Can laugh tracks make comedies funnier?

Irish Guitarist

I'm watching Red Dwarf on Netflix. While I've never exactly rolled around the floor with laughter watching it usually I've always found it at least mildly amusing. Now I'm on series seven which I don't think I ever saw on television. Neither the first or the third episodes have laugh tracks (I haven't gotten to the others yet). I don't find these episodes in any way funny. I genuinely can't figure out if the laugh tracks in the previous series were making them seem funnier than they were or if the jokes in this series just aren't funny. Having said that I didn't like the first two series either so maybe it just is that the jokes aren't as good.

This isn't just about Red Dwarf though. Do you think a comedy with a laugh track somehow makes jokes seem funnier? I've seen a few comedy clips on YouTube with the laughter track removed and it did seem completely different. I'm not sure if that's from the laugh track removal as such or if it's just that it leaves behind an awkward silence where the laughs used to be.

Apiarist

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

Do you think a comedy with a laugh track somehow makes jokes seem funnier? I've seen a few comedy clips on YouTube with the laughter track removed and it did seem completely different. I'm not sure if that's from the laugh track removal as such or if it's just that it leaves behind an awkward silence where the laughs used to be.

You are right that removing the laugh track just leaves an awkward silence.

I think that a laugh track tries to emulate an audience feedback to a gag in a stand-up comedy setting. A comedian would say something, then pause for the audience to get the joke and laugh, then move on to the next gag. If you remove the laughter from the audience, then you need to replace with music or a feedback from other actors, otherwise he gag is wasted.

I do not think that a laugh track makes series funnier, but without it series would have to be made in a different way.

S.M.B.

Slate have launched a new podcast that deals with cultural mysteries and the first episode is about what happened to the laugh track. It's well worth a listen.

Decoder Ring: The Laff Box

It's main purpose in the first place was when new TV viewers were not used to being entertained in the comfort of their own home without being surrounded by an audience. The laugh track was added to make watching a TV show by yourself feel more 'natural'. Obviously we no longer need that as we are so used to digesting our entertainment by ourselves.

I agree with the above comment which says that simply removing it from an existing show would make it feel odd but a show would be just as funny if made without one.

silverharp

speeding anything up with Benny Hill music does

Psychsearch

Yeah, research has found that we're more likely to laugh at jokes in the presence of laughter from others!

HydroTendonMan

There is a great episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia about this where they secretly record two old women living together and add a laugh track to turn it into a sit-com.

Well worth a watch, it's season 12 episode 3.

I think it is impossible to say if they make shows funnier because shows that have them are written for them and directed with a laugh track in mind. You could never put a laugh track on Modern Family for instance.

brevity

I think it depends on the type of sitcom.

Something like Scrubs never had a laugh track and it always seemed like it was a show that should have had one but it never needed it.

Friends is a funny show, especially the earlier episodes but the jokes are deliberately written and delivered with a pause for audience laughter.

Mutant z

No it makes it all appear cringy and forced like the obvious canned laughter on the likes of The Big Bang Theory.

Mutant z

Curb Your Enthusiasm doesnt have a laugh track yet ive never had any problem with laughing at its humourous scenes in fact its funnier than most comedies with laugh tracks that sound so obviously fake its the humour of a show in general that makes it funny not silly background laughing.

pixelburp

I'm so used to my favourite sitcoms NOT having any laugh tracks (eg, Good Place, People of Earth, Parks & Rec, Arrested Development, New Girl, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt to name a few), that going back and watching one with canned laughter is a huge turn-off for me.

Obviously scripts with and without canned laughter vary in their approach - not least that the former tends to have more ostensible 'gags' or jokes that are set up for an audience response - but I'm just so used to the smooth, pacy glide of a funny script that the presence of "here you laugh now" moments just come off very obtrusive.

brevity

Mutant z wrote: »

No it makes it all appear cringy and forced like the obvious canned laughter on the likes of The Big Bang Theory.

That show is an abomination though. I'm sure they had to stop showing it in US prisons, something about cruel and unusual punishment...

Joe_ Public

Irish Guitarist wrote: »

I'm watching Red Dwarf on Netflix. While I've never exactly rolled around the floor with laughter watching it usually I've always found it at least mildly amusing. Now I'm on series seven which I don't think I ever saw on television. Neither the first or the third episodes have laugh tracks (I haven't gotten to the others yet). I don't find these episodes in any way funny. I genuinely can't figure out if the laugh tracks in the previous series were making them seem funnier than they were or if the jokes in this series just aren't funny. Having said that I didn't like the first two series either so maybe it just is that the jokes aren't as good.

This isn't just about Red Dwarf though. Do you think a comedy with a laugh track somehow makes jokes seem funnier? I've seen a few comedy clips on YouTube with the laughter track removed and it did seem completely different. I'm not sure if that's from the laugh track removal as such or if it's just that it leaves behind an awkward silence where the laughs used to be.

In relation to Red Dwarf, one of my favourite tv shows ever, I'd say the S7 opener is quite possibly the weakest single episode of the entire show, and that includes some really iffy ones later on. It just doesnt work and dont think a laughter track would add anything to assist it. Series 7 is a bit weak over all though it gets better towards the end, the episode where Lister gets struck by the virus is particularly great. Strange thing is, I've watched Red Dwarf over and over and never really occurred to me about the laughter tracks or absence of them until you mentioned it just now. If they have an effect at all, it's certainly not conscious on my part.

donegal.

the big bang theory is one desperately unfunny show

the whole year inn

Seinfeld,Cheers, Frasier all laugh tracks it's just a sitcom for me. They all could have been done with out the laugh track I'm sure and jokes still land.I d guess it's easier with a laugh track .

meep

There's a really interesting analysis of the rise, decline and fall of The Simpsons here;

It's lengthy but at 8:20, he spends about 2 minutes analysing the layered nature of classic Simpsons writing and juxtposes this with the sit com approach of the time that relied heavily on canned laughter.

The point being, it's just not as simple as removing the laughter track, the track (or lack of) is integrated into the writing and performance so much.

seamus

brevity wrote: »

Something like Scrubs never had a laugh track and it always seemed like it was a show that should have had one but it never needed it.

It did however frequently have sound effects, swooshing noises and other hard breaks after a piece of funny dialog - equivalent to a ba-dum-tish. So it too used tricks to "tell" the audience when to laugh.

Friends is a funny show, especially the earlier episodes but the jokes are deliberately written and delivered with a pause for audience laughter.

This. When you're watching shows with live audiences, you can even see the actors go to speak, then wait for the laughter to die down before delivering their next line.
The video in the OP actually appears to have had the laughter cut out (i.e. audio & video) instead of just muted. This also affects delivery of the comedy, the timing has been ruined.

There's a good list here of comedies without laugh tracks:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_situation_comedies_without_laugh_tracks

It seems pretty obvious from the list that it started with adult cartoons, probably because sitcom writers didn't know how to deliver comedy without the laugh track. Or studio execs were reluctant to do so. But cartoons never had laugh tracks, so they weren't worried about the Simpsons or South Park. It took a couple of really popular pioneering sit coms to prove that it could work.

If you look at how much laugh tracks have gone out of fashion in the last decade particularly, our kids will look at old shows and find the laugh tracks really cheap and antiquated.