Comments on: Where do laugh tracks come from?

Question: Where do laugh tracks come from?

twine42 — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 05:16:42 -0800

Where do "laugh tracks" come from? Are they recorded especially or stolen from a genuine performance? Would it be possible to track laugh tracks in the same way that, for example, the Wilhelm Scream has been?

By: sexymofo

sexymofo — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 05:24:38 -0800

A short history of the laugh track.

By: dobbs

dobbs — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 05:43:41 -0800

Harlan Ellison has a short story about an aunt whose laugh is captured on a laugh track and he hears it in show after show years after she's dead. Pretty sure it was fiction, though.

By: piratebowling

piratebowling — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 05:47:05 -0800

In answer to your second question, I know there are some laughs that I recognize from episode to episode in certain shows. What's confusing to me, are the examples I can think of are all filmed live. For example, on I Love Lucy, there is one woman's laugh I would always hear in the background. It caught my ear because it is so melodic and it always followed the same pattern. Similarly, I hear the exact same whistle during applause in episodes of SNL and Kids in the Hall. Again, the whistle has a pattern to it that is very consistent from show to show. What all of this means, I have no idea.

Don't even get me started on stock children's laughter. They often use the same clip, and it drives me insane, since I want to know the story behind it so badly

By: piratebowling

piratebowling — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 05:49:04 -0800

Wait, I see in the link above: Even 'I Love Lucy's sound engineer regularly peppered many of the episodes with a handful of easy-to-recognize laughs.

I guess SNL and KITH also pepper their cheering with that same whistle. That explains why I'd hear a laugh track in with a live show.

By: These Premises Are Alarmed

These Premises Are Alarmed — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 05:59:39 -0800

The Business had some coverage on this recently.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 06:09:36 -0800

I used to have an entire vinyl album full of crowds laughing and cheering -- about 60 tracks, all maybe 15-20 seconds. We'd put it on and stand around and tell bad jokes in the space between tracks. Good times. It's typical sound-effect stuff, I'm sure available by the metric ton on CD these days.

By: vytae

vytae — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 07:51:46 -0800

I was at the live taping of a show once as a child (Newton's Apple on PBS, if anyone cares), and part of the time between bits of taping the actual show, they recorded laugh tracks from us. Some guy would tell us to laugh a little, now laugh a lot, now laugh like it's the funniest thing ever, now tone it down a bit. I always assumed they added bits of that track in when necessary during the editing of the show. I guess part of it was that the studio audience was comprised of maybe 30-40 people, but I remember thinking it looked like several bleachers-full when watching the show on TV. So maybe they played our laugh track OVER our real laughter, to improve the illusion that there was a large crowd in attendance.

By: the luke parker fiasco

the luke parker fiasco — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 07:51:54 -0800

NPR's "wait wait ... don't tell me!" had a bit this week about how groucho marx made the comment "i like my cigar, but i take it out every once in a while" to a woman who explained that her love for her husband was the reason she had so many children. as the tale goes, the exchange was cut from the broadcast version of whatever show it was, but the response laughter was retained and used for laugh tracks afterward.

not terribly enlightening, but an amusing story.

By: bink

bink — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 09:06:33 -0800

There was one laugh I remember distinctly from childhood as being used in lots of shows I watched (Brady Bunch type stuff)... a man's voice with deep raspy ascending hoo-hoo-hoo. I'd love to have a sound file of that.

By: Oriole Adams

Oriole Adams — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 11:04:42 -0800

The familiar I Love Lucy laugh may well have been Lucille's mom, DeDe Ball, who attended every taping of the show. Hers is the "uh-oh" often heard when a precarious situation arose on the show.

By: smcniven

smcniven — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 12:13:50 -0800

On M*A*S*H, there was always this yuk yuk yuk voice on the laugh track. Kinda deep sounding, but always recognizable.

By: IndigoRain

IndigoRain — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 12:16:31 -0800

I know there are both a baby's laugh and a baby's cry that I've heard in various shows.

By: Zed_Lopez

Zed_Lopez — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 15:07:01 -0800

A Google Answer.

By: magikker

magikker — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 16:49:32 -0800

I heard from my uncle that they came from some of Red Skeletons pantomime bits.