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Laugh Track: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|''See? The laugh track tells you what's funny. [[Viewers are Morons|You don't even need to think!]]''|'''Granddad''', ''[[The Boondocks]]''}}
[[Viewers are Morons|Closed-captioning for the humor-impaired]].
In the early days of television, comedies were "traditionally" performed essentially as short plays in front of a live [[Studio Audience]], broadcast live or with minimal editing (see [[Three Cameras]]). However, as television production grew more sophisticated in the late 1940s and early 1950s, there was at least a partial shift from live performances to productions that were filmed movie-style in a closed sound stage. The latter gave the director more freedom in selecting shots and angles, as well as the luxury of multiple takes. However, there was no longer an audience to provide instant feedback on the humor.
The general opinion of the audience held by television executives then (and some would argue now) was [[Viewers are Morons|very low]]. There was serious concern that without a [[Studio Audience]] to "prompt" the home viewer's responses, a comedy would fall flat. The solution was the creation of the [[Laugh Track]] (also known as [[Canned Laughter]]) -- an artificial audience that did nothing but react uproariously to anything and everything.
Naturally, within a few years of its introduction, it was abused and overused. ''Every'' punchline, no matter how lame or subtle, would receive the same tsunami of belly laughs from the virtual audience. It became epidemic, even intruding bizarrely into cartoons (''[[The Flintstones]]'' and ''[[The Jetsons]]'', anyone?). By the 1960s, it had become an annoying intrusion, hated but (in the minds of most producers) mandatory. In the 1970s, however, most sitcoms began to switch from the single-camera, movie-style format to the multi-camera format with a [[Studio Audience]] providing real laughter, which producers found more pleasing because it helped them write better jokes. By the 1980s, the only hit that used a laugh track was ''[[M*A*S*H]]'', which mostly dispensed with its laugh track toward the end of its run, loosening the laugh track's hold on single-camera television comedies. It's still around, but it's not nearly as prominent or overused as it used to be.
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A history and analysis of the laugh track can be found on the web [http://www.tvparty.com/laugh.html here]. Cecil
Adams' syndicated column ''The Straight Dope'' also [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mlaughtrack.html covered the topic]. ''The Onion'' is very fond of [http://www.theonion.com/content/opinion/ha_ha_ha_i_can_t_believe_how mocking] [http://www.theonion.com/content/node/31948 laugh] [http://www.theonion.com/content/node/32398 tracks] [http://www.theonion.com/content/node/35647 extensively].
The term "Laugh Track" is often misapplied to shows that are filmed and later screened to an audience, whose responses are then recorded. This is inappropriate, though, because in these cases the laughter was a genuine response to the humor in the show, and was not pre-recorded... although it's not unheard of for supplemental canned laughter to be inserted afterwards. Sometimes the term is even applied to the existence of a [[Studio Audience]]. In fact, [[Studio Audience]] sitcoms like ''[[The Big Bang Theory]]'' get the accusations of "Laugh Tracks" ''more'' than shows that actually use a [[Laugh Track]], because a [[Laugh Track]] tends to be quieter and less noticable than real live audience laughter.
In some Latin American countries (Argentina, for example), the [[Laugh Track]] is replaced by a crew of off-screen people paid specifically to ''laugh on command'' whenever the comedic situation (presumably) merits a laugh; they are known as ''reidores'' ("laughers"); a senior laugher signals all the others when to laugh. In all the others (as happened in Mexico), comedies without it were openly stated to have no laugh track because they respected their audience, most notably the Chespirito programs, such as ''[[El Chavo
Note that even the shows that record laughter live from an audience (or show pre-recorded material to an audience and record that laughter) will edit, alter, or even add to the laughter in some way, even if (as in most cases) it's just to cover the transition between takes/scenes, using the same techniques used to add true canned laughter.
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* See also ''[[I Dream of Jeannie]]'', ''[[Bewitched]]'' and other contemporaneous [[Sitcom|sitcoms]].
** Although the Latin American dub mercifully removed it from both shows.
* [[Aaron Sorkin]] used to engage in knock down, drag out fights with ABC execs over the laugh track in''[[Sports Night]].'' He hated it, they demanded it, and for a brief period at the beginning of the show's run there was a laugh track. Sorkin eventually won out.
* The 1980s comedy ''[[Sledge Hammer]]'' had its first-season, early-episodes laugh track edited out for the DVD release. The director's commentary explains that the talking heads at the studio forced the laugh track on him because they felt the show was too violent without it.
* ''[[Little Britain]]''.
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* The original British version of ''Da Ali G Show'' used a laugh track, but its American adaptation (known as ''Ali G in da USAiii'' in Britain) lacks it.
* NBC's ''100 Questions'' abused the hell out of this. It was eventually cancelled after 6 episodes.
* The Singaporean television show ''Kids Talk Back'', [[They Copied It Now It Sucks|like a talkshow version of]] ''[[Kids Say the Darndest Things]]'', was particularly bizarre in this respect. A laugh track had been added to the interviews with children, which made it seem like the audience was brutally taking the mickey out of hapless 4-8 year-olds who were unaware that they were being manipulated into saying things for the sake of good television.
* Both ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' and ''[[Muppets Tonight]]'' used laugh tracks. Justified in that both shows were presented as [[Show Within a Show|shows being performed for an audience]], and it would be entirely impossible to film this show in front of an audience due to the special effects and the puppeteers. Also, unlike most others, the laugh track sounded ''so'' real, people ''actually try to buy tickets for a taping!''
** Actually, some of it ''was'' real laughter. Apparently the stagehands' favorite skits were with the Swedish Chef and would crowd the set to watch the taping. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8UE8ADvF_s Listen very closely] and you can hear a really loud laugh and somebody clapping their hands that doesn't match up with the laugh track
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=== Video Games ===
* Strangely enough, this trope is also invoked by the ''[[Ganbare Goemon]]'' series of [[Video Games]], the most well-known example being in ''Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon''.
* The videogame ''Gekioh: Shooting King'' has an optional mode that replace all of the game audio with a laugh track.
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=== Comedy ===
* Parodied in a sketch by Alexei Sayle... on a sketch show featuring canned laughter. He explained the technique to the viewing audience as he walked through a field, and complained about its cheapness. He then headed off accusations of hypocrisy (How could he have real viewers in a ''field''?) by revealing a large audience on portable stadium seating.
* As early as 1959, radio comics [[Bob and Ray|Bob & Ray]] were satirizing the concept by hauling out a 'laugh machine' (because "we don't feel we're getting the correct response from you [listeners],") then making it roar with joy over a deliberately awful sitcom pilot.
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=== Film ===
* A laugh track starts playing in ''[[Fireball]]'', to the great dismay of Drossel, who is convinced it is caused by intruding spies.
* Used in ''[[Scott Pilgrim vs. the World]]'' in one scene with Scott and Wallace to show how inflated Scott's ego had gotten (to wit: he thought he was [[Seinfeld|Jerry Seinfeld]])
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=== Web Original ===
* [[Youtube Poop]] videos will occasionally parody this. An example comes from "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnyHsY9W1_A ARNOLD THE PIG RAPES EVERYONE]".
{{quote|'''[[Street Fighter|Akuma]]''': "GOUKEN, I'M HOME."}}
* Used in ''[http://spacetree.keentoons.com/bee.html Face Bee] [[Space Tree|The Face Bee]] [[Department of Redundancy Department|in Your Face]]!''
* Used in [[The Nostalgia Chick]]'s review of ''[[Grease]]'' after Sandy says that she now knows that Danny truly respects her.
* In ''[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HTqbxYsYwc The Dr. Steel Show, Episode 1]'', [[Doctor Steel]] enters his lab at the beginning of the show to wild applause, which he reacts humbly to... then [[Lampshade Hanging|reaches over and turns a dial which turns off the applause track]].
* [[The Cinema Snob|Brad Jones]] uses this in his ''[[Eighties Dan]]'' web series, which is a parody of 80s era sitcoms. He lampshades it in his ''[[Cannibal Holocaust]]'' review as The Cinema Snob.
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** Also used during the opening host segment of the "Viewer Mail" episode. Stewie claims he swiped the can from ''[[Dharma and Greg]]''.
** In PTV, Stewie and Brian make a sitcom called ''Cheeky Bastard''. Stewie claims that the show is "recorded in front of a live audience", but the (fake) laughing is actually provided by him.
** An earlier episode had a gag involving an actual studio audience having moved in across the street. Peter eventually gets fed up with them and goes to call the cops.
** Taken [[Up to Eleven]] in one episode where Brain's heavily edited show is played before a live studio audience. Every time James Woods and another actor says something, the audience laughs at the line and it's the same ''exact'' laugh every time, making it sound like the laughter is canned.
* In the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Jakovasaur", the household of the Jakovasaurs is presented as a typical [[Dom Com]], complete with laugh track. When Cartman comes to visit, he wonders [[Lampshade Hanging|where all the laughter is coming from]].
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== Exceptions ==
=== Film ===
* Subverted in David Lynch's ''Rabbits'', in which a surreal sitcom whose only dialogue is out-of-order and nonsensical is ''still'' punctuated by a laugh track.
* Used similarly in the segment of ''[[Natural Born Killers]]'' establishing Mallory's backstory. Mallory's father threatening to beat up her mother, Mallory's father groping Mallory and her brother asking if he was born of incest with her all have the "audience" rolling in the aisles. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXq2rsaOxWQ MASSIVELY disturbing.]
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* ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]'' doesn't use a laughtrack either.
** ''[[Malcolm in the Middle]]'''s ultimate legacy is that, along with the British sitcom ''[[Spaced]]'', its considered to be the [[Trope Codifier]] of the single camera, laugh track free sitcom. Since ''Malcolm'' premiered, it's become popular for high-quality, single-camera sitcoms like ''[[Curb Your Enthusiasm]]'', ''[[The Office]]'', ''[[30 Rock]]'', ''[[Community]]'', ''[[Peep Show]]'', ''[[The Inbetweeners]]'', ''[[It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]]'', ''[[Arrested Development (TV series)|Arrested Development]]'' and ''[[Flight of the Conchords]]'' (among others) to eschew laugh tracks entirely. Coincidentally (or rather not) these shows are usually some of the most acclaimed comedies on television.
* Oddly enough, ''[[The Mighty Boosh]]'' was supposed to have a laugh track in its early stage of production, as we can see with the pilot episode (it's included in the DVDs). They actually showed the episode in front of an audience and recorded their laughter. Julian Barratt and [[Noel Fielding]] found the audience overdid it so much that they decided not to keep it. It sounds disastrous indeed, as The Boosh is clearly not a "laugh out loud" type of comedy.
* ''[[All in The Family]]'' was recorded in front of a live studio audience, as announced at the end of nearly each episode. In the later seasons they stopped using live audiences, presumably because they were distractions to the actors; they played back each episode to the audience instead.
** However later seasons, as well as the [[After Show]] ''[[Archie Bunker's Place]]'', used a laughtrack reportedly at Carol O Conner's insistance.
* Latin American hits, ''[[El Chavo
* ''[[Home Improvement]]'' not only used a live studio audience's laughter, but they also got their extras from audience volunteers. For "[[Show Within a Show|Tool Time]]" the studio audience was the ''actual'' studio audience, and you can see how people are laughing at the gags on the show as though they were at a sitcom taping.
* ''[[The Daily Show]]'' and likewise its sister show ''[[The Colbert Report]]'' are filmed in front of a live audience. Both hosts interact with it fairly often, usually by telling them an off color joke was still funny, or criticizing their choice to laugh at a gag.
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