Laugh tracks · 2:44am Jan 16th, 2013
John August complains that writing comedy for feature films is harder than writing comedy for TV, because TV has a laugh track (or a live studio audience--same thing for my purposes here). In film, straight-up jokes, the kind you'd think would be easiest, can fall flat because no one laughs.
So why don't the kind of cartoons that are just one joke after another have laugh tracks? I saw a Genndy Tartakovsky cartoon today, "The Justice Friends", that had a laugh track. It was creepy and freaky to hear a laugh track in a cartoon, and obliterated what little humor that cartoon started with.
Why is that? Is it just what we're used to? Or are the kinds of humor used in cartoons, sitcoms, and movies fundamentally different?
ADDED: A lot of people have said what they dislike or like about laugh tracks, but what I want to know is: What is the difference between how jokes work in live action, and how they work in animation, that makes laugh tracks work in live action, but not in animation? I want to know so I can write better animation scripts.
I really dislike laugh tracks.
716354 yeah, same here, they're more of a 'what the producers and/or the studio audience find funny' rather then what I the viewer find funny, so yes for me they decrease the funniness of lines/actions because the funniness is made apparent, I can't really explain it very well
716380
A laugh track is not the studio audience. A laugh track is pre-recorded. It's what the producers THINK the audience should find funny. Aside from that being a mite condescending, it also has the ability to be very wrong. Nothing like watching a show and the "audience" laughing at something not even remotely funny. I despise laugh tracks, and they are almost never used anymore, mainly because few other like them either. For a time, sitcoms actually had a disclaimer at the beginning saying they were filmed in front of a live audience so people wouldn't think the show had a laugh track. (The Odd Couple is an example of such a sitcom.)
Define "cartoon". Are we talking about animated shows generally (MLP:FiM clearly isn't one joke after another), or some subset of animated shows, or specifically the Looney Tunes style gag shorts?
Because when you said cartoons don't use laugh tracks, my first reaction was, "Welp, guess I'm the oldest equine in the room, seeing as how nobody else has mentioned The Flintstones. Or for that matter, Scooby Doo."
(See also. That article makes the interesting observation that even sitcoms have been stepping away from laugh tracks since y2k. There are definitely some generational changes here.)
716430 I've heard that few sitcoms have an 'over enthusiastic studio audience' like the Big Bang Theory (god, I hate that show), so that's where the 'laugh track' comes from, just looked it up, Big Bang Theory has a live audience laugh track, which is 'sweetened' post production
I think part of it is pacing in comedy. You really don't want line #2 to follow too quickly after line #1 if they're both funny, so a laugh track puts in a brief pause where you *can* laugh, without missing what's going to be said next. I've had them beaten into my tiny little brain so much during the 70s and 80s, that I could tune them out in a Presidential Debate (which really does need a laugh track).
716489
Almost as bad, but at least with a live audience, it's people who actually find the joke funny.
The term laugh track originates back in the 50's I think. The actual reason for pre-recorded laugh tracks was, literally, that the producers didn't think the audience would laugh when they were supposed to. Yup, executives thought the audience was THAT stupid.
716445
Most Hanana Barbara cartoons really. It REALLY bothered me, even as a kid. (Cartoon Network, yo.)
Just spitballing here. Part of the reason might be that they started including humor that children wouldn't find all that funny for the parents in the room? Most of the cartoons I can remember watching in the 90s had lots of jokes and references that would just sail over children's heads for the most part, shows like Rocko's Modern Life and Animaniacs (I was a year or two young for Ren and Stimpy, but that one as well). Kids don't notice them, but put a laugh track in and they might start wondering what the laughs are for (and depending on the show and joke the parent gets to have an awkward conversation explaining things).
And this is way before my time, but didn't cartoons in the 80s start to move into more of an adventure settings as opposed to the procession of gags? Stuff like He-Man, Transformers, Smurfs, and some other show aimed at young girls that the name of which escapes me at the moment. Laugh tracks don't really go well with that kind of show.
716547
> and some other show aimed at young girls that the name of which escapes me at the moment
Rainbow Brite?
... Jem and the Holograms?
Wait, give me a minute, I'm sure I've got this, it's right at the tip of my horn.
716547>>716445 Interesting point, Windfox. Re. non-comedy, I meant only the kinds of cartoons that you'd expect to have laugh tracks. Not Transformers, not My Little Pony.
Just a side-note to say that, in my opinion, the laugh track on "Justice Friends" is a tongue-in-cheek gag (the whole cartoon is a satire of sitcoms with laugh tracks.) I don't think it was because the creators were earnestly hoping that the laugh track would be more effective.
That all having been said, some cartoons do have the laugh track presented non-ironically. "Rocky and Bullwinkle" was interesting in that a few episodes near the beginning were presented with a laugh track, a practice which died out as the show went on. And the DVD releases saw even those few laugh tracks edited out. So you're not alone, I think.
716380
It makes me feel like I am lazy. Like I don't need to bother finding what I'm watching funny because the tv will find it funny for me.
So, laugh tracks didn't originate because producers thought the audience was stupid; they originated because they thought the audience wouldn't want to laugh alone. I suspect that laugh tracks have gone out of style because audiences now don't mind being the only person in the room laughing, when they're the only person in the room..
I'm not a fan of laugh tracks myself, but they do serve their purpose either in live action or in animation.
I think that it is really easy for a laugh track to shatter suspension of disbelief, but in any self-aware or satiric show that's moot.
Isn't a laugh track's purpose to help the audience laugh? People are more likely to laugh with other people laughing. It can even become a lovely pavlovian training exercise as the audience becomes attuned to when and how the writers intend them to find the show funny.
Did Space Ghost: Coast to Coast have laugh tracks? Harvey Birdman? I can't remember....
For shows I watch by myself, I find it creepy, but anything I watch in a group it is pretty helpful for group dynamics (whether thats good or bad, YMMV).