UAIOE

I always thought that scene was "long" just for the reaction on the kids face.

Jay G.

The Wonder Years premiered in 1988, While The Simpsons did in 1989. The Simpsons did start as a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman show in 1987.

Regardless of which was first, The Simpsons is a good example of one genre of TV where the use of the laugh-track has almost universally be removed, animated show. Before The Simpsons, a lot of animated shows had laugh tracks, like The Flinstones, The Jetsons, Scooby Doo, etc. I can't think of [b]any[b] current animated show that has a laugh track.

whotony

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092373/

I thought Hooperman might be the first.
They called it a dramedy back then.

SpanishTechno

I'm a fan of Big Bang Theory, but I do think they go overboard with the audience laughter relative to other modern shows... it's annoying when a joke falls flat but you still have to hear several rounds of riotous laughter before the dialog continues.

whoopdido

Did Seinfeld have a laugh track? I thought it was a live audience.

There are many scenes in Seinfeld where the actors have to wait for a very long time for the laughter to die down before they go on with their lines. In a lot of situations it almost looks like they try to say the next line, but can't because the laughing is still going on.

Boba Fett

Seinfeld was a live audience for the general, on-set locations. It used a laugh track for exteriors and location shots, which there were a lot of.

whoopdido

I always hated that about Seinfeld. I've always thought the off set scenes were very poorly done. Bad body doubles, bad voice editing, etc.

Michael Corvin

It seems some people don't understand that a laugh track and a live audience are not synonymous.

Exactly. There's even an interview tidbit on one of the dvds about how they had to tell the audience not to go overboard when Kramer entered Seinfeld's apartment.

whoopdido

I remember that. I think Jerry was a little upset about that.

Numanoid

People in this forum are constantly accusing shows that don't have laugh tracks of having them, and vice-versa. And it's often people that should know better. It's mind-boggling. I guess it's a tribute to the shows themselves that they can fool so many.

Case in point, the OP.

bunkaroo

One of the docs I saw mentioned they showed some of the stuff not done on set to the audience to record their reactions. I think it was part of the Season 6 or 7 extras.

bunkaroo

The first season of Sports Night had a laugh track forced upon it. Mercifully it was gone Season 2. Too bad that DVD set doesn't have a choice of tracks.

milo bloom

We did the whole M*A*S*H series last year without the laugh track, and it made an incredible difference. Towards a latter season, there's a two part episode where they didn't have the original films and had to use a broadcast master with the laugh track and it stuck out like a sore thumb. When we catch an OTA ep now after doing the whole series "clean", it's like night and day.

Jay G.

They can't remove the laughter from the first season of Sports Night because it's from a live studio audience, not a laugh track.

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/i...ng_the_pi.html

slop101

That's pretty surprising as it sounds very much like a laugh-track added after the fact, as the way the audience laughter would cut off right when the next line of dialog began.

Jay G.

You mean, the actors would wait until the laughter stopped before saying their next line?

Double_Oh_7

Are you sure about that? Most of today's sitcoms show previously-shot exteriors and location scenes (and studio stuff too complex to shoot tape-day) to the studio audience to get their reactions. Not sure what the practice was back in the Seinfeld 90's era.

Jay G.

This post by bunkaroo confirmed your guess yesterday:

slop101

No, the opposite, as if the audience psychically knew when the actors would say the next line and immediately stop laughing.

Jay G.

But how do you tell the difference? With a live audience, the actors can hear the laughter, and are thus going to wait until the laughter dies down to say the next line.

Also, it's possible the live audience laughter was edited down, with any gaps between laughter and the next line removed, for purposes of pacing. I wouldn't be surprised if an Aaron Sorkin show needed to be tightly edited in order to get all the dialogue to fit.

story

Same sort of interview tidbit on the Newhart season one DVDs about the audience reaction every time Larry, Darryl, and Darryl entered the Stratford Inn.

Travis McClain

I've actually been ruminating lately about the effect of not being "filmed in front of a live, studio audience" has had on the sitcom. When I watch an episode of Cheers, it just feels more...organic...than most of what's on the air today.

rfduncan

Good grief! They were the WORST. Not only was it canned, but they only had about a dozen different "laugh" tracks. You could pick them out after a while because most of them had a distinctive "guffaw", "chuckle" or "giggle" from someone which made that particular sample stand out. Just horrible.

slappy

The Andy Griffith Show Season 4 DVD set had a handful of episodes that accidentally had no laugh track included.

As obnoxious as laugh tracks can be sometimes, it's kind of eerie to watch/see those episodes without it.

Jay G.

There is something to be said for using a live studio audience, if the show is a good fit for one. Shows like Cheers, Titus, Seinfeld, Newsradio, All in the Family, and others have made good use of a studio audience. Those shows have a kinda live feel to them, and the interplay between the actors and the audience is organic.

That said, the majority of sitcoms currently airing that I watch are single-camera shows with no audience laughter, real or canned. The rhythms of these shows are like comedic films, with jokes often delivered at a faster pace. I often find myself having to pause shows like Better off Ted as I'm watching them, because I'm laughing so hard at one joke I'd end up missing the next joke. In the past, before DVRs, I'd probably have had to watch the show twice in order to catch all the jokes.