoms always shot the dress rehearsal, whether or not there was an audience there. The problem with doing that is that the timing is always wrong without an audience. And that was even with a dozen writers and producers in the audience fake-laughing in order to give the actors something to work with. There were a handful of film shows that shot dress and air; one I can remember was Dave's World, which shot on Super 16mm. That was a nightmare to work on, because they wound up with about 20-24 hours of footage for every episode. They did that because this was a show with a lot of kids, and the kids were only allowed X hours a day of actual work.

 

The audience members went home and hanged themselves immediately following the taping. In some cases, they did it during the show.

 

After the Life With Lucy tapings they called 911 to report the crazy old lady showing signs of Alzheimer's...

(Seriously- more often than not that show has me worried for her safety, not laughing at her antics...).

 

I think the poor warm-up guy was completely taken aback and didn't know what to do. What really struck me was that every single person on the stage was worrying about the same thing and dreaded the answer. When a show goes off the air, it typically puts 100 people out of work -- which is tough when you have mortgages, car payments, and all that stuff.

Lucy herself was very hip and with-it on the show, and they specifically set it up so that comic actor Donovan Scott did all the pratfalls and not Lucy. There was a scene (in the opening credits) where she's bouncing around in an out-of-control massage chair, and what cracked me up is that she immediately sensed that her wig was about to fall off so she put her hand up on top to hold it on so as not to screw up the show. And that shot wound up in the finished episode.

 

"ha-ha-oh boy.... AAAH!!"

 

I don't remember Life with Lucy. I see there are a couple of the episodes on YouTube, will check it out and see if it's a clunker.

Edit:

Ball also insisted on coaxing four-time Emmy nominee and sitcom veteran Gale Gordon out of Palm Springs retirement. Gordon had worked with Ball on Jack Haley's radio show and more consistently on My Favorite Husband. He was the first choice for the character of Fred Mertz and had guest starred on I Love Lucy and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour before becoming a main cast member on The Lucy Show in its second season and acting on all six seasons of Here's Lucy.

Gordon was only drawn to the show with the promise of a full season's pay for all 22 episodes regardless of whether the show lasted. According to cast and crew members, the then 80-year-old Gale Gordon never once flubbed a line on the set during the 13 episode duration.

Impressed by the last line above!

And I find it interesting that the show was put up against another one mentioned in this thread that people love or hate -- The Facts of Life.

 

I've been to The Tonight Show a couple of times (great entertainment for out-of-town guests) and Frasier. The Frasier tapping cured me from wanting to do it again.

Working on the 20th Century lot I'll wonder around and check out some of the sets now and then.

 

very cryptic. can you share details?

 

It's only with these retro channels popping up everywhere have I come to realize what a great comedic actor Gale Gordon was.His timing was incredible. Lucy knew.

 

Ha, yeah - long process. Each scene done multiple times. They even warn you before the show starts that you are there for the long haul - no leaving. Tonight Show is done live, so it's a lot more fun.

 

I imagine that a lot of people go in expecting something like a stage play that they can sit and enjoy.

 

I believe that's true. I think they all did crack up a few times, but that was rare. Lucy screwed up quite a bit, which was sad given that she read off cue cards about 100% of the time.

 

Wow! Hopefully Mort didn't grab you for a kiss.

 

Same here.