The Laugh Track

Oh my god, so much to discuss! The Writer's Strike, Project Runway, Locksley, all the Thanksgiving specials we will soon be enjoying, however, I am putting these issues on hold until I have a little more free time. For now, I want to address something that has recently become a significant topic of debate: the laugh track. First, a little history.

The first known use of a recorded laugh track is said to be in 1950, when the producers of the Hank McCune Show added canned laughter after the show's taping. Until that time, other radio and television comedies either used a live studio audience or no laugh track at all. In 1953, a sound engineer named Charley Douglass invented the Laff Box, a small electronic device containing numerous loops of recorded laughter and applause. The Laff Box provided a laugh track for numerous sitcoms and talk shows during the 1950s and 1960s.

It is rumored that Charley Douglass culled almost all of his laugh track material from in-studio recordings of several different comedy shows, including I Love Lucy ,The Red Skelton Show and various live performances by mime Marcel Marceau. Douglass needed to record all different styles of laughter and applause without the sound of dialogue, so it's very possible that he recorded several of Red Skelton's silent clown performances. If this is true, then audience reactions on a modern sitcom may have actually been recorded over 50 years earlier. (http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-laugh-track.htm)

Interesting! However, this colorful past does not make up for the fact that laugh tracks are lame. However, you should not let the presence of dead mime laughter deter you from watching a good show. I am ecstatic to see that many comedies are sans LT these days, (Curb, Always Sunny, Arrested Development, etc.) but what about Seinfeld? What about Friends? What about How I Met Your Mother? Are they so easily cast aside because you can't block out a little background noise. I know this boy, and I love him because he is obsessed with Harry Potter, and computer games, and math, and Star Trek, but despite all of these wonderful qualities he says "Bag-el" instead of "bay-gel." This is annoying and it stings my ears a little, but I am not going to stop listening to him talk about Mugglenet just because he might be having lox and that-which-must-not-be-named for lunch.

Television shows are still flawed; HBO and illegal downloads aside they still have commercials and annoying pop-ups, but we love them anyway. Interestingly enough, this week's How I Met Your Mother presented a similar message, as the friends' annoying habits came to light and were then accepted in a classic, but not corny, HIMYR conclusion. I was so entertained and elated that I didn't even notice the LT. So, to all you laugh-track snobs out there: get off your mope-box and come sit down on the couch-let us laugh along with all those dead people.

LAUGH NOW- and not Ricky and Lucy in disguise (with diamonds, haha, sorry, had to) laughter, but Mike Seever just made a clever quip laughter.