![]() ![]() Just watched "the IT crowd" - great show ruined by canned laughter. Who actually coined the phrase "canned laughter"?Ĭanned laughter is so idiots know where to laugh. In a way, it's a mild form of mind control. I think laugh tracks are designed to teach people about what is funny. The producers may have used studio laughter recorded during an earlier take, so in a sense it was still a canned (recorded) laugh track. Seeing Fonzie crash through Arnold's window on his motorcycle may have been funny the first time, but not the fifth time after the set was rebuilt. The only problem would be getting the audience to react the same way take after take. These were mostly recorded during comedy shows in the early to mid 1950s, so TV audiences in the 70s were still hearing the reactions of people watching the Red Skelton show or “I Love Lucy.” If the show announced that it was recorded in front of a live audience, however, most of the reactions were genuine. Sometimes a minor joke only deserved some polite giggles, while a big sight gag would get a longer and louder burst of guffaws and screams. It is a contemptible practice.Ī really talented laugh track operator could select from a list of different types of audience responses and make it sound fairly natural. This is why the Simpsons is so much funnier than shows that use canned laughter. Take away the time spent on commercials and the time taken up with canned laughter and there's not much left of the 30 or 60 minutes of the program. There have been many examples of this, largely during the 1990s.Ĭanned laughter is a scam in that it allows the production to get away with delivering less product. The only time where you can outright tell it isn't real laughter these days is if it's in an animated program.Ĭanned laughter very often tries to make up for a weak script. This is how it is in most of the series that you've decided use canned laughter. It's filmed in front of a live studio audience whose reactions are recorded to fill in and compensate for the pauses that are caused by actors having to wait for people to stop laughing. The IT crowd doesn't use canned laughter. I wonder how to stop that mediocre stupidity, and why all the shows are doing that too? I would like to see some shows decide not to do it, just to be free minded, independent, and show everybody is not a copy cat. I cannot watch a show with a laugh track. ![]() Go see it.It's like in Annie Hall when Woody Allen says Max is adding a laugh track because the show is not funny. All in all, Atkinson really carried this entire project on his shoulders and while I am not a fan of all his work, I cannot deny that this one is quite impressive for a man way before the age of 30, especially as he also wrote the entire thing on his own. The action here takes us into the bedroom, out to the street, into a fancy restaurant and Atkinson makes the most of these situations by delivering his usual comedy routine paired with a great deal of socially awkward actions and reactions. But they probably should have done without the laugh track that is annoying, even when it is not too loud, which luckily it isn't most of the time. Anyway, at this point Atkinson is already good enough to carry it on his own and he is the main reason ehy this is worth checking out. "Canned Laughter" is a British comedy short that runs for slightly under half an hour and here we got an early career effort by director Geffrey Sax and an even earlier career effort by Rowan Atkinson as this was apparently his very first on-screen appearance, but still he is the man at the center of it all playing all kinds of different characters in costume and that's also why I would not call it a Mr. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |