The Lost Laugh: Live Studio Audiences and Laff Trax

[Orlac]

Oh I love Seinfeld! Come back, one year!

[MichaelB]

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.

Famously, Allen and editor Ralph Rosenblum had to extend the opening of the shot immediately after he sneezes over the cocaine because at test screenings the audience was laughing so hard that there was a real risk of them missing the first line of the next scene.

Which of course is a key reason why comedies that are hilarious in a cinema can sometimes feel slightly "off" at home - I remember treating my wife to a big-screen showing of Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House, which despite being one of her favourite films she'd never seen in a cinema before, and she became much more aware of the way that the editing deliberately allowed space for audience laughter; she'd originally put it down to the fact that old films were (allegedly) naturally slower-paced.

[hearthesilence]

For an immensely popular show, it's not hard to find complaints from fans and TV writers who were critical of Seinfield when it was on the air. The last four seasons were increasingly blasted as being proof that the show was going off the rails. I remember the day after the finale aired, pretty much everyone IRL, in print and on the radio chimed in about how terrible it was and how the show should've quit much earlier. (The last season wasn't exactly beloved.)

[domino harvey]

Last seasons are the best, that proves no one has known anything even before the internet

[PfR73]

Last seasons are the best, that proves no one has known anything even before the internet

Yes. I don't particularly care for the actual finale episode, but besides that Seasons 8 & 9 are by far my favorite, with every episode being a classic to me. I still love the show before that, and understand the groundedness that Larry David brought to it; but after he left, I love the silliness that Jerry and the writers felt free to let loose. I rewatch my DVDs of 8 & 9 more than any of the other seasons.

[hearthesilence]

I haven't seen them in years, but I thought the final season or two were blandly whimsical with the characters becoming especially obnoxious. Elaine barely resembled the same character from the first half of its run. tbf, when I tried revisiting the earlier episodes, they didn't seem all that great either.

[The Narrator Returns]

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.

Kids in the Hall has what could be the single greatest argument for the studio audience reaction track, the sketch with the Nobody Likes Us guys on the bus where a woman for real screams, not scream-laughs, at the punchline.

[domino harvey]

Always loved that you can hear Scott Thompson offscreen spontaneously going “All right!” to Bruce McCulloch’s line in one of his monologues advocating for “Promiscuity with dignity”

[Janky Lewis]

The Žižek Show is taped in front of a live studio audience.