I wonder how funny a sitcom would be without the audience laughing every 10 to 20 seconds.. alot of people would miss the jokes and i dont think it would be as good. What do you think?
You're absolutely right. I tried watching a sitcom with the TV muted once, and it wasn't nearly as funny.
It would probably be like a Martial Arts movie without the sound effects when someone got hit - bland Hotwater
Its like we need other peoples approval to laugh ourselves.. lol I was really thinking into it deep and it was tripping me out . haha I think strange things somtimes
Well, I find Curb Your Enthusiam extremely funny, and there are no laugh tracks there, if you call that a sitcom. Most of the shows that have the tracks, I reckon need them because they're not really funny!!
It might not be quite as insidious as it first appears. It’s probably an extension of the old live studio audiences, so often associated with of the early days of radio and TV - the formula has been working successfully ever since. Hotwater
"Canned laughter" is a television producer's device to communicate to a eminently suggestible audience that something funny has happened when there is no other tangible evidence to that effect. I've long boycotted cartoons with laugh tracks but in a self-realized practice of hypocrisy I will watch regular sitcoms with similar cues.
I first thought about it because I came home from work and turned on the tv and some episode of friends was on, and I watched it for a little while while making somthing to eat. I caught myself laughing at somthing that i really didnt think was that funny when I looked back on it. I knew then I was being tricked!!! DAMN the man
Does anybody remember the Hanna-Barbara cartoons like where they would make fun of the laugh track by grossly over using it? Those used to crack me up. Huckleberry Hound or Yogi would say something inane like "Hello" and there would be an over-the-top laugh track sound.
I do remember those. I guess H-B was capable of laughing at themselves. I recall early episodes of Scooby Do with laugh track. It's one of the reasons I refer to it as Scooby Don't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doD3a5UnCC4&mode=related&search=Edison%20humor%20laughing Fox News with a laugh track h
They dont have laugh tracks on the office either (either version).... and i have curb your enthusiam on my netflix queaue.... cant wait to watch it
I really can't stand canned laughter. most of my life I hardly even noticed it was there, but one day something clicked. I'll usually turn a show off after less than a minute if it resorts to that gimmick. and just so you guys know, those people laughing are dead.