-Laugh Track; Laff Boxx or Canned Laughter… but no matter how you label it, it’s still a tool used to propogate the popularity of various entertainment performances. And, like advertising on TV, it works.
Take a single moment and think about this: If laugh tracks didn’t work to the advantage of the studios to elicit what they want out of TV show viewers, laugh tracks would not stick around. Because, face it, it costs money to add in post-production and studios don’t waste money.
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There are those that don’t mind the proliferation of laugh tracks in their show, but then there are those who can’t take the repeated mental pounding of this trick and sadly, I’m one of them.
The other day I had tried to partake in a comedy series premiere for the TV show called Whitney. The show was hilarious, but it turned out that on average, a laugh track went off every seven seconds. And that was too distracting for me to be able to enjoy the show.
For me, (That is an important distinction here) I find laugh tracks to be distracting and I feel insulted that someone feels I need to be psychologically convinced or prompted that I think something is funny. Or that a laugh track will make me think more agreeable thoughts about a TV show. I tend to think for myself and I’m swayed by things besides programmed psychological ambiance.
Again, that’s me. I know other folks out there feel different about laugh tracks. I had written a piece on Whitney and made note about being driven bats from the very distracting laugh track. Think about it, every 7 seconds. Yea, my mute button was getting a workout.
It got me to thinking about it and I started to wonder who in god’s name started laugh tracks???
Comedy in TV and Movies on AMAZON
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