It is obvious that laughter/crowd noise is either enhanced or inserted into multi-cam sitcoms (even ones that were filmed in front of a studio audience) but is it added to cue the audience when to laugh, cover up a failed joke, or to give the folks sitting on their couch the feel that they're watching it with a crowd of people?

I had read an article a while back that quoted from a study done that concluded that background noise/laughter in TV shows enhances the comfort level of older folks and children. According to the study, people in general apparently feel better when they feel like their watching television with a crowd of people.

No one in their right mind would find a knock on the door and a casual 'hello' gut busting hilarious, but yet the 'audience' in sitcoms like Friends, The Big Bang Theory, and That 70's Show evidently find it so. There is obvious manipulation going on but I don't know it is a cue for the audience to laugh or to provide feel goodery to the viewers.

Single-camera sitcoms also employ their own methods of manipulation. For example; actors who constantly mug the camera during an awkward silence to let the audience in on the joke, and the use of music to provide background noise to fill dead air.

Personally, I disagree with the notion that laugh tracks are used primarily because the average viewer is an idiot, while that maybe true, I don't think that is the sole reason for their use.

Is anyone going to actually argue that the jokes in The Office were more high brow than the ones in Newsradio?

What does everyone else think?

There's definately a psychology behind them, even though they sometimes seem hard to defend. I recall being in a theater watching some silent-era comedies with a large crowd. I'd seen these very comedies before, by myself, on videotape. Routine stuff, not even the best. But somehow, in a huge crowd filled with wild laughter, it becomes infectious. The material manages to seem ten times MORE funny, experiencing it in such an environment. It struck me as rather fascinating, how that worked out.

I HATE laugh tracks. The main reason I love The Office is because their is no annoying laugh tracks. I also like The Mindy Project....no laugh tracks with that one either. The laugh tracks is so fake. It's just canned laughter and it is super annoying. I don't mind real laughter from the studio audience like in I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, All In the Family, The Jeffersons, etc. But shows like Friends or any show past 1990 with fake canned laughter annoys me so much that I won't watch them. It seems as if there is fake laughter after every sentence in the character dialogue. I can't take it. It's all too fake, it's like I'm being told I'm supposed to laugh.

Anyone else ever notice that there are certain distinctive laughs that pop up in the laugh track for multiple different sitcoms? I can think of a couple of different female laughs that seem to be in every sitcom that aired in the mid 80's that I've ever seen. I can't really describe the laugh. Next time I come across it maybe I'll try to find a clip of the scene and post it.

I've always preferred single camera to multi camera sitcoms, and I'm not so keen to "canned" laughter. I didn't care for The Dick Van Dyke Show because it was quite obvious most if not all of laughter was "canned". Everyone has their exceptions however. There's a couple of Multi-Cam shows I like and they are I Love Lucy and Sabrina, the Teenage Witch. Last year I picked up the entire series of the former when The Big River had it as a "Gold Box" Special, and it was almost half its price. :) I have four seasons of the latter and as soon as the other three hit the bargain bins I'll snatch em up. :D

I HATE laugh tracks. The main reason I love The Office is because their is no annoying laugh tracks. I also like The Mindy Project....no laugh tracks with that one either. The laugh tracks is so fake. It's just canned laughter and it is super annoying. I don't mind real laughter from the studio audience like in I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, All In the Family, The Jeffersons, etc. But shows like Friends or any show past 1990 with fake canned laughter annoys me so much that I won't watch them. It seems as if there is fake laughter after every sentence in the character dialogue. I can't take it. It's all too fake, it's like I'm being told I'm supposed to laugh.
Shows produced BEFORE 1990 that used a "fake, canned, annoying" laugh track;
The Flinstones
The Dick Van Dyke Show
The Addams Family
Hogan's Heroes
Gilligan's Island
Bewitched
The Bob Newhart Show
Newhart
The Munsters
M*A*S*H

Shows that were "sweetened" with a laugh track;

The Odd Couple
The Mary Tyler Moore Show
Happy Days
The Bob Newhart Show
Maude
Rhoda
Laverne and Shirley
Alice
Soap
Taxi

I don't think it has anything to do with the decade the shows aired in. Most of these sitcoms would feel incomplete without laugh tracks, IMO. Some would be VERY different without them. As would Friends, Seinfeld, etc. in the 1990's.

The Flintstones is one of my all-time favorite cartoons, but the laughter bothers me at times. Yet, I can't imagine the show without it at the same time because I'm so used to it!! :lol:

You posed an interesting question though. I asked this same question a few years back but it was in poll form. Wish I could find that thread now.

Anyway, I never considered the whole psychological aspect of feeling like you're watching with a group of people. Interesting. I guess that when someone in the audience initiates laughter, or someone I am sitting with watching a show or movie laughs at something, I am apt to laugh too. It is contagious!!

I don't mind the laugh track, Bewitched used one. I found it interesting that the same woman that seems to utter uh oh on I Love Lucy was also used in episodes of Alice during season 2 which had the same Lucy directors and writers.

MASH and THE ODD COUPLE filmed a few episodes without a laugh track. I thought that was quite different. And I seem to recall that ROOM 222 had a laugh track on the early episodes, but abandonned it later.

I don't even hear the laughter anymore. I do prefer multi-camera comedies though.

Interestingly, even MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS had a laugh track.

I dont mind a laugh track if the scene is funny :lol: but it is no wonder why those NBC shows dont use laugh tracks--I have never found it too be funny!!!!

Is anyone going to actually argue that the jokes in The Office were more high brow than the ones in Newsradio?



I never saw either one, so I am in no position to give an opinion. :talk:

I don't mind the laugh track, Bewitched used one. I found it interesting that the same woman that seems to utter uh oh on I Love Lucy was also used in episodes of Alice during season 2 which had the same Lucy directors and writers.

The "Oh Oh" woman was Lucy's mother. She was a big fan of sitcoms and got around quite a bit it seems :D

They don't really bother me, but they can be annoying sometimes. Especially when they come on in a scene that really isn't meant to be that funny.

M*A*S*H's DVD has an option to turn the laugh track off, which is fun. The laughter in that show is more subtle, as opposed to some over the top rowdy laugh tracks.

I'm not really a big laugh-er, Frasier is the only show I can honestly burst into fits of laughter from.

I don't mind them, and I really don't even notice them anymore.

With the advent of DVD, I do notice that some shows, like Frasier, Seinfeld and Wings, do use genuine studio audience audio.

haha No one answered the question.

In your opinion: Are laugh tracks inserted because the general population is too dumb to 'get' the jokes?

What if it is stated that personally, laugh tracks or recorded studio audience's laughter are an all-too-common stereotype of sitcoms?

I think both formats have their advantages. The problem is that the multi-camera sitcom has become a dumping ground for lazy, cheap comedy for the past 10 years or so (basically since Friends/Everybody Loves Raymond ended), so it's stuck in a place where any show that has a laugh track is automatically assumed to be terrible. Because pretty much all of them are. All of the creative, innovative minds are going to single-camera comedies.

But it doesn't have to be that way. I'd like to see someone try and resurrect the multi-camera format in terms of quality.

I've always preferred the single-camera over the multi-camera "Live audience" format. The quality of single-camera sitcoms is almost always higher than those with multi-camera formats. but that's just IMHO. This is one of those cases where You're comparing Apples to Oranges, so to each their own. :cool:

I think both formats have their advantages. The problem is that the multi-camera sitcom has become a dumping ground for lazy, cheap comedy for the past 10 years or so (basically since Friends/Everybody Loves Raymond ended), so it's stuck in a place where any show that has a laugh track is automatically assumed to be terrible. Because pretty much all of them are. All of the creative, innovative minds are going to single-camera comedies.

But it doesn't have to be that way. I'd like to see someone try and resurrect the multi-camera format in terms of quality.
I'm not a fan of the show, but Big Bang Theory might be proof that the format can still be popular. The numbers are huge, even on TBS in repeats.

I think both formats have their advantages. The problem is that the multi-camera sitcom has become a dumping ground for lazy, cheap comedy for the past 10 years or so (basically since Friends/Everybody Loves Raymond ended), so it's stuck in a place where any show that has a laugh track is automatically assumed to be terrible. Because pretty much all of them are. All of the creative, innovative minds are going to single-camera comedies.

But it doesn't have to be that way. I'd like to see someone try and resurrect the multi-camera format in terms of quality.

Completely agree with that assessment. It's quite alarming how few people actually realize this (including commentators, critics, and other people who are supposed to be authorities on television). A "dumping ground" is the perfect way to describe the multi-cam sitcom landscape in the year 2013.

I can certainly understand why the true creative forces seem to gravitate towards single-camera nowadays. That format is currently going through a renaissance it's never seen before. And I think the overall lowering of production quality (in both films and TV) is more forgiving in that venue. Modern laughtracks are tweaked into oblivion with such artificial emotion that it seems downright corny and out-of-sync with the clamoring for realism in our entertainment. It truly makes mediocre shows seem even worse. Single-cam simply doesn't have that problem.

Unfortunately for multi-cams to return to the level of quality seen in decades past and shake their current public mindset of "crappy TV" there almost HAS to be some sort of genius that comes along who specifically wants to reinvigorate the format. In a perfect world, Chuck Lorre and his tepid, ran-through-the-mill brand of comedy would not be the poster child for multi-cam sitcoms.

I'm not a fan of the show, but Big Bang Theory might be proof that the format can still be popular. The numbers are huge, even on TBS in repeats.
There's no doubt that multi-camera sitcoms work in terms of success, they're huge on CBS (although they don't seem to work for any other network). But as a viable, respected artform, they've been dead for a while. The Big Bang Theory is a smash hit, but it doesn't get anywhere near the level of respect that past multi-cam smash hits like Cheers and Seinfeld got.

Completely agree with that assessment. It's quite alarming how few people actually realize this (including commentators, critics, and other people who are supposed to be authorities on television). A "dumping ground" is the perfect way to describe the multi-cam sitcom landscape in the year 2013.

I can certainly understand why the true creative forces seem to gravitate towards single-camera nowadays. That format is currently going through a renaissance it's never seen before. And I think the overall lowering of production quality (in both films and TV) is more forgiving in that venue. Modern laughtracks are tweaked into oblivion with such artificial emotion that it seems downright corny and out-of-sync with the clamoring for realism in our entertainment. It truly makes mediocre shows seem even worse. Single-cam simply doesn't have that problem.

Unfortunately for multi-cams to return to the level of quality seen in decades past and shake their current public mindset of "crappy TV" there almost HAS to be some sort of genius that comes along who specifically wants to reinvigorate the format. In a perfect world, Chuck Lorre and his tepid, ran-through-the-mill brand of comedy would not be the poster child for multi-cam sitcoms.
I definitely agree with this. A bad single-camera sitcom is usually just kind of bland and boring, while a bad multi-camera sitcom can look...offensive. Single-camera sitcoms also allow for more artistry in terms of camerawork and directing. I also think that, single the laugh track less, single-camera sitcom is a (relatively) new concept that hasn't been done over and over again for 50+ years, the format seems fresher. And maybe it is! But I stil think, if some kind of Dan Harmon or Tina Fey or Liz Meriwether-esque talent took the helms of a multi-camera sitcom, it could definitely rise to greatness.

I have noticed that on some episodes of Will & Grace that are reran on WeTV, if one were to turn on the closed captioning on his TV set, he will notice that there's a caption that reads "[audience reading]" or "[audience laughter]" every time the show's studio audience laughs. How come other multi-camera sitcoms don't have similar captions?

For those that have traveled to South/Central America and have seen a popular Mexican sitcom from the 70's called El Chavo Del Ocho which to this day is still in reruns.

Maybe it was the limited budget back then but the laugh track is extremely noticeable that even at times you'd hear random people off stage chuckle a bit.