this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2024

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Comedy shows have laugh tracks cuz they aren't that funny (self.showerthoughts)

submitted 2 months ago by Kintarian to c/showerthoughts

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Wanna know something cool and/or creepy? A lot of the "canned" laugh tracks used in TV (for shows that pretend to be filmed in front of a studio audience, but actually aren't) are from a small handful of sound libraries that get mixed together. Many of the laughter tracks come from live audiences at I Love Lucy tapings.

If you consider that I Love Lucy was filmed ~70 years ago, and that most of the audience members were likely 20+ years old at the time (the studios were in LA, and the audiences were largely comprised of tourists), then there is a statistically high likelihood that any individual audience member you hear laughing on certain modern TV shows may have been dead for decades.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago

Every time I hear this observation, I automatically hear Jim Carrey's voice in my head saying "It's dead people laughing! Those people are dead!"

I guess he said it in the 1999 movie Man On The Moon and the line has somehow been permanently lodged in the back of my brain for the last 25 years

[–] Plopp 10 points 2 months ago (1 children)

there is a statistically high likelihood that any individual audience member you hear laughing on certain modern TV shows may have been dead for decades.

Serves them right for being in a canned laughter track!

No but seriously, that's both haunting and beautiful at the same time. They live on. Like laughing ghosts.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Laughing at us, for wasting our precious time on earth watching Big Bang Theory.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Being trapped in a laugh track on big bang theory sounds like hell.

[–] hoshikarakitaridia 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Tbf it's more that the feel of a live audience would be missing otherwise. They wanted that live audience feel and be a fully written TV series.

I guess to some degree it's not completely wrong tho.

[–] Kintarian -2 points 2 months ago

It's just a passing shower thought

[–] EndOfLine 18 points 2 months ago (3 children)

You aren't necessarily wrong. Have you ever seen Friends without a laugh track?

[–] Lost_My_Mind 22 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Friends without a laugh track is 1000% funnier.

Especially Ross.....who becomes basically a serial killer vibe.

In The Big Bang Theory without the laugh track, Raj becomes just a huuuuuuge asshole.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Oh man you weren't kidding, at least drunk Raj becomes an unfunny asshole if nobody is laughing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKS3MGriZcs

[–] Lost_My_Mind 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Here's the scary part......I've never seen THAT clip. I only saw 3 others without laugh track that were much worse than that one in terms of how much of an ass he was.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Now that you mention it... His character does tend to have offensive ~~humour~~ statements.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

In The Big Bang Theory without the laugh track, Raj becomes just a huuuuuuge asshole.

To be fair, with or without a laugh track, TBBT is depressing as fuck. I feel incredibly sorry for the faith of most characters.

[–] Lifecoach5000 18 points 2 months ago

There was a great take on one of these called “Everybody Hates Raymond”

It was the show Everybody Loves Ramon but the laugh track was completely replaced with boos and was frickin hilarious. I think it got removed from YouTube though cuz I haven’t been able to find it for years.

[–] helmet91 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

Holy shit, this is much better than the original!!! Damn, I should rewatch the series like this. Where can I find all of it without the laugh track?

Edit: I have to add, the long pauses make it a bit annoying. With the laugh track the pauses aren't noticeable (to me at least; my girlfriend did notice the long pauses even with the laugh track, and it was annoying to her).

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

The pauses are there because it's not a "laugh track", it's a live audience. That's not to say it's 100% genuine laughter, but they're pausing so the laughter doesn't bury the dialogue.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Timing and pacing are inherently different when there's a laugh track. You can't just silence the laughter or cut the time range. In some cases, you have to rework the joke.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Alan Partridge, The IT Crowd, Black Books, Only Fools & Horses, Blackadder, Red Dwarf, Fawlty Towers, Father Ted all disagree.

[–] Kintarian 6 points 2 months ago

Used to love watching the IT crowd

[–] Boozilla 10 points 2 months ago

Laugh tracks are awful. So are shows where the live audience has people screaming "Whoooooo!!!!" whenever their favorite actor enters the scene. Married With Children being one example. Jerry Seinfeld calls it "the sound of dumbness".

[–] jimmy90 9 points 2 months ago (2 children)

laughing has been show to be a social activity which is why almost all comedies have a fake or real audience

[–] Kintarian -1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I feel like laugh tracks are way to manipulate the audience. The reason they have to manipulate the audience is the joke wasn't all that funny. If you don't have a laugh track or a live audience then you have to actually be funny. Your jokes actually have to make people laugh in an organic way.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The reason they have to manipulate the audience is because people look for validation and so feel good when other people react to things in the same way as them. If another equally funny show has a laugh track and you don't, yours will likely be less enjoyable to watch unless it's a specific form of humour which benefits from not having a laugh track.

Basically a laugh track can't save a terrible show, but it can manipulate people into finding a mediocre show more enjoyable to watch, but a mediocre show will make people laugh organically at least a few times anyway.

[–] Kintarian -3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm talking about laugh tracks. They are fake. The sound of laughter is homogenous. If you listen to a real audience, some people laugh louder, some softer. Also with laugh tracks, you can tell someone is turning a volume knob or slider on a mixer. It's all fake.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I mean the laugh tracks are still real people who have been recorded that an editor can slap over on the master. It's not AI generated or like a DJ mixing new sound effects up.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Same reason tiktok and instagram reels are overlaid with that dumb wheezing laugh track.

[–] billbasher 2 points 2 months ago

That is an instant skip for me. Same with the vertical split with just pointing at the video and adding nothing of substance while shrinking the video

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

audience loses their shit at this comment- people are rolling on the floor, gasping for breath, beginning to choke their fellow humans out of sheer comedy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (2 children)

There was a time when the average sitcom was filmed with a live studio audience and the laughter you hear is actually coming from real people watching the taping.

[–] Kintarian 1 points 2 months ago

When I lived in Los Angeles I used to go to some of those shows. It was pretty fun. One of my favorite shows from back then was All in The Family. Of course I didn't get to see that one live cuz I don't think they even filmed that in California. That would have been awesome though.

[–] finestnothing 0 points 2 months ago

The reason why they no longer do live studio is a TV star got followed home by someone in the audience and they tried/planned to hurt her. After that they used laugh tracks, and other shows followed suite when they realized that audiences didn't really care. Made it easier to film

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

99% invisible did an episode on the rise and fall of the laugh track

Edit: whoops, I guess it was featured episode of decoder ring

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There's a show called Kevin Can Fuck Himself that uses a laugh track to bias the audience in favor of certain characters.

[–] roofuskit 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That show is some of the most genius content of the last decade.

Your description way undersells it.

Kevin Can Fuck Himself is about a woman who wants to kill her husband Kevin because she thinks it's the only way she'll ever get it of her marriage.

Whenever Kevin is in the room it's lit and filmed like a multi camera sitcom. He says and does horrible things to his wife and the laugh track runs. It's a really scathing criticism of how sitcom wives are treated.

But the real genius comes when Kevin and his friends are out of the room. Suddenly it becomes lit and shot as a single camera drama. I absolutely love it. It's so effective.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

My comment was absolutely an understatement to generate curiosity. I do agree that Kevin Can Fuck Himself is a hidden gem. I've read that some people were saying the sitcom element takes them out of moment, but I fear they're robbing themselves from a great experience by not continuing.

[–] mycodesucks 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I personally enjoyed (didn't enjoy) this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKS3MGriZcs

[–] Kintarian 1 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Some of those jokes were actually amusing. I don't know why they didn't have a real audience. Most people will come for free just to watch the show.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

The audience usually attends for free ("for free tickets to the _____ show, call...."), but there's still a lot of overhead. Not only do you need ushers, security, and so on, you need to be filming on a sound stage with a place for the audience.

On the flip side, laugh tracks are easily added in post.

[–] thermal_shock 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

real people are unpredictable.

[–] Kintarian 0 points 2 months ago

Since real people are watching that would be a good thing.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you have about 20 minutes or less if you crank the speed, this podcast about laugh tracks is pretty interesting.

https://slate.com/culture/2018/04/decoder-ring-explores-the-history-and-meaning-of-the-laugh-track.html

[–] Kintarian 0 points 2 months ago

Wow, that first one was horrible. Someone was screaming like maybe they were getting murdered.

[–] Kintarian -1 points 2 months ago

Never heard of it. I definitely have to look that up.