I am conducting a little survey for some research I am gathering regarding the use of laugh tracks or "canned laughter" on sitcoms.

Many sitcoms of the 1960s and 1970s such as "The Beverly Hillbillies", "The Andy Griffith Show", "Bewitched" and "The Brady Bunch" all used laugh tracks. Pre-recorded laughter and applause would be inserted into the show during post-production.

Today, there are sitcoms such as "The Simpsons", "Malcolm in the Middle" and "Scrubbs" which do not use laugh tracks. The trend in Hollywood today seems to be sans the laugh track. Many within the industry feel a laugh track is an insult to the audience's intelligence.

How do you feel about laugh tracks? Are they annoying? Unnecessary? Do you feel they make shows funnier? Less funny?

I appreciate your thoughts as it may affect the producers and executives which oversee the production of sitcoms.

I hate laugh tracks because I do think they are an insult to a viewers intelligence. I mean how funny can a sitcom really be if they need artificial laughter?

Good point, but perhaps the same argument can be made for why do they need a live audience when a live audience is usually directed when to laugh. Is that not also an insult to viewers?

I will never understand why The Love Boat needed to have a laugh track...

I like Laugh Tracks maybe because it seems less real....

I don't like them because they sound fake. If it sounded more natural, they might be alright, but they are often too loud or in really stupid places. Sometimes it feels like they run it every 5 seconds.

I also hate it when it's obvious a show is being shot outside and there's a stupid laugh track.

Besides, it's like the producers are telling me what is funny. I have a mind of my own thank you.

I really dislike Laugh Tracks, unless its actual laughter from a studio audience. It all depends on the show though. The shows on which I hate laugh tracks the most are WB shows because whenever they play the laugh tracks its like every two minutes at someone saying "hello"...

brenton, do you work in the sitcom business???

I Can Live With Em' Could Live Without Em' Too! They're Alright...

I agree with Dr. Crane. The canned laugh tracks are terrible and make a show that's not funny even more painful to watch. A live studio, though they may be directed to laugh, kind of add to a show if it is funny. There are some great natural laughs in Cheers episodes.

I don't mind laugh tracks but not all shows have to use them. Scrubs and Malcom are very funny without the laugh track.

Laugh Tracks belong with some shows, certain shows would do better with them, IDOJ always used a laugh track and the one episode that they didn't use one just seemed unfunny and weird, it didn't feel right when I wanted to laugh because no one was laughing with me. But Dramas and Soaps of course wouldn't be right with them. I think that Comedies need them but some don't need them, I know that doesn't make much since, but personally

I like the Laugh Track

There were shows where the laughter was real with live responses....I Love Lucy, Three's Company, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, All In The Family...and everyone has to know when it's dubbed in such as the laugh tracks on Everybody Loves Raymond and Bewitched. I prefer no laugh track at all unless it's real. However, I think some shows are better off having them. It'd be hard to imagine "Friends" or "Seinfeld" w/o a laughtrack. Remember on M*A*S*H....somtimes they'd have eps w/ the l.t. and some w/o them.

I don't think there is one sitcom today that uses a laugh track. Laugh Tracks are horrible, but they're needed for some comedies like Bewitched and I Dream Of Jeannie, because of the special effects

I don't think any show used a complete laugh track after the 70's. But many, I mean MANY shows used(use) sweeteners. These can even be heard on I Love Lucy, yes I Love Lucy. Anybody whose watched the show for many years can recognize the laugh sweeteners. There was one era in TV where it seemed like all the sitcoms used the same stock sweeteners. These can be heard on episodes of The Cosby Show, Golden Girls, Roseanne, Murphy Brown, Designing Women, Friends(Early Episodes), Family Matters...among others.

And as for Seinfeld, I heard that show only taped in front of a live audience 60% of the time. Which is understandable considering the multiple scene changes.

One more thing. Someone mentioned about laughs being heard when a scene is outside being fake. That is no necesarily true. I've been to a few tapings and here's how that works. There are usually 3 tvs for the audience in the studio. The outside scenes are prerecorded and then shown to the audience where they fit into the story, and the laughter is recorded by microphones above the audience seating area.

Mostly I don't mind laugh tracks as long as they sound real. Like in Bewitched, I thought they used clips from a show also directed by William Asher, which DID have a live audience (because no special effects were needed) - I Love Lucy.
You can hear it sometimes- like in some episodes, an "uh-oh" from Deedee Ball, Lucy's mother, is noticeable.

Comparing it to the modern laugh tracks on, say, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, all of the "laughter" sounds really fake and monotonous.

There are some episodes of BW that don't have laugh tracks at all, and I didn't really notice it until somebody pointed it out. But I still thought it was funny :lol:

Comparing laugh tracks to the former audio/visual mode of entertainment, the movie theater: An audience was already there, reacting to whatever was on the screen, making the viewer feel they, too, COULD laugh without feeling alone (or boo, or cheer, or throw stuff....):crazy: