https://www.hastingstribune.com/ap/entertainment/television-q-a-were-odd-couple-at-odds-with-laugh-track/article_faf85f0f-51a8-596e-8230-5c38ed7fd4e6.html


Q: I used to watch “The Odd Couple.” One season Jack Klugman and Tony Randall both threatened to quit over the use of laugh tracks. The network agreed to run an experiment with a future episode. Before airing that episode I believe it was Jack Klugman who acted as a narrator to explain to that night's audience that the episode would run without a laugh track. He then urged viewers to contact the network. I never was able to learn what viewers' responses were, but shortly afterward there was an announcement added prior to broadcasting each show that it was "being filmed before a live audience." My problem is that when I talk about it no one seems to know about it and think that I am making it up. I would appreciate your help in uncovering any information.

A: In his memoir “Tony and Me: A Story of Friendship,” Klugman recalls the show starting in 1970 with a single-camera approach with a laugh track, that most of the episodes that way “stunk” and the series was about to be canceled. Randall and Klugman lobbied ABC to let them do a three-camera show with a studio audience, “real people and real laughter.” Randall and Klugman then called “almost every newspaper in America” to ask readers to say how they hated the laugh track. The result was almost 300,000 letters, Klugman said, ABC permitting a shift to a studio audience and the now-energized show continuing its run.

83% of viewers said they hated the laugh track.

Who Knew? ABC Asked Viewers If They Liked The Odd Couple's' Laugh Track (https://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=285807)

Even though the ratings weren't spectacular for the remainder of the show's run, The Odd Couple was a much better sitcom with a live audience.

The same thing occurred when Happy Days debuted. The first season and a half was filmed like The Odd Couple but when they switched to the three camera setup with a live audience and focused more on Fonzie, the show became a huge hit.

It was kind of a strange thing: most of the better early sitcoms were done in front of audiences. During the 60s, the purely mechanical laugh track chipped away until Lucy's later shows the only popular ones being done before an audience. Bill Cosby did his without any laugh track at all, and The Odd Couple, Room 222, and My World and Welcome to It experimented with no or a reduced laugh track.

Then - BOOM! Mary Tyler Moore, All in the Family, Sanford and Son came out. The Odd Couple switched sides, and live audiences prevailed for the next two or three decades

I Love Lucy pioneered the muticam/audience setup, and I've read someplace cinematographer Karl Freund solved a few problems related to that format. Desilu's Our Miss Brooks and Danny Thomas's sitcom followed (lasting 11 seasons), as did the single season of The Honeymooners. Two other popular single camera early sitcoms were played to an audience for responses: The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet (14 seasons) and The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show (6 filmed seasons).

All in the Family pioneered the mulkticam, videotaped format. Sometimes it and possibly others using that format taped without an audience, and played back to an audience for responses (I remember Carroll O'Connor announcing that format over the closing credits, in later episodes).

Some more recent single camera sitcoms, such as The Middle, opted to skip the laugh track and playback for audience responses.