Laugh Track Experiment
 

So many shows get trashed here for the laugh tracks. The Big Bang Theory thread in particular

It got me to thinking it would be good for a network to do a second audio track with no canned laughter, and allow viewers to access it through SAP. I wonder how much the added costs would be to the network?

Interesting thought.

I don't think laugh tracks are awful. They worked well recently in Seinfeld and in Everybody Loves Raymond. They worked in a lot of classic shows like Three's Company where they most certainly enhanced it, because it was like watching a play and hearing the audience heightened the moment.

What bugs me about a laughing audience is when the material clearly isn't laugh-worthy and there's a huge audience guffaw every time someone slams another character or says something stupid.

Basically, I think there are three kinds of sitcom writing:
1. Writing which is well done and doesn't need a laugh track (The Office, Arrested Development)
2. Writing which is well done, but specifically written to support a audience (Three's Company)
3. Writing which is poor and therefore has a laugh track added to compensate (most sitcoms)

The latter is so prevalent that anymore I find myself turned off by any show where a laugh track is involved. We live in a different time than the last three decades and we don't want to be told where to laugh anymore. We figure if it's funny, we'll find out ourselves.

That's the worst for me, and what has turned me off of most traditional sitcoms these days. It's not even necessarily a matter of a bad joke getting a massive laugh; a small joke or remark that was specifically meant to just make the audience smile or just produce a small chuckle can be completely ruined by having a big blaring "HAHAHAHAHAHA" artificially laid over the top. Just a variance in the amount of laughter from the laugh track can make a difference; having the same robotic overreaction to even a vague attempt at a joke really hurts a show.

It's an interesting idea. I don't know if anyone has the now out-of-print "Get a Life" DVD's from Rhino, but most of the episodes had the option of removing the laugh track. It was kind of weird, because you can actually hear members of the crew laughing in the space where the track was supposed to be later added, but the show still worked (arguably better) without it.

Totally agree. I'm actually suspicious of any show with a laugh track. Writers who know their show kicks ass ("30 Rock", "Curb Your Enthusiasm") just don't need it. I think so many people are used to it that it doesn't bug 'em. I swore off sitcoms for many, many years (nothing between Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm) and then when I came back to check I really noticed the laugh track. Imagine if no sitcom ever used a laugh track going back to the early days and you got used to that. Then all of a sudden you hear a sitcom with one. Blech. But I'll admit it would seem weird to watch "I Love Lucy" or one of those old shows w/out one. Actually, I'm gonna bet those old shows used whatever the audience actually laughed at instead of piping in such obvious fake laughter here and there.

They still use laugh tracks? I guess I don't watch enough modern sitcoms, the concept seems so dated now.

The laugh track is taking its sweet time, but its definitely dying. Out of the more critically-acclaimed comedies, there's:

30 Rock
The Office
Entourage
Ugly Betty
Curb Your Enthusiasm
My Name Is Earl
Two And A Half Men
Scrubs
How I Met Your Mother
Rules of Engagement

Only the ones in italics use laugh tracks (clearly CBS is to blame ... :brickwl2:).

My issue with it is that generally it means the show has to stop and wait for the laughter to subside before getting on with the next part. It was good on Seinfeld because the show was so funny and outrageous that you were laughing along with it and needed to take in the moment. It just wouldn't have worked on Arrested Development, where the gags were so quick that you might miss them the first time. So, the pacing of the show really determines whether a laugh track can work or not.

I love How I Met Your Mother but hate laugh tracks, it is the only thing really holding the show back.

Two And A Half Men and Rules of Engagement tape in front of a live studio audience, which is different from a sitcom that has a laugh track.
http://www.audiencesunlimited.com/

Likewise, Seinfeld and Everybody Loves Raymond were shot in front of a live studio audience as well.
http://www.seeing-stars.com/Tapings/
http://www.studioaudiences.com/

I feel it's an important distinction to make between those that had an audience present while filming, meaning that the laughter is genuinely for the performances, and a "laugh track" or "canned laughter" that is previously recorded laughter mixed into a show's original laughter-free soundtrack. Genuine in-studio laughter can provide a beneficial experience; a laugh track is just speaking down to the audience.

I like the direction the idea is going in, but I'd rather they keep the canned laughter track for the few that actually prefer it on the SAP. Leave the episodes without the laugh track on regular broadcast.

Exactly the point that I was going to make. There is a big difference in feeling when the laughter on the audio track is real.

They mention it some on the Seinfeld DVDs where the audience would just get really loud laughing at certain parts.

I don't think it would work because in sitcoms with laugh tracks or studio audiences the jokes are written for the audible laugh. Set-up -> punchline -> laugh. Erasing the laugh track would just make the timing all weird.

The laugh tracks aren't the problem, bad jokes are the problem. As mentioned, Seinfeld had studio laughter (not a big difference from a laugh track), and that's an almost universally acclaimed show. If you took away the laughing it would hurt the show. It just has good jokes.

People should search around for a really interesting 1 hour program of Ricky Gervais interviewing Larry David. They make a lot of really interesting observations about comedy. They go into one bit where they talk about what's wrong with most sitcoms is that the characters stand around cracking jokes for the audience, and the characters themselves never react to the jokes. In the good sitcoms (i.e. ones without laugh tracks) the characters interact with and crack jokes for themselves.

But of course Seinfeld was one of the former.

I remember watching an episode of Scooby Doo that used a laugh track. A laugh track for an animated cartoon. Made no sense to me then, nor does it to this day.

Just because a show has a live studio audience, doesn't mean it wasn't augmented with a laugh track. I would bet all those shows use them.

This is what makes "How I Met Your Mother" so weird. The characters DO react to each others jokes. They rip on each other and laugh about it. but it STILL has a laugh track. makes no sense.

I can live with the laugh track if it feels like an audience reaction and fits the type of sitcom it is. I absolutely hate it when they put laugh tracks on single camera shows that couldn't possibly have a studio audience. The short lived Oliver Beene was one that comes to mind. At least with the multiple camera shows it can give a live show feel if not used too egregiously. Four Kings was horrible in this regard, as it used the laugh track to make it seem like jokes that weren't even remotely funny had the "audience members" wetting themselves with laughter.

I would think so as well. If not, there are some people in those audiences with seriously deprived entertainment options back at home if they are laughing that much at really bad jokes.

You forgot Everybody Hates Chris and Always Sunny in Philadelphia!

I have to interject about the "middle ground" that is "live studio audience". I think I remember seeing tapings on DVD (maybe of Friends?) where the first take will get a HUGE laugh from the audience but will have to be reshot because something was off (line flub, actor giggles, etc.). When they do another take, the audience reaction is never going to be AS boisterous as the first time. So they REDUB the original laughter over the final take for that scene. Which is also IMHO kind of cheating although not so much as say The Brady Bunch which only seemed to have like 12 different very DISTINCTIVE laughter tracks... yeck!
:yack:

A good deal of Seinfeld was filmed on location, and even the parts on set used a laugh track quite often. Seinfeld's use of a laugh track is really very obvious when you're looking for it. Yet people never think of it as having one, for some reason.

Listen for yourself:


Another great show that used a laugh track - M*A*S*H. Always a laugh track (except in the operating room). People didn't seem to mind. Not to mention all the classic sitcoms like Leave It To Beaver, The Brady Bunch, The Munsters, etc., etc.

Laugh tracks themselves are fine. But, as others have stated, they underscore how unfunny something is when used inappropriately.

Can you imagine I Love Lucy, The Dick Van Dyke show, or even some of Carol Burnett's sketches without a laugh track (or studio audience as the case was)?
An honest reaction can take the comedy a lot further, but it can also point out a crappy show.

I didn't even notice the laughs on How I Met Your Mother, but they stood out like a sore thumb on Big Bang Theory. Simply because they were laughing & I wasn't.

I've always made a distinction between live studio audience laughter and the "canned" laugh track. I liked the live studio audience shows. I don't recall ever liking the latter and always thought it ruined shows like MASH.

Today there's a lot of shows without laughter, so it now seems odd when I watch an older sitcom and hear an imaginary group of people in my living room laughing with me. I never could understand why movies don't have laugh tracks, but Americans want laugh tracks on their TV shows to let them know when they just heard a joke.

So I think I've really come to despise all varieties of the laugh track. I think shows like The Office and My Name is Earl are even funnier without them. Whenever you hear something politically incorrect, for a moment you hesitate thinking "Oh that is so wrong!" and then you laugh even harder because you know you're not supposed to.

I can't think of any comedy from 25-30 years ago without a laugh track except Police Squad. I loved it, but I guess America wasn't ready for it so it only lasted six episodes. Looks like it was ahead of its time.

The stuff that was filmed on location was shown to the live studio audience. If you watch the DVD extra features (can't remember for sure which season), they talk about quite a bit of this.

That's a good point. Putting a laugh track on that show would have been so strange with that type of humor.

I was at a taping of Friends where they showed some reshoots that they had shot without an audience on the monitors to record the laughs.

Just check out the MASH DVDs if you are interested in hearing a show with and without, you can turn off the laugh track.

At first it was odd watching it without the laughter as that's the only way it's been known for 30 years. Then you get used to it and realize how lame the laugh track was. They were in the middle of Korea. It just kinda kills it once you see/hear the difference.

Michael J. Fox's pause was always noticeable on Family Ties.

Laugh tracks don't really bother me with my favorite sitcoms. But I couldn't imagine the Simpsons having a laugh track...(Didn't the Flintstones have a laugh track?)

Someone better than I should write a comprehensive history of the laugh track and studio audiences someday, but I think that the reason why we have audience laughter on TV and not in movies is because TV started off as an extension of radio, not film. The companies that got into TV were radio companies (RCA, NBC, CBS). Hollywood initially stayed away, fearing the new competitor. A lot of the first talent for TV came from radio, not film. And radio comedies had live studio audiences. Also, TV sitcoms were originally performed live, due to the lack of good recording equipment, and thus played a lot like plays, typically on one set, maybe two, and with an audience. So looking at the progression from radio to live TV, it's easy to see why sitcoms had studio audiences.

Another thing to think about is that films in this era did have audience laughter, from the audience you were watching the film with. Filmed comedies didn't exist on TV yet, and movie studios initially declined running their films on TV, so there really was nowhere that audience laughter wasn't present for a comedy.

However, performing TV live has it's drawbacks, and producers eventually looked into the advantages of recording. However, at this time, the best available recording format was still film, and recording video to film was sub-standard at best. So, shows like I Love Lucy recorded straight to film, later transferring the film to video, with good results. Film can't be edited live though, so the shows were shot ahead of time and edited for broadcast. These sitcoms still kept the original shooting arrangement of 3 cameras shooting at once though, and they kept the live studio audience.

So, now sitcoms were shot on film. With the lack of being live came more creative freedom: more set/dress changes, more elaborate shots, special effects, etc. However, these changes made including a live studio audience more and more cumbersome. Also, on F/X heavy shows like Bewitched, the live audience wouldn't be seeing the finished effect, which would come much later. Also, the three-camera setup became much more expensive on film, since each camera was constantly recording footage, yet it was guaranteed that you'd only end up using one camera's shot, meaning 2/3's of the shot footage was wasted. A one-camera setup was more cost effective, but it meant that the shoots would take much longer, with a lot more down time between performances, killing audience mood and testing their patience. A lot of productions decided to eliminate audiences altogether.

This is where the laugh-track came in. When the first shows without live audiences started, they likely added it just to keep from standing out, as a way to transition the audience from the standard "live" format to something more edited and arranged. As more and more shows were shot without audiences, they added laugh tracks likely because, well, that's what they other shows had already done. Some of the audience probably noticed that the likelihood of a live studio audience being present for some of these shows was less and less likely, but for others they were probably just used to audience laughter.

Eventually films started to be shown on TV, including filmed comedies, now suddenly devoid of the audience laughter they had in theaters. Surprise! They still were funny (well, some of them at least). Now audiences had a real basis of comparison, and laugh tracks on non-live filmed sitcoms seemed less and less necessary. TV producers also felt they had become more sophisticated, and pushed the boundaries. Some opted to try and eliminate the laugh-track (MASH), while others went the other way and tried to make the sitcom more live again. All in the Family returned to the live-audience 3 camera format, due in part to the newfound affordability of video-tape.

Due to the success of All in the Family, live-audience shows flourished again, up through the 90s. Shows like Cheers even brought back 3 camera filmed sitcoms. Nowadays we're on a swing back to single camera shows. However, laugh tracks persist because the studio-audience persists, and some nervous execs don't want their shows competing without laughter. I think that a live studio-audience will always have it's place, but I feel that the laugh-track is, luckily, increasingly being viewed as less and less necessary.

I could not agree more. The laughtrack should have gone the way of the dinosaur long ago. I agree that it is condescending AND obnoxious.

I LOVE the option of turning off the laugh track on the MASH DVDs. It really elevates the show into something much, much more enjoyable, IMO.

Funny thing about How I Met Your Mother is that although it appears to be shot like your typical multi-camera sitcom, but its actually shot more in the nature of the typical single-camera sitcom, filiming over a few days time without an audience. The finished product is then shown to an audience and their reaction is recorded, much like what Seinfeld did when they had to shoot on location.