That sounded a little more blunt than it was intended...

Laughter tracks 'evolved' (or perhaps rather, just came into being) because the first TV shows were, as I'm sure you know, literally just stage productions with a few cameras in between the audience and the performers. It was the only thing people knew, coming to this new medium of TV (and indeed radio before it) from music hall, and it was judged to help recreate that jovial group atmosphere. I think most people would acknowledge it's easier to laugh, and laugh harder, when in a big group who are also laughing. But, eh, reams have been written on this. I could have sworn that James Cary wrote a very good breakdown of it recently over at the 'sitcomgeek' blog, but I can't find it now...

I like laughter tracks on traditional, studio sitcoms. I don't think they'd work on one of those modern, trendy sitcoms like Peep Show though. Saying that, it never bothered me on Operation Good Guys and that was a mockumentary beastie.

It works for some shows the whole laughter track thing. And some shows are better without it. Shows like Red Dwarf, The Brittas Empire, The Detectives, etc. These shows work well with the laughter track. But take the laughter track out of those shows for any amount of episodes and it will ruin it. OFAH and Red Dwarf have done it and it's poor without the laughter track. Having it in there adds a little to the overall comedy atmosphere. But a show like say Trailer Park Boys wouldn't work well with the laughter track at all. It would ruin it completely. Infact I don't know if mentioning Trailer Park Boys in here counts since it's the British Comedy forum.

They are great, unless they've been hiked up, as Reggie's was. In that In With The Flynns, it was awful, too. They are becoming too artificial sounding now, too messed around with. Stop over producing shows and leave the laugh track as it was at the recording.

FT and Porridge were great, partly because they had natural sounding laugh tracks. We knew the laughing was genuine because we laughed at the same time, they were very funny shows. Now we seem to be getting much unfunnier sitcoms but with enhanced laughtracks to fool us into thinking they are funny. TV producers, it never works! Viewers are never fooled by that. Instead they think it sounds wrong and spoils the sitcom. Reggie was completely ruined by it.

I've noticed the audience laughter sounds particularly loud on certain contemporary broadcasts, often so loud that I have problems turning it down enough to be bearable, whilst still hearing the performers. I've no doubt this is 'real' audience reaction, but presumably the engineers can control the volume of the audience, given that each performer has his/her own mic.

Quote: Dave Hedgehog @ October 2 2011, 6:59 PM BST

It works for some shows the whole laughter track thing. And some shows are better without it. Shows like Red Dwarf, The Brittas Empire, The Detectives, etc. These shows work well with the laughter track. But take the laughter track out of those shows for any amount of episodes and it will ruin it. OFAH and Red Dwarf have done it and it's poor without the laughter track.

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Totally agree. OFAH felt particularly flat without the laughter. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwNJGu9dh5o

It bugs me to death when people say "I hate laughter tracks because they're trying to tell me what's funny". You wouldn't watch a comedy at a theatre and get annoyed with the audience everytime they laughed would you? You wouldn't shush your mates down the pub when they laughed at someone's joke. So why get annoyed at sitcoms? The laughter is there because it ENHANCES the joke, not to DIRECT you to laugh.

It's true there was an enormous amount of snobbery about studio laughter a few years ago but luckily now with the success of the likes of Miranda, I think people are starting to realise it's no bad thing.

Quote: Lee Henman @ October 3 2011, 1:56 PM BST

It bugs me to death when people say "I hate laughter tracks because they're trying to tell me what's funny". You wouldn't watch a comedy at a theatre and get annoyed with the audience everytime they laughed would you? You wouldn't shush your mates down the pub when they laughed at someone's joke. So why get annoyed at sitcoms? The laughter is there because it ENHANCES the joke, not to DIRECT you to laugh.

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I find, generally, that I perceive laughter tracks to be more intrusive on broadcasts that I regard as bad. Not because I feel that the production team are "trying to tell me what's funny" but because they're "trying to convince me that people actually laughed at that attempt at a joke".

I think it adds to the atmosphere a lot in some cases. And when it does, it should never be taken out. NEVER.

I absolutely loved MASH when it was first shown on BBC 2 back in the early middle ages. It was repeated on a satellite channel recently and watching it again with a laughter track dubbed on (apparently how the Americans by and large witnessed it) killed it absolutely stone dead.

I think anything dark or tragicomic, or any programme that has a need for the comic premise to maintain a sense of reality basically dies a terrible mirthless death with a laughter track.

I'm really into laughter tracks with a show I like. But if it's in Two And A Half Men, then it's awful because they're laughing at bad things.

Quote: Agnes Guano @ October 4 2011, 10:13 PM BST

I absolutely loved MASH when it was first shown on BBC 2 back in the early middle ages. It was repeated on a satellite channel recently and watching it again with a laughter track dubbed on (apparently how the Americans by and large witnessed it) killed it absolutely stone dead.

I think anything dark or tragicomic, or any programme that has a need for the comic premise to maintain a sense of reality basically dies a terrible mirthless death with a laughter track.

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I agree totally. I did in fact mention the same thing elsewhere.

Talking about laughter tracks, can any of you clear something up for me. Why was it decided that the DVD version of OFAH (Royal Flush) have a laughter track included, where there wasn't one when it was originally transmitted on television?

I much preferred it untouched.

There is just no explaining why they made any of the changes they did, to A Royal Flush.

Quote: Aaron @ November 20 2011, 7:39 PM GMT

There is just no explaining why they made any of the changes they did, to A Royal Flush.

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Especially cutting 22mins from the original.....unforgivable.

Sometimes a laughter track is essential or people would just think it's a crappy drama, the best comedians use a live audience and can extend on that joke based on real time feed back.

The only time the fake sound track annoys me is when you know damn well it's not funny and they play the laugh tracks anyway! By which time I've stopped watching.