Canned
What exactly is the point of canned laughter? You know what I'm referring to. You hear it mostly in sitcoms — one of the characters cracks a funny line, and you get a pre-recorded laugh track. It's like a cue that whatever line was just delivered was supposed to have been funny, and you should now laugh.
I just don't get the point. Are viewers too dumb to figure out when something was supposed to be funny? I'd just think that if you have to cue your audience to laugh, you're defeating the purpose. No? Why is it necessary to inform your viewers that your joke is funny? If it really is funny, they should laugh on their own.
Right now I have the distinct pleasure of hearing my roommate and his girlfriend watching a season of “That 70s Show” in the living room downstairs. This show has quite possibly the most canned laughter of any show I've ever come across. As I'm listening, I've been keeping track of just how often I hear the laugh track. It's literally every other line. Every… other… line. For every two lines of dialogue, at least one of them is guaranteed to be accompanied by fake laughter. Doesn't that seem a bit extreme?
There aren't laugh tracks in movies. In movies, if a joke isn't funny, people don't laugh. We're not told that we should be laughing, we don't get a pre-recorded studio audience laughing, we get nothing but the joke itself. Why is it different for TV? Seriously… I'm getting sick of hearing canned laughter.
I'm not laughing.
Andrea said,
April 10, 2007, 11:41 am
I do understand and get what you are saying here. But I was under the impression that canned laughter was in older TV shows, and the newer ones are filmed in a live audience (though prolly still told when to laugh). But I could be wrong. I guess its part of the sitcom world, I donno I think it would be strange to watch a sitcom with out people laughing at the jokes, but then again thats what I am used too, the people laughing. So who knows…
Dan said,
April 10, 2007, 9:20 pm
Andrea, if you know of any current sitcoms that are actually filmed in front of a live audience, please tell me. =|
I remember watching a European guy on a talk show, and he was explaining about TV's strange transition when he moved to America. He would watch MASH regularly, which contained only contained the jokes themselves. Then, when he watched his favorite show here in America, he heard strange laughing coming out of nowhere. Who are these people laughing? Howcome I can't see them? AAAHHhh!!…
Charles said,
May 3, 2007, 10:02 am
I noticed it, too … though I don't watch much TV anymore. I just assumed it was a throwback to the shows that where filed infront of a live audience, like a film tradition of recorded audience reaction (especially in the case of “That 70s Show”). Or it could be that marketers and producers think viewers laugh more when they are in a group. It may suspend disbelief that a person is actually watching alone and should react as if someone was watching … that ended kind of creepy.