We all love a good laugh.
From quiet chuckles to loud guffaws.
Laughter is good for the heart and for the soul
Doubled over laughter, tears in eyes - is really quite the elixir for so many ills, yes?
AKA Canned Laughter AKA Laugh Track, etc. is not.
Curmudgeon post for the day: Why do some sit-coms still use canned laughter?
Don't the producers of comedy shows know we know when to enjoy a clever line? We DO know, don't we? Did we ever, do we still - need to be prompted to laugh? Has not canned laughter run its course, seen its day, done its irritating best and should now be permanently retired?
It was on TV's 'Home Improvement' that I first noted just how distracting a laugh track can be. Now if that ain't canned laughter, the audience was pumped with nitrous oxide and/or silly pills. The show is good enough without the laff prompts. Even so, I stopped watching altogether due to the excessive laugh-track-to-dialog ratio. Now I'll never know how Tim the Toolman fared out with his lovely wife Jill and their boys-to-men sons...
Earlier this week, I again attempted to view a contemporary sitcom and couldn't get through the episode for all the hardyharhar fake laughs.
There is an argument to keep Pavlovian canned laughter an integral part of the presentation of comedy shows. I suppose that's so viewers never have to wonder if the show is actually funny or not. Ya hear laughing, it must be good, right?
If laugh tracks are deemed OK for the small screen, why not for the big screen? Don't moviegoers also need help with when to giggle chuckle guffaw?
Hmmmm. Laugh tracks at the movies. Imagine that. Pretty scary.
P.S. Given my druthers, I prefer TV sitcoms utilize a studio audience during tapings. Yet what of the announcement beforehand when it is: 'Filmed before a 'Live studio audience'? Like, instead of a Dead studio audience? Don't you find that just plain silly? Doesn't it make you want to laugh out loud?
Yale Joel (Life Magazine staff photographer), 1952.
3 comments:
canned laughter bothers me too! i'm trying to think of the shows we watch these days... i don't think any of them use laugh tracks. has it become a thing of the past? which show were you watching this week that used one?
ps- i love that photo of the laughing audience.
wish i could recall what newer show it was that had the laff track. wouldn't you know it was so off-putting that i didn't stick around long enough to note/care.
in the future, i will try to stay more 'in the moment' - then can properly 'dis' current comedies that use canned laughter.
hahahahahahahahahahahaha
Good comedy TV, with a laff track that sucks big time = 'Two and a Half Men'.
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