M*A*S*H laugh tracks.

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Jamie Tate, Jul 16, 2003.

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  1. Dan C

    Dan C Forum Fotographer

    Location:
    The West
    Yeah, and the original Scooby Doo Where Are You had fake giggles as well. So did the lame Scooby Doo and Friends , etc. Even when I was a kid I thought the laughs sounded SO fake and awful on the newer shows.

    The worst laugh tracks on the planet? Old Mexican sitcoms. :laugh: Sounded like a continuous loop of a 10th-generation audience recording and a half-asleep guy on the fader.

    Dan C
     
  2. Paul C.

    Paul C. Senior Member

    Location:
    Australia
    Having seen the MASH series with and withour laugh track, I do prefer them without, especially those early episodes. The first few series with Trapper John were hysterically funny, and didn't need fake laughs - it just added to the laugh factor not to have the faked laughs.

    Like all good shows, MASH evolved to become more serious at times, but for me the magic was in those first seasons.
     
  3. AKA

    AKA Senior Member

    Having recently gotten into the series (even though I've been a fan of the movie for quite some time), I just bought the first two seasons on DVD. I have to say, it's so much better and more realistic without that damn laugh track. I'm glad that Fox decided to include a laugh-free track.

    Seasons 3, 4, and 5 are next on my shopping list.
     
  4. Jamie Tate

    Jamie Tate New Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    Nashville
    The later years of MASH, when Alan Alda started directing, and getting preachy, were far from the earlier glory days. My interest starts waning after about season 5.
     
  5. Beatlesfan03

    Beatlesfan03 New Member

    Location:
    cleveland, ohio
    When they put out the Pink Panther videos in the mid '90s, some of the episodes had a horrible laugh track placed on them which not only seemed very out of place, but extremely annoying. When my kids watch cartoons, they hardly need cues from a laugh track.
     
  6. Mattb

    Mattb Senior Member

    Location:
    Maryland
    I am enjoying these discs as well. It is so nice to see the epsiodes in full; I HATE how they are edited for syndication! They take the original 25-26 minute episodes and edit them down to 22 minutes to fit the commercials now days! You can actually see some freeze frames of the cut scenes in syndication in the ending credits.

    I have all the seasons so far and really enjoy them.
     
  7. Mattb

    Mattb Senior Member

    Location:
    Maryland
    I agree, as it became more of a drama in the latter years. The comedic episodes were few and far between.

    The last episode was good, I thought. I would still take the later seasons of Mash compared to almost any of the TV shows today.
     
  8. AKA

    AKA Senior Member

    My local NBC affiliate airs M*A*S*H in the mornings, and they're currently in the latter years (today they showed the Patrick Swayze-leukemia episode from season 9). The Alda episodes certainly have a different (read: more serious) feeling vs. the Col. Blake/Trapper years, but I still like them.

    I agree. Syndication cutting TV shows for the sake of more commercial time has always bugged the hell out of me. I first noticed it as a kid when Cheers went into syndication. I wondered why they never used the full theme music for the nightly reruns. I soon learned why.

    Thank heavens for DVD!
     
  9. Mattb

    Mattb Senior Member

    Location:
    Maryland
    I hear you, AKA. (BTW The Cheers DVD sets are fantastic as well, in my opinion)
     
  10. Ken_McAlinden

    Ken_McAlinden MichiGort Staff

    Location:
    Livonia, MI
    Well yeah, but films are meant to be watched by a large audience all at once. TV comedies shot without an audience are at a disadvantage. For instance, while I still find "There's Something About Mary" humorous at home. I never enjoyed it more than when I saw it in a nearly sold-out theater. There's something contagious about laughter.

    Still, there are some well written TV comedies that can be hilarious despite the disadvantage, so a laugh track is certainly not a necessity.

    Regards,
     
  11. Mark

    Mark I Am Gort, Hear Me Roar Staff


    Donald: I remember reading a couple of interviews with Alan Alda in which he said they he steadfastly refused to allow the "laugh track" when the scene was in the operating room. I adored M*A*S*H on TV, but having watched a number of the reruns on FX in recent years, I not really convinced that the series has aged that well. Some of the acting now seems a bit over the top to me. Having said that, I still think, for it's time, it was the best show on TV. And, the last episode is beyond being a classic.
     
  12. stereoptic

    stereoptic Anaglyphic GORT Staff

    Location:
    NY
    Mark, I agree. When the show was still on the air, and at the same time so were the syndicated reruns, I loved it. I recently watched a few episodes, and I, too, felt they did not age too well. I didn't like any of the later episodes when the initially ran; as Jamie said, they got too preachy. Also, the production quality decreased. It was so obvious that everything was filmed on a set, instead of the many outdoor scenes from the earlier episodes. As much as I thought that Hawkeye was so clever and punny, some of it seems forced now.
     
  13. AKA

    AKA Senior Member

    Absolutely! Season 3 will be out in May, by the way!
     
  14. guy incognito

    guy incognito Senior Member

    Location:
    Mee-chigan
    See, I actually don't see that at all. Moustache or no, Farrell's B.J. Hunnicut was a vastly different type of character from either Gould's Trapper or Wayne Rogers's. And I think Stiers's Winchester and Larry Linville's Burns, as different as they are from one another, have more in common with each other (being essentially comic foils) than with Duvall's Burns (who's actually more pathetic than funny).

    It's all subjective, of course. YMMV!
     
  15. Mark

    Mark I Am Gort, Hear Me Roar Staff

    Forced is the right word. Or, are we just getting a bit jaded. I, like you, thought the first five or so years, when they didn't preach and let the story tell, well, the story, was some of the best television that I have ever seen. Great writing, fabulous acting, etc. But, I do have to say that this show weathered cast changes better than most did over the years.

    I still think the minor characters were so very important to this show, as well. Particularly Sidney Freedman as the psychiatrist. Never mind "slide on the ice," remember his conversation with Radar:

    Radar: "Doctor, I talk to my teddy bear, does that make me crazy?"

    Sidney: "Well, does it talk back?"

    Radar, rather indignantly: "Of course not."

    Sidney: "Then, you're as sane I am."

    Perfect.
     
  16. beatlematt

    beatlematt Forum Resident

    Location:
    Gadsden, Alabama
    Laugh tracks are the sound sound of many dead people laughing from the forties-early fifties.
    Andy Kaufman hated the laugh tracks. I think he thought it introduced horribly bad karma to the people who made and watched the show, which I think he reasoned because it was dead people laughing.
     
  17. AKA

    AKA Senior Member

    Was Taxi filmed in front of an audience?
     
  18. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    I agree. Producer/writer Gene Reynolds left after season five, and to me the series began really declining at that point. There were still some decent dramatic stories occasionally, but the dialogue was less witty, and the comedy plotlines in particular became a lot weaker and less funny. And Hawkeye's personality was gradually changed into something more resembling what Alan Alda is like in real life (the drunken lecherous Groucho Hawkeye was replaced by the sensitive proto-feminist Alda Hawkeye). The characters all became a lot more shrill and yelled at each other a lot more, which to me is not good dramatic writing. In the later years it seemed like virtually every episode had at least one scene where one of the main characters would blow up and yell at another one of the main characters. The last 2 or 3 seasons in particular have not aged well and are really painful to watch... all the episodes became locked into a really rigid formula of one serious plot, one funny plot per week. I did like the last episode, though... it was somewhat of a return to form, and Hawkeye acted more like his old self (though ironically it was because he was temporarily "crazy").
     
  19. Mattb

    Mattb Senior Member

    Location:
    Maryland
    Speaking of memorable minor characters... How about Colonel Flagg? :)
     
  20. Mattb

    Mattb Senior Member

    Location:
    Maryland
    I also think one of the writers, Larry Gelbart, who left after season 4 had a BIG impact... The writing was never the same!
     
  21. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Very true. But even without Gelbart, season five featured one of my all-time favorite episodes, the one where Hawkeye is temporarily blinded and Frank is cheating people by betting on rebroadcasts of baseball games he already knows the results of. The last really GREAT episode, in my opinion.
     
  22. btomarra

    btomarra Classic Rock Audiophile

    Location:
    Little Rock, AR
    Colonel Potter did most of the yelling! To me he became a cranky old commander. A far cry from the witty, funny Colonel Henry Blake character. As I said, for me, I ended my M*A*S*H collection after season three. When Henry died, and Trapper left (which was handled in the opening of season four), it lost too many key characters from the movie. of which it was based, for me to collect it. Even though season four was good, just the beginning of the decline.

    Brian
     
  23. guy incognito

    guy incognito Senior Member

    Location:
    Mee-chigan
    Yep.
     
  24. czeskleba

    czeskleba Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Yeah, Potter definitely did a lot of yelling, and became more cranky as the series went on. But really, everybody got one of those "blow up and yell" scenes in the declining years of the series. Even Father Mulcahy got to yell in at least one episode. I just really hate that plot device... "character X gets pushed to his breaking point and blows up and yells at his family and/or friends." It was just SO overused in the final years of MASH.

    I agree with you that all the original characters were better/more interesting than the newer ones, although I do like the newer characters in season 4 and 5 when the writing was still sharp. And I do have to give them credit for trying to come up with replacement characters that were substantially different than the characters they replaced.
     
  25. stereoptic

    stereoptic Anaglyphic GORT Staff

    Location:
    NY
    Anyone rememeber A*F*T*E*R M*A*S*H (spelling?) It reunited Potter, Radar, Klinger who all worked in the same hosptial after the war, IIRC. It lasted maybe one season.
     
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