TV shows with excessive canned laughter

I have never heard of Rocky and Bullwinkle with a laugh track. Are you sure it wasn't the people in the room with you?

 

It may have been added when issued on home video...the shows were remixed with different music because of rights issues, so laffs may have been added then.

 

"Very few cartoons are broadcast live. It's a terrible strain on the animators' wrists." -The Simpsons

Speaking of which, The Simpsons absolutely proves that a sitcom doesn't need a laugh track to be considered funny. It's considered one of the greatest and funniest sitcoms of all time, with no laugh track. I love the episode The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase because it brazenly skewers how bad traditional television is, in part by making a fake Simpsons "spin-off" with a laugh track in it.

Laugh tracks are one of those things that has helped movies to carry a "prestige" reputation that elevates them above TV. Laugh tracks are something that an inferior form of entertainment uses to try to "trick" dumb people into thinking its jokes are funny when they're not. The movie Airplane! didn't need a laugh track. Or Naked Gun, Animal House, Ghostbusters, etc. Sure, it's true that a movie is intended to be seen with a crowd of people whose natural laughter you would be hearing. But the filmmakers are still counting on the movie to make actual audience members laugh. That's all changed anyway in the home video age. Yet they never decided to add laugh tracks to movies after they went to VHS, DVD, cable or streaming. That shows filmmakers have more confidence in their work than TV producers do.

Certainly those animated shows with laugh tracks like The Flintstones are Exhibit A in just how manipulative and condescending laugh tracks are. What possible reason is there to add laugh tracks to those shows other than to try to manipulate the audience through the power of suggestion, rather than the power of good comedy?

As if the manipulation would have any effect anyway. Laugh tracks are based on a fundamentally incorrect scientific belief about how laughter works. Laughter is not "contagious." It's a personal and spontaneous reaction. If people can't tell your jokes are funny on their own, they're not going to find them funny just because they hear someone else laughing at them. All a laugh track can do is make a bad joke worse, by making you feel socially disconnected from the "people" who are laughing at the unfunny joke. And, if you're actually laughing at a joke, you don't need anyone else to convince you that you're having a good time.

I think laugh tracks need to go the way of the dodo. Plenty of sitcoms with laugh tracks have failed. Some sitcoms without them have succeeded hugely. They're a relic of a much less media savvy era than we live in today. Not one young person who produces humorous YouTube or social media content adds laugh tracks to their material, unless it's in an ironic way to parody the outdated concept of laugh tracks itself. Laugh tracks represent an old media, dinosaur age way of thinking. Sophisticated viewers and younger viewers think they're a joke, and I don't mean that literally.

Comedy can work with its own internal logic. You don't necessarily need reality to frame your humor, as long as you can establish your own logical framework that the audience understands. Look at Spaceballs. It's a parody of a completely unrealistic movie. But as long as the audience has seen Star Wars, they understand what the starting point for the humor is. But take a John Hughes teen comedy, and your frame of reference could be your very real memories of high school. And all the crazy antics could be an offshoot of what you saw kids doing then or what you yourself dreamed about doing. It's easier to write jokes that exaggerate reality. It's much harder to write a funny joke that represents reality exactly accurately. But when you can pull that off, those are usually the funniest jokes of all. A good joke needs "truth points" and "surprise points." It's hard to surprise the audience with the truth because they probably already know it, but that will get the biggest reaction of all if you can pull it off.

 

I have the box set. There is no laugh track.

 

What's funny though? Humor is subjective, so others might be laughing even though I'm not and it doesn't seem out of place.

When I watch sitcoms, a lot of the jokes I don't even laugh at, but I see the humor in them. Internally I might think it's a good joke (or not). I'm sure the audience is laughing (or the laugh track is running) at that point too, and so usually it makes sense to me to hear laughter, even with those jokes that I might think were a swing and a miss.

The whole idea of having laughter during a show is a strange one though, especially via a laugh track, and that no doubt must have been the idea of some executive.

I'm with you guys. I'm too busy focusing on the plot and dialogue that I just tune them out. I've been watching King of Queens reruns each night for the last couple of months and I honestly don't remember if there is a laugh track or a studio audience. I'm sure there probably is, but I can't recall. I have completely tuned that out because it's just not important. Kind of like commercials. They come on and I immediately reach for my phone or change the channel. I don't even have to think about it - at this point is basically muscle memory.

 

For almost a decade I supervised the mixing and "sweetening" (read: laugh tracking) sessions of a popular comedy show (that I edited).

Mercifully, we had an executive producer who preferred the sweetening to be very light--in fact, his instructions were that if the studio audience didn't laugh that we not add laughs (which was highly unusual)--and this allowed all involved (the very talented laugh guy, the mixer, and myself) to sweeten the show to our taste, just subtly rounding out the mix of natural studio laughs w/o being intrusive.

There are only so many "laugh guys" in Hollywood. One firm (that I won't name) is notorious for its over-the-top approach. "Everything" get a huge laugh. Such sweeting is very obnoxious to my ears. Good sweeting should be subtle.

As an aside, most of our mixing and all of our editing post-production was done at the same facility where I know @Vidiot works in Hollywood.

Bill

 

Yeah, I was at Complete Post for 22 years (on and off), from the early-1980s through about 2009 (with a few years off at other companies). For more than a decade, Complete was "the biggest sitcom post house in LA," and we did a ton of shows. A lot of the shows are forgotten now, but I'd say Will & Grace was the most successful, as was That '70s Show.

It's very definitely true that a little canned laughter goes a long way. But there's often network pressure to bolster up a lackluster scene with more laughter, just to convince the audience that it's funny. Sometimes the producers are overruled and told what to do -- even more so nowadays than in years past. There is something to be said with single-camera sitcoms that have no laugh track at all. I don't mind honest laughs from a real audience, provided it's not too crazy... and assuming the show is genuinely funny.

 

In the late 1980's, a friend from work brought me to a screening of a Sally Kellerman pilot (no idea what it was - she was a spoiled but disgraced heiress suddenly having to live in the real world - it was funny) in New Haven. No idea why it was there, maybe a New York production?

Anyway, they wanted to record an audience reaction but hadn't had the facilities to make the pilot that way, so several audiences would be seated throughout the evening, and our reactions recorded. Must have cost them a fortune versus licensing from the wheeze/stab collection. We had to sign contracts and I think we were paid a pittance.

Interesting thing...our seating was supposed to be at six, but they kept us waiting 45 minutes. In the bar/restaurant of this convention center. Well, most of us had already eaten...

I always wondered if the ribald audience reactions on some of the racier shows might have been sweetened with a pre-taping happy hour. We all HOWLED at that show...but it sat on a shelf forever.

 

I wonder if we ever met? We would certainly know many people in common.

From the very first show I worked on (a comedy special) in 1982 (when I was an assistant editor) to one of the last I worked on, most were finished at Complete Post. I've spent more hours at Complete over the decades than all the other post houses in town combined.

Bill

 

Judging from the stuff that the younger cousins in my family watch, a good chunk of live action shows from Nickelodeon and Disney are filled to the brim with laugh tracks

 

Definitely.
But Laura Prepon, Mila Kunis & Tanya Roberts (RIP) made it all worthwhile.

 

On the other hand, I think some of those PBS fundraisers would benefit from canned laughter

 

No doubt.

I stopped watching commercial TV around thirty years ago. Went on to buying used VHS tapes. In the 90's, I would go over to a friend's house and we would ho out for dinner and come home and watch a movie on his 60" rear projection TV.

Sometimes, they would put a TV show on, like ST TNG or a sitcom. When you divorce yourself from TV for a few years and then you are exposed to it again, it is all very raw.

You would really notice the laugh tracks. One, because they were very loud and two, because they were almost continuous. I would sit there and watch, all the while thinking, is there anyone besides me that thinks that nothing in an entire show is even remotely funny?

One show that they introduced me to was That 70's Show, which I did happen to think was funny. Maybe the best live type cast sitcom ever on TV?

 

I was trying to watch The Addams Family while going to sleep and couldn't handle it. I don't know if they did that for all the seasons, but the one I had on was terrible. I also had a hard time getting through the last season of Cheers. It seemed they put a laugh track in on that one (or sweetened it). No other season ever bothered me as the laughter seemed authentic.

 

I have heard rumors that the studio pumped laughing gas into the audience via HVAC ducts ...

 

Kinda symbolizes the networks lack of footing with new sitcoms to me. Two Broke Girls just needed to be on a non network platform. I liked the show but the predictable pitfalls in story and laugh track symbolizing the befuttlement of network execs having any knowledge of what’s good at all. Cool show as is but could have been long lasting and great without the typical syrup symbolized by the laugh track excessivness.

I really like the idea of this discussion and all it has brought forth

 

the Addams Family

 

I actually enjoy listening to laugh tracks on older programs I’ve seen often. Kind of like listening to Sgt Pepper stereo with headphones: what’s going on here?

I especially love the audience applause at the end of an episode that’s obviously not filmed in front of an audience. That cross fade from laugh to applause is classic!

 

IIRC, all of the AF had a seriously annoying laugh track...but I still loved the show madly since I was a youngster.

 

2BG was definitely a guilty pleasure for a few years there.
Mrs. Majorlance used to teach on Monday nights, so it was just me & Kat & Beth.
But oh man, what a shrill & predictably vulgar show — "I just had to let it go."

 

Could be. I started at Complete in '84 (when Neil Rydall ran the place), left in '87, came back in 1990 when Bob Belcher ran it, stayed when Bob Brian took over some years later, left in 2002 to do digital intermediates at other companies (including Cinesite and ILM), and returned in 2004 when Technicolor took over and Mike Doggett was the president. And stayed until 2009, when John Robinson was the boss, and everything downsized because of the shutdown of the lab and the end of film (as we know it). Most of the color department was on the 2nd floor, and we worked ridiculous hours and rarely emerged to see the daylight. The assistants we generally had were on the first floor in the Conversion Center (at least from 1990 on).

 

I remember Neil, and both Bobs. Tony B. was a pal. Worked extensively with Ray M. in editing over the decades. I remember Sparkle in telecine.

Never knew Mike or John. But I did work with the original owner Nick Vanoff on the Kennedy Center Honors.

Bill

 

Yeah, Tony Bolm was the best operations guy we ever had. Ray Miller was a terrific editor. Sparkle was my assistant in the 1980s and graduated to colorist in the early 1990s. It's fair to say he's done extremely well over the years.

 

Saturday Night Live, season 11 (the 1985-86 season).

Yes, that's the Robert Downey Jr./Anthony Michael Hall season. Now, the live shows didn't have it - and boy howdy, can you tell, because those episodes play to DEAD silence. Lorne "sweetened" the reruns with mountains of fake laughter.

It's especially noticeable in the infamous Madonna episode, which adds both fake laughter AND fake applause.