tv_talk | Speak Up Saturday

They actually removed MASH's laugh track at a certain point in the US - I think by the third or fourth season, it was gone. (It was standard practice to have a canned laugh track in sitcoms in the 20th Century. Either an audience or a canned laugh track.)

I agree. I can't stand the laugh track. I tried Shifting Gears - and it annoyed me. That was an audience though, still annoying. I can tell it's the audience, because the actors pause and wait like they do in the theater, which makes it even more annoying. Also it's not necessarily natural laughter - they have signs telling the "Studio" audience when to laugh and when to applaud.

That's interesting. I know that I have watched (90s) sitcoms with laugh tracks, but that was before I watched shows in English. I can't find anything on that right now, but maybe the sound mix was different? German typically shows don't have a laugh track. There are (older) shows filmed in front of an audience, but the laughter sounds much more natural, like a genuine audience reaction. I can totally see how they might have toned down the laugh track for the dubbed version.

I think I learned about the existence of these "applause" and "laugh" signs on The Simpsons. I always assumed it was canned laughter because it always sounded the exact same to me and not like something that was captured in the moment.

If you are familiar with it - you can kind of tell the difference? Roseanne and the Connors were a studio audience, as are most of the family sitcoms. Cheers was in front of an audience. All the late night talk shows are, as is Saturday Night Live - that's taped in front of an audience. In the industry they are called single camera shows. I think it is single camera. And actors love it - because it is similar to theater - you have an audience and you have the people on stage. And a camera. Very few American situation comedies are filmed without an audience. Shifting Gears has one for example.

The documentary style ones do not have a studio audience - Abbot Elementary doesn't, The Office didn't.

Animation doesn't - such as The Simpsons.

Dramas are all filmed without an audience. Dramas tend to be multi-camera affairs.

The Bear isn't filmed with any audience and on location for the most part.

Thanks for the in-depth explanation! I remember watching some of Roseanne, but I couldn't tell.

Mike Schur generally seems to forgo the laugh track which I appreciate. I tend to favor his comedies. Honestly, I would not be watching Abbott Elementary if it had a laugh track. I feel that would make the show unfunny to me.

Kevin Can F**k Himself really did job of using the canned laughter to create the sitcom atmosphere vs. the drama side. I really need to watch the second season of that...

Michael Schur's comedies just don't work with it - they appear to be mainly on location or have a documentary style. Also multi-camera.

I don't think they use canned laughter any longer? If it is a show that is post-20th Century and has a laugh track? It's probably a studio audience.

Kevin Can F**k Himself is actually a drama (a rather depressing one). Wikipedia describes it as "The show presents contrasting perspectives of her experience - a typical sitcom wife when Allison is with her husband Kevin, shown with a multiple-camera setup and canned laughter, and as a woman navigating a difficult personal path, filmed in the single-camera setup more common to television dramas." They also desaturate the colors for the drama scenes. In this case it would make no sense to use an audience since that's not even half of the story (the majority are non-sitcom scenes I'd say).

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