I could have sworn I read that the canned laughter from shows as late as the 90’s were taken from 40’s and 50’s comedy shows.
At Universal Studios in SoCal, we were given tickets to the first “Angie” show (‘79-‘80), a Gary Marshall comedy starring Donna Pescow and Robert Hays. I was excited because it was at the old Samuel Goldwyn Studios. The warmup comic was Pat Morita! Our thoughts? Not very funny. We figured they’d REALLY have to sweeten the audience laughs.
Just remember during the Vancouver 2010 Olympics Colbert shot 2 days in a downtown park with a view of the mountains. Enough for a week of Colbert report shows. Broadcast used a lot of canned laughter even though I remember the 7 THOUSAND attendees there loudly enjoying it. I know that his pre-recorded interviews("better know a district") could be over an hour and they show the in-person crowd a 10 mins version of our then mayor before cutting it even more for TV. Michael Buble was a sit down interview only guest in person, maybe they did a 30 second duet. The 1980 US gold goalie was interviewed for 10 mins and they only aired 20-30 seconds as it was too hum drum. Kelsey Grammer made a comment along this lines. I think he said they changed them every 25-30 years.
Not Studio, but my wife and I were on a drive and we thought we’d stop in Roslyn, Washington. As soon as we entered the main part of town, we noticed filming was in progress for Northern Exposure. We parked, got out, and watched a scene being filmed several times where Joel was walking to his office while being splashed by two kids on bikes riding through a puddle.
I attended a Miami Beach/Honeymooners taping when I was 9…even then I knew it couldn’t compare to the Classic 39.
I attended a taping of the BBC Carla lane sitcom Bread in the early 90's at BBC studios. I hated the show but I wanted to see how such a show was taped and done. The whole half hour was done on around 90 minutes iirc. When I say half an hour there was maybe 8 minutes of outdoor location footage already shot that was shown on tv monitors for us to watch and the audience to laugh at and be recorded. Mostly done first take. If there was a reshoot it was due to technical issues. The audience just had to try to laugh as hard at the joke as they did the first time.
"Herman's Head", three years, 75 episodes, so a decent run for the fledgling Fox Network. You're right that it had a connection to "The Simpsons", but it wasn't Nancy Cartwright (Bart Simpson) , it was Yeardley Smith (Lisa Simpson) and Hank Azaria (multiple character voices on "The Simpsons")...
Not a sitcom, but I attended a taping of TNN's 'Nashville Now'... The taping itself was interesting enough, but I wish there would have been a guest I liked or at least found interesting. Their big name of the night? Ray Stevens, whom I didn't really care for.
When I was about 12 in the early fifties, an aunt took me to a recording of an episode of "The Goon Show." I'm not sure where that was, it could have been at the Shepherd's Bush Empire or the Camden Theatre. She ran an off-licence near Regent's Park. Some of her customers were BBC people and used to give her tickets to shows. She took me to a few other far less memorable variety show recordings, that used a studio audience.
I got to attend a taping of The Tonight Show in the early 90s with my Dad as he was there in support of the musical guest. It was interesting to see how much work went into just one taping. Lots of hard working people behind the scenes.
Not a sitcom but I did attend The Price Is Right when Bob Barker was the host. The girl beside me was chosen as a contestant.
I've read that BBC sitcoms were almost "live" compared to American sitcoms, which relied on a lot of takes and editing. The British cast and crew took professional pride in nailing their takes, there's sort of an old-school theatre discipline there. You don't see a lot of "blooper reels" from BBC productions, and this is why. Like I said, that's what I have read in the past, so I don't know if that's totally accurate. dan c
When we visited LA in 2019 it was during when most shows were on hiatus, but we got into a "Family Feud" taping on the Universal lot. We are not fans, but figured it would be fun to see the production. Two shows took more than 8 hours, 10 including getting bussed and waiting to be led into the soundstage set. The actual game play was shot without breaks and went smoothly, but everything in between took ages. AGES! The novelty wore off very quickly and eventually we felt like prisoners. Even the superfans next to us were about to murder someone to get out. Finally, the Universal lot is a dump. The Paramount lot tour we did a couple years before was so much better. It's old but feels historic. Universal just feels used up and gross. On another note, we watched the old Martha Stewart morning TV show shot live-to-tape in New York's Chelsea Studios in 2008. Also not a fan, but it was a slick production and a fun time. Plus we got a whole bunch of Martha Stewart gift bags filled with fancy goodies! Pure New York. In and out lickity split, no wasted time. I liked it! dan c
That's a lot of tosh. Half the cast of Dad's Army, to cite just one show, were drunks, a common occurrence in "old-school theater." I'm sure plenty of takes would have been required. Anyway, the BBC pretty much erased everything after the first or second airings. So outtakes definitely wouldn't have survived. Wipe Out: When the BBC Kept Erasing Its Own History
Too funny! I figured I was the only one! A friend of mine worked for old Mort for a couple years on a college internship. One night all my friends from high school and I went to a taping, my friend Mark was on deck for the microphone but the show ended before he got up there. Back in the day I thought he was just an outrageous, obnoxious, bag of wind. playing the shock value for the cash grab. But I watched part of this, and now I see how really dangerous he was... It's almost like certain modern politicians took their cues from him and leveraged that persona to seem like the "every man or woman" that their supporters find so attractive.
Plenty of bloopers for Absolutely Fabulous, at least. And most sitcoms–from my understanding–were done quickly as possible until the '80s or '90s.
Although it's not the same thing really I worked at a building where they shot a scene for 'Superman III'. In the movie the scene lasts only a few moments but filming it took hours. Everything was slow and tedious. I remember they wanted this brass name plate to be shinier and doing that took about an hour in itself.
Shortly after I moved to L.A. I attended the filming of the 16th episode of Seinfeld’s third season The Fix-Up at the CBS Radford Studios in Studio City (Formerly the MTM lot). I recall it was a long but fun evening. It takes three to four hours to film a half hour episode, you’ve got to endure! I also attended a taping of The Tonight Show during Johnny Carson’s last few months on air. It was a real dud, his main guest was actor turned director Richard Benjamin. Back in New York I attended a Late Night with David Letterman taping at 30 Rock. I’ve no memory of it other than how narrow and deep the audience seating was.
