Comments on: Notes on the Laugh Track

By: Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 03:27:52 +0000

When I went to the Dave Letterman Show for a live taping, they actually gave instructions on the types of laughs they didn’t want to hear (higher pitched [=female?] and woos), and they quite clearly managed audience members into certain spots, not just for the camera but based on where certain mics are. The Daily Show did no such thing, interestingly.

By: michael z newmam

michael z newmam — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:01:33 +0000

Thanks for these comments. I agree that it would be fascinating to study how audience laughter gets into the soundtrack. From my research I have gathered that this is often as much a matter of managing the live audience’s sounds (e.g., getting rid of or toning down excessive laughter or applause) as it is adding simulated sounds. I think we would find that all of the sounds on the soundtrack are in some way managed, and that the idea of authentic response is not all that useful, or rather, that it’s ideological.

One source I especially like is a New Yorker Talk of the Town from Sept. 10, 1984 reporting from a post-production session adding laughter to an episode of Kate & Allie. Among other things, it contains a great description of the various sounds being considered: “applause, cheers, whistles, woos, oohs, uh-ohs, aws, bravos, all rights, yays, stomping, rustling, coughing, and hubbubbing.”

By: Jonathan Gray

Jonathan Gray — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:44:45 +0000

There’s a fascinating production cultures project to be done into how laugh-tracks are managed. When they most annoy me is when I hear such excessive laughter at such a banal thing that I refuse to believe any audience actually found the joke that funny; at those moments, I’m no longer part of an audience, as I’m feeling manipulated (which is not to say I’m not manipulated throughout a show — it’s just that I feel manipulated at these points). So I’d love to see how decisions are made about how often the audience needs to laugh, at what volume, with what distinguishing laughs (ie: is it a male laughter? a female one? old? young? etc.), and who plays a role in that process (do showrunners get involved? is there network pressure to make “more laughs” from a script? etc.).

By: Michael L. Wayne

Michael L. Wayne — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 00:04:32 +0000

Correction — the fifth sentence of the second paragraph should read “In the cultural sense, the laugh track now signifies something different . . .”

Also, references:
Jenkins, Henry. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York, NY:New York University Press.

Livingstone, Sonia. 1999. “New Media, New Audiences?” New Media and Society, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 59-66.

Seiter, Ellen. 1999. Television and New Media Audiences. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

By: Michael L. Wayne

Michael L. Wayne — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 21:44:53 +0000

Professor Newman,

I think you raise some really important issues in this post. In particular, I agree that aversion to the laugh track is dependent on status-based distinction. I also agree that contemporary negative attitudes towards the laugh track are somehow different than the more traditional complaint you describe as insulting to one’s intelligence. Part of this difference, I think, relates to the cultural legitimation of television more broadly and the emergence of elite niche audiences.

Although some of TV’s most beloved classics have laugh tracks, Seinfeld ended more than ten years ago. Consider the following examples: Two and a Half Men (2003–), How I Met Your Mother (2005–), The Big Bang Theory (2007–), The Office (2005-), 30 Rock (2006-), and Modern Family (2009–). In the case of the first three, all are multi-camera shows with laugh tracks (although both Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory are shot in front of a live audience) and quantitatively large audiences. In the case of the last three, all are single-camera shows without laugh tracks, have smaller audiences, and more critical acclaim. In the cultural sense, the laugh track now signifies different than it did during the network era when middle-class Americans with college educations largely distanced themselves from television because of its historical association with uneducated, passive, and feminine audiences (Seiter 1999). In the context of a convergence culture (Jenkins 2006) where television is another category of new media characterized by diversifying forms and contents (Livingstone 1999), middle-class Americans with college educations no longer distance themselves from television entirely, but instead distance themselves from texts not deemed class-appropriate. Perhaps part of the reason the laugh track seems to violate our sense of decorum is that it now seems to insult one’s status as well as one’s intellect.

Mike