enRoute


	ENROUTE TV ENROUTE FM MEDIA KIT AIR CANADA LINKS WRITERS' GUIDELINES

IS THE LAUGH TRACK REALLY THAT FUNNY?

Text: CHRIS JOHNS

1 | 2 | APR

Fade-in... A man is sitting on his couch when His wacky neighbour bursts in. "Workin’ hard, Dan?" asks the neighbour. (Some slight chuckling of both genders dominated by what sounds like a heavy-set man in his late 40s.) "Hardly workin’," replies Dan with a heavy sigh. (Paroxysms of laughter, punctuated by applause, diminishing to sporadic but still potent patches of isolated giggles.) Fade-out...

If the above scenario is your idea of gut-busting, knee-slapping, hilarious good times, then you are a) easily amused; b) the kind of person who thinks asking "Hot enough for ya?" is a regular laugh riot; or c) starved for entertainment.

Most of us, however, have heard such "jokes" a thousand times before, so they no longer inspire any mirth – if they ever did. And yet, television has been subsisting on similar fare for decades. Without the unwelcome intervention of the laugh track, would anyone still be laughing?

It is shocking that in our postmodern, media-savvy age, the laugh track continues to dominate television. Universally abhorred, it made Time magazine’s on-line edition of "The 100 Worst Ideas of the Century," narrowly edging out leisure suits and Crystal Pepsi. As cultural critic Paul Krassner once wrote, "Canned laughter is the lowest form of fascism." Every time I see a program with a laugh track I feel violated. Its very existence is an insult to my intelligence. It is a wicked device used as a panacea for feeble bons mots and wooden acting. It has allowed Bob Saget to have a career.

Laughter is infectious, but canned laughter is malignant. American television executives wondered why their autumn 2003 lineups were received with such abysmal ratings. Competition from diversions like the Internet, text messaging and video games is one reason, sure, but the bigger issue is with the quality of the programs being offered. Sitcoms, in particular, have become utterly banal with their ubiquitous repetition of the same old jokes, plots and characters. Writing for sitcoms must be the easiest job in the world. This sorry state of affairs is possible thanks to that simple but insidious device known as the laugh track.

Simply being irritating isn’t enough for the laugh track. No, it has to be creepy too. Many were recorded in the 1950s and ’60s, and in some cases, the disembodied laughter we hear comes from the voices of long-departed studio audience members. The television show Frasier, for example, uses a lot of vintage laugh tracks. (Would the original audience even understand some of today’s humour?) It is time to let these people rest in peace. They no longer breathe. I’m pretty sure they stopped laughing long ago.

1 | 2 | APR