http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LaughTrack

The laughers are all dead now.

Robert Freeman, The Boondocks "See? The laugh track tells you what's funny. You don't even need to think!"

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Closed-captioning for the humor-impaired.

In the early days of television, comedies were "traditionally" performed essentially as short plays in front of a live Studio Audience, broadcast live or with minimal editing (see Three Cameras). However, as television production grew more sophisticated in the late 1940s and early 1950s, there was at least a partial shift away from live performances to productions that were filmed movie-style, with a single camera and on a closed sound stage or on location. The latter gave the director more freedom in selecting shots and angles, as well as the luxury of multiple takes. However, there was no longer an audience to provide instant feedback on the humor.

The general opinion of the audience held by television executives then (and some would argue now) was very low. There was serious concern that without an audience to "prompt" the home viewer's responses, a comedy would fall flat. The solution was the creation of the Laugh Track (also known as "canned laughter") — an artificial audience that did nothing but react uproariously to anything and everything.

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Naturally, within a few years of its introduction, it was abused and overused. Every punchline, no matter how lame or subtle, would receive the same tsunami of belly laughs from the virtual audience. It became epidemic, even intruding bizarrely into cartoons (The Flintstones and The Jetsons, anyone?). By the 1960s, it had become an annoying intrusion, hated but (in the minds of most producers) mandatory. In the 1970s, however, most sitcoms began to switch away from the single-camera, movie-style format and back to the multi-camera format with a studio audience providing real laughter, which producers found more pleasing because it had a better comic "rhythm" and helped them write better jokes. By the 1980s, the only hit that still regularly used a laugh track was M*A*S*H (which increasingly dispensed with the device toward the end of its run). And while the Turn of the Millennium saw a resurgence of single-camera comedies in the US, these were influenced by the new wave of British comedies of the 1990s, which omitted laugh tracks completely (leading to some Misplaced Nationalism). Some comedies resorted to the use of certain sound effects that served the same purpose, but as the focus of 2010s-era comedies shifted towards either dramatic or outrageous situations, laugh tracks have seen a decrease in use.

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Although it may not seem so, laugh tracks were surprisingly sophisticated systems at the height of their use. Rather than being just simple recordings of a laughing audience, they were actually carefully generated and mixed, with such discrete components as "the guy who gets the joke early" and "housewife giggles" and "the one who didn't get the joke but is laughing anyway" all precisely blended and reblended to create the illusion of a real audience responding to the show. Up until the late 1970's, these were all the work of one company, owned by Charley Douglass, which used a mysterious machine of his own invention to create those imaginary audiences for hundreds of shows.

A history and analysis of the laugh track can be found on the web here. Cecil Adams' syndicated column The Straight Dope also covered the topic. The Onion is very fond of mocking laugh tracks extensively.

The term "laugh track" is often misapplied to shows that are filmed and later screened to an audience, whose responses are then recorded. This is inappropriate, though, because in these cases the laughter was a genuine response to the humor in the show, and was not pre-recorded... although it's not unheard of for supplemental canned laughter to be inserted afterwards. Sometimes the term is even applied to the existence of a Studio Audience. In fact, studio audience sitcoms tend to get accused of employing "laugh tracks" more than shows that actually do so, because a laugh track tends to be quieter and less noticeable than real live audience laughter. This situation led to many shows, such as Cheers to add a disclaimer either at the beginning or the end of a program: "(Program X) is filmed before a Live Studio Audience".

In some Latin American countries (Argentina, for example), the laugh track is replaced by a crew of off-screen people paid specifically to laugh on command whenever the comedic situation (presumably) merits a laugh; they are known as reidores; a senior laugher signals all the others when to laugh. In Mexico, the Chespirito programs, particularly El Chavo del ocho, had laugh tracks for most of their runs, but in later years this device was dropped, with a disclaimer proclaiming that it was done to respect the audience.

Note that even the shows that record laughter live from an audience (or show pre-recorded material to an audience and record that laughter) will edit, alter, or even add to the laughter in some way, even if (as in most cases) it's just to cover the transition between takes/scenes, using the same techniques used to add true canned laughter.

While some claim the reason for laugh tracks is Viewers Are Morons, in their defense laughing along with everyone else in a group is a very social phenomenon and watching TV can be a very solitary phenomenon. It's not polite to laugh at something that isn't funny, not everyone has a well defined sense of humor (and that doesn't mean they are a moron, either), so the cue can be helpful to some people. One other criticism of laughter tracks is that it creates an enforced No Fourth Wall scenario for every series that features one, continually reminding viewers that that are viewing a performance rather than allowing for immersion into the story and characters (see, for example, M*A*S*H).

Laugh tracks and other uses of recorded laughter can have one interesting benefit in terms of pacing a show. Similar to theater, when the audience laughs, the actors will often pause for the joke to "land" and for the audience to calm back down before continuing. This pause is beneficial in some cases because it prevents dialogue or important details from being missed if the audience is still laughing.

Examples:

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Played Straight:

Comic Books

In American Born Chinese, the Chin-Kee story is meant to resemble a TV comedy—the story even uses canned laughter in the form of "hahahaha" written at the bottom of the panel. The canned laughter is played straight for most of the Chin-Kee story, until near the end when Danny fights Chin-Kee, where the laughter becomes overwhelming.

Films — Live-Action

Literature

Laugh tracks are mentioned in Chuck Palahniuk's Lullaby: "Most of the laugh tracks on television were recorded in the early 1950s. These days, most of the people you hear laughing are dead."

Live-Action TV

Music

Many of Ray Stevens' comedy records featured laugh tracks, such as "The Streak" and "Shriners' Convention." This may be the most egregious use of laugh tracks ever.

Johnny Cash sometimes dubbed applause machines into his songs, most notably "Sunday Morning Coming Down". It's really, really fake-sounding.

Josh Wink's "Don't Laugh" features a laugh sample synchronized to a 303 bassline.

Professional Wrestling

Most Professional Wrestling promotions that produce TV shows make use, to some degree, of "canned heat", which is not so much a Laugh Track as cheer tracks, boo tracks, and sometimes specific chants ("Goooooooooooooldberg... Gooooooooooooooldberg..."). This is generally played over the stadium's PA system, in an attempt to coax the crowd into a given reaction (or, at the very least, fool the audience at home into thinking the crowd are giving a reaction). And it's also handy for importing into video game adaptations.

LVD TV one used the first music clip that had crowd noise Von Dutch could find with the note the original audio was lost.

Radio

The first use of a laugh track on radio was on Bing Crosby's show in the late 1940s. The show was the first to be pre-recorded on tape with the help of a German Magnetophon recorder. One night, comedian Bob Burns threw in a few of his folksy farm stories, which got big laughs but couldn't be broadcast due to their extremely racy and off-color nature. The laughter was salvaged and reused a few weeks later on a show which didn't get a lot of laughs, thus inventing the laugh track.

Video Games

Strangely enough, this trope is also invoked by the Ganbare Goemon series, the most well-known example being in Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon. It works due to the general Camp nature of the games.

The videogame Gekioh: Shooting King has an optional mode that replace all of the game audio with a laugh track.

Scooby-Doo! Night of 100 Frights has one, as a tribute to the original series (see below), even during gameplay. For instance, it usually pops up whenever Scooby accidentally runs into something and bumps his head.

Scooby-Doo: Mystery Mayhem is another Scooby-Doo Licensed Game that uses canned laughter.

Detective Pikachu: While on the set of a Show Within a Show Maximum Music, Tim notices that the show sounds like it has a rowdy audience but there isn't an audience.

Web Videos

Steve D'Monster : The series utilized one beginning in Season Five. Steve lampshades it usage in "2012: A Look Back" (S7), when he opens his Monstrocity News broadcast with: "This is Monstrocity News, the only newsprogram where you can hear the sounds of laughter, other than The Gary Gnu Show ." Subverted in "Steve Vs. Internet Commercialism" (S7), where Steve is constantly interrupted by a series of commercials, which is met with boos and hisses.



Western Animation

Real Life

Perhaps for such reasons, a Canadian show investigated whether a laugh track makes any difference. They played the sound from dry banter on a cop show for random persons on the street, and got some good laughs. They then added a laugh track and went out on the street again, and people laughed much harder. Statistically speaking, probably insignificant, but interesting nonetheless.

Parodies:

Anime and Manga

In this episode of the Puyo Puyo anime, we are first given a message with tells us to laugh when the icon note Suketoudara is that icon. prompts us to. note Followed by a practice in which the laugh is heard twice. Here are all three icon prompts: When Kiki Mora lifts up her sweeper from the sand.

When Kiki Mora's sweeper stops at the water bottle.

During the chase scene.

Comedy

Parodied in a sketch by Alexei Sayle... on a sketch show featuring canned laughter. He explained the technique to the viewing audience as he walked through a field, and complained about its cheapness. He then headed off accusations of hypocrisy (How could he have real viewers in a field?) by revealing a large audience on portable stadium seating.

As early as 1959, radio comics Bob & Ray were satirizing the concept by hauling out a 'laugh machine' (because "we don't feel we're getting the correct response from you [listeners],") then making it roar with joy over a deliberately awful sitcom pilot.

When Mitch Hedberg told a joke that fell flat with the audience on his Strategic Grill Locations CD, he joked that he'd edit in their more uproarious laughter from a previous joke after it.

Comic Books

During the Doom Patrol story with the first appearance of the Men from N.O.W.H.E.R.E., Mr. Jones has a laugh track installed in his house to emulate his "normality". It goes off seemingly at random, coinciding with him stabbing his wife and planning a massacre

Comic Strips

In one strip of Calvin and Hobbes Calvin decides that to liven up his life, he's going to make it more like a TV show, complete with soundtrack and laugh track. His mother's reaction mirrors that of most people on hearing a laugh track.

Fan Works

Films — Live-Action

Literature

Harlan Ellison wrote a story, "Laugh Track," about a woman whose ghost possessed all of the laugh tracks on TV (because her laughter appeared on the tape that was copied to make all of them), and instead of laughing complained loudly about the quality of the shows concerned and television in general.

In Robert Rankin's A Dog Called Demolition, The Shrunken Head pub has a laughter track installed, greeting Danny with gales of laughter,though he can't work out where it's coming from.

The Tines in Vernor Vinge's The Children of the Sky can only communicate with humans by reproducing the sounds of human voices, since their native tongue is The Unpronounceable. But since they can reproduce virtually any audible frequency (and many inaudible ones), they can speak in multiple voices simultaneously or even, Johanna notes, provide their own laugh track.

In Widdershins Adventures, this trope is played for horror by the evil fairie Iruoch, who is constantly accompanied by an invisible choir of children who laugh at his every quip.

Live-Action TV

Music

Radio

One sketch on Dead Ringers suggested adding Barry Cryer's characteristic laughter as a laugh track could make any show sound funny.

Roleplay

Random Assault: Sometimes used for laughs to parody the format of TV sitcoms.

Video Games

In Kirby Super Star Ultra, an unlockable blooper reel features a laugh track. Being the Kirby series, all of the laughter is unintelligible squeaks.

Parodied in on of the chapters of Torin's Passage, where the antagonist visits a typical sitcom house where every spoken line is followed by one of three very recognizable laugh tracks, to the point of any conversation being very long, tedious and frustrating.

The Legend of Kyrandia III: Malcolm's Revenge has what is presumably a parody of this: laughter will often occur after Malcolm's comments, regardless of whether they are intended to be funny. Thankfully, it can be disabled in the options menu.

Paying the Undodog 100 coins in Super Mario Maker 2 causes him to tell a bad Mario-themed joke (Why is the Angry Sun so Angry? Somebody ate all of his desert!) before playing a laugh-track.

Versus Umbra: Discussed. At one point, Adrian watches Just For Fun/Buddies. When Michael calls it one of the terrible shows with a laugh track, Michael responds that the laugh track is an awesome feature as it tells when the show is supposed to be funny.

Web Comics

Web Animation

Web Videos

Western Animation

Exceptions:

Films — Live-Action

Subverted in David Lynch's Rabbits, in which a surreal sitcom whose only dialogue is out-of-order and nonsensical is still punctuated by a laugh track.

Live-Action TV

Puppet Shows

Dinosaurs initially had this, but the makers didn't want it and it was subsequently dropped. Combined with The Simpsons never using one except to subvert it, TV Guide praised both shows back in the day (the early 1990s) for this avoidance.

Western Animation

The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack used this in the episode "Please Retire" and "Under the Sea Monster". Word of God states that this (along with a episode-long "drawn in front of a live audience" gag) is done whenever the crew thinks an episode could have been better, but they didn't have enough time to fix any problems with it.

A Charlie Brown Christmas was supposed to air with a laugh track, a common element of children's cartoons at the time. Charles Schulz objected, maintaining that the audience doesn't need to be cued to laugh. The special was so successful that it completely exterminated the use of a laugh track in animated comedy, nowadays a laugh track is almost never used in Western animation except to make fun of its existence.

the use of a laugh track in animated comedy, nowadays a laugh track is almost never used in Western animation except to make fun of its existence. The 1988 Mighty Mouse episode "Bat With A Golden Tongue" had Mighty Mouse attempting to help Bat-Bat kick his joke-telling addiction. Bat-Bat's last word to the audience was "Just say no to canned laughter" (which was removed at McDonald's insistence) followed by a pan shot to a busted ceiling (caused from an earlier scene) and canned laughter.

Averted in The Alvin Show. Ross Bagdasarian insisted that the show skip the addition of a laugh track, against the wishes of the network. Though there was the sound of clapping that sounded like it came from a recording in "Wild, Irish Rose."

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Web Animation