Quote: David Carmon @ March 18 2010, 1:37 PM GMTThe overnight figures are in and it got........
5.9 million!
Yes, well there are a lot of uneducated peasants in this country... 
(Sorry if this - unintentionally - makes me sound like one of those comedy snobs we're always hearing about, whom I personally despise. I prefer to think of myself as a shameless bigot.)
Quote: Geffers @ March 18 2010, 12:47 PM GMTCount me in as a liker of this. Could do without the fake audience - it sounded fake anyhow, it seems archaic to have audience and fake audience laughter in comedies these days.
Gah! It's all real laughter from a studio audience. I'm not aware of a British show ever having used exclusively canned laughter.
Audience sitcoms with laughter are the best kind.
Quote: Aaron @ March 18 2010, 5:41 PM GMTAudience sitcoms with laughter are the best kind.
As opposed to audience sitcoms without laughter...? 
I knew someone would pick up on that. Should have been equally as certain that it would be you!
I think this was an improvement on the first series.
Even the first series had a talent for what you might call "set-piece visual jokes" - there was a rather good one where the son was sent to school dressed as Elvis when he should have been dressed as an elf - but was let down by some of the limpest dialogue around, and it fell too often into the trap of having one of the children come up with some unbelievable excuse for something, which (i) lacked any form of comedy whatsoever, and (ii) gave the actors very little to work with.
However, the dialogue seemed better this series - if may not have been side-splittiing, but it wasn't unwatchably dire like the last series (with the possible exception of the rather lazy bit in the cinema), and there were still the good visual jokes - the chocolate buttocks for a start.
And Lucinda Dryzek is still very watchable (I'm only about four or five years older than her, by the way, lest that come across a bit dirty old man-ish!).
Quote: Aaron @ March 18 2010, 5:41 PM GMTGah! It's all real laughter from a studio audience. I'm not aware of a British show ever having used exclusively canned laughter.
Audience sitcoms with laughter are the best kind.
It contains real laughter for sure, but the laughter track is 'punched up' by sound engineers to be on the beat and sharper if an audience is too unresponsive.
Quote: freddie gagtella @ March 19 2010, 7:06 AM GMTIt contains real laughter for sure, but the laughter track is 'punched up' by sound engineers to be on the beat and sharper if an audience is too unresponsive.
Bobby Chariot had warmed the audience up as well
I wonder if a show's ever had to sack an audience for not laughing enough. If I turned up to watch this drivel I'd loudly sigh in displeasure at every cliched punchline and cringey bit. Imagine if everyone did that - that would actually make great TV.
And some real distinctive laughs in a good comedy show adds to the fun as well. For example a woman in the audience first Python series falls into hysterics on my than one occasion. She can particularly be heard on the Ministry of Silly walks sketch where she is in howls of happy laughter.
.... and with the risk of going off topic there are some ITV comedies where the canned laughter has been used so much you "learn" it. There's one specific bit, usually played very early on in Man about the House/Bless this House etc etc, where there's a downward cadence in some short laughter. I notice it every time.
Quote: youngian @ March 19 2010, 12:48 PM GMTAnd some real distinctive laughs in a good comedy show adds to the fun as well. For example a woman in the audience first Python series falls into hysterics on my than one occasion. She can particularly be heard on the Ministry of Silly walks sketch where she is in howls of happy laughter.
Yeah those Monty Python shows have some great genuine laughers on the audience tracks. Makes it even more fun. I also remember Benny Hill getting in some expert laughers, again usually women. They should be paid royalties mefeels.
Quote: freddie gagtella @ March 19 2010, 7:06 AM GMTIt contains real laughter for sure, but the laughter track is 'punched up' by sound engineers to be on the beat and sharper if an audience is too unresponsive.
Discussion about canned laughter has been done to death on these forums many times, so I won't enter a long debate about it now... just to say though, often the sound engineers actually have to dim the studio audience laughter, rather than the other way around. The reason being, humans naturally laugh louder when part of a group, and obviously there's a warm up stand-up keeping them primed between takes too.
Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ March 19 2010, 9:01 AM GMTI wonder if a show's ever had to sack an audience for not laughing enough. If I turned up to watch this drivel I'd loudly sigh in displeasure at every cliched punchline and cringey bit. Imagine if everyone did that - that would actually make great TV.
Ha ha. Audiences have been known to walk out (for example, BBC Three sitcom Clone) and in a few rare occassions they have had to screen/record some shows twice (can't think of any off the top of my head, Series 1 of Harry & Paul I think?!?) but I'm not aware of an audience voicing its displeasure like that. Life Of Riley was filmed in Glasgow, and they don't get many sitcoms going up there so I presume the audience was quite keen.
Quote: Geffers @ March 19 2010, 2:19 PM GMT.... and with the risk of going off topic there are some ITV comedies where the canned laughter has been used so much you "learn" it. There's one specific bit, usually played very early on in Man about the House/Bless this House etc etc, where there's a downward cadence in some short laughter. I notice it every time.
Admittedly more modern, but was it Frank Skinner who said the laugh track from one of his stand-up shows had been used for a sitcom? He knew because he heard a sliver of his voice at the start of one of the laughs?
Anyway, just to dispel some myths: canned laugher / studio audience noise does exist (the mid-week National Lottery results show for example) but in the case of studio sitcoms I'm not aware of it having been used for many years now... if you're filming a show in a studio, you might as well invite a real audience along too.
Quote: ACUSmember @ March 18 2010, 7:49 PM GMTI think this was an improvement on the first series.
Yeah, to join the defence of Life Of Riley, I thought this opener wasn't too bad. It wasn't brilliant - there were a couple of very lazy gags, but there were a couple of genuine funny moments too. The bit with the babysitter, towards the end of the half-hour, was very funny I thought.
Quote: Mark @ March 20 2010, 5:25 PM GMTon a few rare occassions they have had to screen/record some shows twice (can't think of any off the top of my head, Series 1 of Harry & Paul I think?!?)
The Peter Serafinowicz Show went through some bizarre recording and screening patterns, but as far as I recall, Ruddy Hell! It's Harry And Paul went through just the once.
Why has Caroline Quentin's character got Louis Theroux as a son?
