Sitcoms without the laughter

December 28, 2006 10:46 AM

Are there videos of typical sitcoms that use canned laughter without the laugh track?

Something on the order of Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, or older shows where the comedy is highly dependent on the canned laughter.

posted by destro to media & arts (10 comments total)

The official DVD release of Sledge Hammer! is presented without the laugh track.
posted by jozxyqk at 10:52 AM on December 28, 2006

The DVDs of M*A*S*H allow you to watch the show with or without the laugh track.
posted by Robot Johnny at 10:54 AM on December 28, 2006

Also, the "Xtended" versions they did of a few Series 7 Red Dwarf episodes lack the laughtrack -- and boy did Series 7 rely on canned laughter!
posted by jozxyqk at 10:59 AM on December 28, 2006

Typical sitcoms like the shows you listed are filmed in front of a live audience. They might punch up the laughter afterwards if the real audience didn't measure up, but there is no version without the audience sounds.

(OTOH, something like Sports Night that has no audience should be available totally laughter free.)
posted by smackfu at 10:59 AM on December 28, 2006

I went to see a taping of Veronica's closet a number of years ago. (Not my favorite show, it was just something to do.) Most of the laughter from the "audience" came from PAs who laughed as hard as they could at even the worst jokes.
posted by about_time at 11:02 AM on December 28, 2006

If I recall correctly, the 'Get a Life' DVDs feature episodes that can be watched with or without the laughtrack.
posted by box at 11:13 AM on December 28, 2006

The Get A Life DVDs are even weirder, box, in that the audio seems to be largely unmixed, and you can often hear the off-camera laughter of David Mirkin (the director and producer of several episodes). It's like watching an amateur movie your buddies made with professional equipment.
posted by incomple at 11:41 AM on December 28, 2006

Are there videos of typical sitcoms that use canned laughter without the laugh track?

Not sure what you mean here. "Canned laughter" and "laugh track" are synonyms for laughter added in post-production, like foley sound effects.

Typical sitcoms like the shows you listed are filmed in front of a live audience.

This is true, and also keep a few other things in mind:

* The laughter on set is for the performers to play off of, not to create actual recordings for broadcast.
* Comedians will warm up the audience before the show starts and during lull periods.
* There are lots of "applause" and "laughter" signs on the set to direct the audience.
* The audience is deliberately instructed to react loudly and boisterously. If you're not reacting appropriately, you'll be asked to leave the audience.

Married With Children and M*A*S*H are examples of sit-coms that weren't taped in front of a live audience. It's cheaper to go without an audience, and many low-end sitcoms save money this way (or, in the case of M*A*S*H, it was because of the large number of outdoor shots).

Gotta tell you, it is absolutely bizarre to see the taping of a sit-com without an audience. The actors "hold for laughter" between the designated punchlines in complete silence, and all laughs are added in post.
posted by frogan at 4:28 PM on December 28, 2006

The TV show Scrubs uses a cinematically-sound one-camera setup for the show. It avoids a laughtrack entirely, and just lets the at-home audience do the laughing themselves. However, one episode in Season 4, the main character JD imagines what his life/the show would be like if it were a sitcom.

Here's Scrubs as a sitcom, via YouTube. Hard to watch, because the unfamiliar format adds a new shallowness to every aspect of the show. But definitely an interesting experiment, especially with the canned laughter.
posted by Milkman Dan at 6:02 PM on December 28, 2006

Are there videos of typical sitcoms that use canned laughter without the laugh track?

Not sure what you mean here. "Canned laughter" and "laugh track" are synonyms for laughter added in post-production, like foley sound effects.

destro means "I forgot a comma."

:-)

"Are there videos of typical sitcoms that use canned laughter, [but] without the laugh track?"

Whicih question has been answered reasonably well, I thought, though I didn't know about the MASH thing. Is that true on the individual seasons too, or just the Big Box Set that just came out?

(And note that only the first 6 seasons of MASH *had* canned laughter on them...^.)
posted by baylink at 9:21 PM on December 28, 2006