Laugh Track

[The People's Peep]

A laugh track, also known as canned laughter, is a sound track containing artificial laughter usually used in television. You might hear it in your favorite show. But is it a good thing?

Some funny shows that use a laugh track are How I Met Your Mother, That 70's Show, and many older shows. Recently, shows have scrapped the laugh track. Some of these shows include Scrubs, Its Always Sunny, Arrested Development, and The Office.

What are your feelings about the laugh track? Do like when shows use it? Do you feel that it enhances or worsens your viewing experience?

 

[FitFinlay4Life]

I think it depends on how a laugh track is incorporated - How I Met Your Mother is shown to a live audience so the track is somewhat genuine, push button laugh tracks are often blatantly false and detract from the program (and occasionally parodied in shows like the Simpsons). If laughter is incorporated, I prefer the old Cheers staple of filming in front of a live crowd (as Carla normally informed us every week).

 

[The Jabroni]

I think the laugh track is tacky. It's corny. It's cheesy. It's hackneyed.

Like Finlay said, if it's a live audience, then it's okay, because it's genuine. However, in most cases, it's just pre-recorded chuckles inserted into the places where you're *supposed* to laugh. It's almost as if the show doesn't have faith in its jokes and assumes that they won't be well received unless the viewer is told when something is (meant to be) funny.

 

[Richard]

I'm impartial to canned laughter really.

It doesn't bother me when I watch How I Met Your Mother and it's there but on the other side it is different when I watch Scrubs and there isn't any. I think it really depends on the show. Something that's more of a sitcom, like HIMYM should generally use it as I think a sitcom without canned laughter would just look funny but where as I don't think shows like Scrubs need it as I think it would just be awkward because Scrubs isn't a sitcom in the sense that HIMYM is, it's just mostly following JD's life and I think since JD sometimes narrates it, it would seem out of place to have the canned laughter.

Edit: Also, with the office, some of it's humor comes from characters like Dwight trying to be serious. Now if Dwight was trying to be serious and we heard canned laughter, we wouldn't be able to take Dwight so seriously (even though we know he's not to be taken seriously) in the context of his character. The lack of it can add to the impact of the lines.

So, it just depends on the show. Traditional sitcoms, then yes, I think they should have it. It just fits.

 

[Nate DaMac]

I honestly never notice it until it's pointed out to me. I never realized that How I Met Your Mother utilized the Laugh track until my old lady pointed it out to me the other day. I don't think it really takes away from the program unless it genuinely sucks ass. For instance, Mike and Molly. Lame jokes followed by a laugh track just makes that lame joke even lamer. In HIMYM, I'm usually laughing with it, so I don't even notice.