Laugh Tracks

Actually, this is sort of an anti-argh…you see, I’m in favor of the much-despised laugh-track on a lot of comedy shows.

Let’s jump into the way-back machine, fellow travellers, to a time back in the last millennium; back to when there were only three major networks, most TV shows had 26-30 episode seasons, and there were only eight minutes of commercials per hour instead of eighteen. Here’s the trick: most families only owned one television, and if you watched, you watched together one of the three available offerings. When one of you laughed, it’s likely that most of you laughed. It was all very communal…sort of.

Now, let’s face it, most people watch their programs alone. The other people in your life are either out doing their own thing, or (more likely), they are off in some other area of your abode watching their programs alone. Where’s the sense of community?

That’s where the laugh-track comes in. We are social creatures, for the most part. When we are with a group, we like knowing that we are part of the group–for example, when we laugh, they laugh, too. The laugh track, whether artificial or from a studio audience, let’s us know that when we laugh, we aren’t alone…even if we are.

"But I don’t want to be told what’s funny. If you take out that fake track, I’ll still laugh." Maybe. Truth be told, you probably don’t laugh as much, and probably with less gusto.

I think the real problem isn’t with laugh tracks per se, but with bad laugh tracks. You know what I mean. The heavy-handed use of artificial laughter to cover for the fact that either a joke was funny enough, or not funny at all. I find these situations as annoying as anyone. Not every "joke" warrants five gut-splitting seconds of guffaw. Sometimes all it merits is a 0.1 second "Heh". The suits don’t agree, and therein lies the problem.

Live studio audiences don’t seem to turn-off the no-laugh-track set. They viscerally understand that it’s group participation. It’s the manipulative laugh-track they object to. Well, so do I. Either keep it live, or make it realistic, but don’t throw out the laughter.