Canned Laughter Has Passed Its Expiration Date, Ctd

Scarface finally gets the laugh track it deserves: A reader writes: Regarding your canned laughter thread; it’s likely that only those who live in California’s Central Valley will remember that Fresno, the mini-series starring Carol Burnett, was aired twice, originally in 1986 without a laugh track and again in 1989 with canned laughter “added so … Continue reading Canned Laughter Has Passed Its Expiration Date, Ctd

Canned Laughter Has Passed Its Expiration Date, Ctd

A reader provides some great professional insight to the thread: After reading the Dish for a couple of years and subscribing this year, I was pretty excited to see a thread that I had some knowledge of. One of the reasons that I read the blog is the seemingly endless reader expertise on almost any subject.  Even though expertise is not … Continue reading Canned Laughter Has Passed Its Expiration Date, Ctd

Canned Laughter Has Passed Its Expiration Date, Ctd

A reader sends the above video: Someone hates “The Big Bang Theory” so much that they used this clip from Annie Hall and superimposed the image from the show onto the TV monitor. Another reader: There is a good point to be made here, but this article seems to use the term “laugh track” like … Continue reading Canned Laughter Has Passed Its Expiration Date, Ctd

Canned Laughter Has Passed Its Expiration Date

Kera Bolonik puzzles over the ongoing use of laugh tracks in sitcoms, noting that “fake laughter is like a fake orgasm — it’s not infectious”: In fact, we’ve had them imposed on us since the fifties, when sound engineer Charley Douglass started “sweetening” the audio, inserting laughs at failed jokes, editing down yuks that went on too long, … Continue reading Canned Laughter Has Passed Its Expiration Date