The Lost Laugh: Live Studio Audiences and Laff Trax

[Monterey Jack]

There was in interesting exchange on the commentaries for one of the later seasons where the writers discuss the rise of non-laugh track sitcoms like the Office and there was a clear split between those writers who embraced it and those who admitted they could only think of TV comedy in three camera format. This is presumably an organic evolution of that mindset divide

Personally, I find sitcoms without laugh tracks to be vaguely pretentious, but I guess I'm just showing my age.

[knives]

The Andy Griffith Show is pretentious?

[Cash Flagg]

Personally, I find sitcoms without laugh tracks to be vaguely pretentious, but I guess I'm just showing my age.

I couldn’t imagine sitting through any tv show WITH a laugh track. It completely ruins and distracts from the entire experience.

[Murdoch]

I can't imagine watching a three-camera sitcom without a laugh track (or a live studio audience).The two are so closely tied together in my mind they can't be separated. Unless we're distinguishing laugh track from live studio audience, but it's my understanding most three-camera sitcoms used a mix of the two.

But canned laughter feels completely out of place in the mockumentary type shows or single-camera sitcoms. I'm trying to imagine a recorded laugh ending everything Michael Scott says and it just makes the Office even more obnoxious to me.

[Matt]

A lot of "Seinfeld" and"Frasier" had a laugh track (when they couldn't film in front of a live audience). I'm with Murdoch in that I think they are, for 3-camera shows, a genre convention. And they can be used well or used poorly. It's like the old saw about film scores: if you really notice it, it's bad.

I think the problem with CBS's (or rather, Chuck Lorre's) 3-camera shows is more that they just plain suck. The laughs are not earned, and they never hit the "chuckle" or "giggle" buttons on the laugh track machine, only the "roar" and "howl" buttons.

[therewillbeblus]

My fiancée absolutely loathes laugh tracks on every TV show we’ve watched except for Seinfeld and Frasier - they’re the two shining examples of good laugh tracks in our household. Personally, I like most of ‘em. I’ll even usually opt to watch Get a Life with the laugh track given the option

[beamish14]

My fiancée absolutely loathes laugh tracks on every TV show we’ve watched except for Seinfeld and Frasier - they’re the two shining examples of good laugh tracks in our household. Personally, I like most of ‘em. I’ll even usually opt to watch Get a Life with the laugh track given the option

Sledge Hammer is the only other show that I can think of which has been released on home video with and without laugh tracks

I don’t mind them in certain shows, either. They’ve never bothered me on British comedies like The Young Ones, Knowing Me, Knowing You, and I’m Alan Partridge

[PfR73]

Sledge Hammer is the only other show that I can think of which has been released on home video with and without laugh tracks

M*A*S*H

[Lowry_Sam]

When TV was filmed before a live audience, the laughter felt natural & I never had a problem with it in my favorite shows (The Carrol Burnet Show, All In The Family, Golden Girls, Soap. However in the 80s, it became more obvious that hey were using canned laughter because more & more sit-coms just weren't that funny, the quality of the writing definitely declined. My mom used to love Friends, Seinfeld & Cheers and I would never sit with her to watch them because it completely boggled my mind why people found them funny. Now with Youtube and the ability to see them without their laugh tracks, I feel vindicated.

[Brian C]

My mom used to love Friends, Seinfeld & Cheers and I would never sit with her to watch them because it completely boggled my mind why people found them funny. Now with Youtube and the ability to see them without their laugh tracks, I feel vindicated.

Vindicated how? Because those are three shows that, regardless of what you thought about them, were massive hits with enduring popularity that plenty of people definitely thought were funny. It seems like your vindication is that you didn't think they were funny at the time and still don't, but why would that need vindicating?

[I do agree that Seinfeld is nearly unwatchable these days, though!)

[PfR73]

[Lowry_Sam]

Vindicated how? Because those are three shows that, regardless of what you thought about them, were massive hits with enduring popularity...

This is how

If you aren't told it's supposed to be a joke (either with the laugh track or by having seen it before), it's not actually funny....

[knives]

We should remove soundtracks too. They tell you what emotions to feel too much.

[JSC]

If a sitcom has been taped / filmed before a studio audience I don't mind (I'm thinking mostly of British comedies that I've
enjoyed in the past). It definitely gives an energy to the performances that is sometimes conspicuously lacking when it is
acted for the camera (an example is the difference between the four series of Blackadder, which had an audience,
and the later reunion special which didn't).

[Murdoch]

I feel like taking a show specifically edited with a laugh track in mind, then editing out that laugh track, and saying look how unfunny it is, is not the strongest argument. Comedy is in the eye of the beholder, and most sitcoms aren't funny in general, but it's equivalent to editing a laugh track into a single-camera comedy with no laugh track and saying look how awkward this is.

[domino harvey]

My mom used to love Friends, Seinfeld & Cheers and I would never sit with her to watch them because it completely boggled my mind why people found them funny. Now with Youtube and the ability to see them without their laugh tracks, I feel vindicated.

All of these (and NewsRadio) were filmed with a live studio audience

[hearthesilence]

Woody Allen's Annie Hall scene involving laugh tracks is spot-on - it can be a crassly manipulative device and it's broadly intended to be - but I don't get too hung up on it either. I've sat through shitty movies where people in the theater are laughing at terrible jokes, and I've watched genuinely funny TV shows that mix laughter on to the soundtrack. It's something that I naturally tune it out - on some level, it's not that different from attending a live sketch or comedy show.

[domino harvey]

I think sketch comedy is a great example of the value of a live audience, because in something like the Kids in the Hall or Mr Show, you can see the performers adjust to audience reaction, which makes the final product even better. The DVD set of the State had one of the best extras I’ve ever seen along these lines— about an hour’s worth of sketches that the troupe filmed and performed that completely bombed with their live audience and were thus cut from the show. I think all those dismissing this practice out of hand would be well served to watch some of these and see why this aspect of live comedy can be helpful for the creators as well

[JSC]

That scene in Annie Hall encapsulates the issue that many people have with laugh tracks and which
really are that - added tracks. But to reiterate... if a show is filmed before an audience and we're getting a
live reaction and the performers pick up on the vibe, I don't believe it is a detriment to the overall show.
A good example of this can be seen in the differnces between say, a Monty Python television sketch,
and the same sketch being performed in the film And Now for Something Complete Different.

I also remember noting that at some point towards the end of their runs, shows like the The Burns and Allen Show
and The Jack Benny Program switched over to canned laughter and the difference felt very obvious to me. Maybe
that's why a few decades later there used to the voice-over that would say "this show has been filmed before a live studio
audience" (was it Cheers?)

Sorry... I didn't see the post about this discussion being moved.

[domino harvey]

It was! From Screen Rant:

According to Cheers writer Ken Levine, the live audience disclaimer was added after they received backlash from people watching at home that they could barely hear characters' lines because of the laughter. There was a presumption that Cheers was using an obnoxiously loud laugh track, and the public wanted the show to tame it down. What they didn't realize is that the loud laughter in the episodes was genuinely from the people in the studio watching the taping. Even when it was a known fact that the sitcom had a live audience, people didn't believe that the laughs were real.

[JSC]

Oh, good. It means I haven't completely lost my memory yet!

[domino harvey]

Another memorable instance of this is Roseanne, which had some great organic audience responses. Two I remember immediately: the audience nervously murmuring when Dan goes to beat up Fisher; and a clearly unexpected spontaneous audience response of cheering when Jackie defends Darlene getting pregnant (“Well, I think it’s great that Darlene is having a baby without getting married…”), which the cast pauses for but it’s obvious they weren’t expecting it. And that response makes the actual punchline (“…because that’s what I did!”) that undercuts their cheers hit so much harder as the audience laughs even louder at themselves as much as the material. These moments would not have the same energy without the audience, period.

[Feego]

Unless we're distinguishing laugh track from live studio audience, but it's my understanding most three-camera sitcoms used a mix of the two.

That's my understanding as well. I've heard that, specifically, each episode of All in the Family was shot through in its entirety twice, very much like a play, first before the audience arrived and then later with the audience. They used as much as they could from the footage shot in front of the live audience, but if the actors flubbed their lines or something didn't work, they would use the footage from the earlier recording and add the laugh track.

[Zot!]

I have no problem with sitcoms with laugh tracks, I guess that happens when you grow up with 60s and 70s Hanna Barberra cartoons, where it’s so fake it’s almost a meta commentary on laugh-tracks….just another weird non diegetic sound effect to liven up the shows, like when they run in place.

[Orlac]

I have no problem with sitcoms with laugh tracks, I guess that happens when you grow up with 60s and 70s Hanna Barberra cartoons, where it’s so fake it’s almost a meta commentary on laugh-tracks….just another weird non diegetic sound effect to liven up the shows, like when they run in place.

Oh yes, they don't sound like "Ha Ha Ha!", it's more like "Hundnneda". Kind of creepy!