September 29, 2022 • 47 mins
We've all heard them. You're watching or hearing a show, a character says something, and -- boom! -- an invisible choir of audience members loses their minds in riotous laughter, awws, or applause. But how did where does this come from? In today's episode, we're learning how this came to be, and how it eventually became its own worst enemy. Ben here: I'd like to give a special thanks to Max for some stellar sound design.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's give it up for
the man, the myth legend, the one and only super producer,
Mr Max Williams. Max Williams, Now, who's that? Who's that
(00:51):
with that beautiful dulcet laugh over there? Why that's my
writer die. Mr Noel Brown h called me ben no.
We gave we gave Max a little uh, a little
extra TLC in the opening here. To be fair, he
gave himself most of that TLC. We just kind of
supplied the the impetus for the sound design and then
(01:14):
who knows where he went with it. And it was
probably a whole chorus of of laughs and jeers and
booze and applause. And it's very confused how the virtual
audience feels about Max Frogs Okay, crickets, I feel you,
But we were we're gonna but we're gonna be buttoned
(01:35):
up on our sound design at the front and you'll
see why because we're getting very weird as this goes on.
You may Ridiculous Historians be familiar with the concept of
a laugh track, right, a laugh track? No, what is
(01:57):
the laugh track? What would you just if no one
had ever heard of? How would you describe it? Well,
it is a track, a recording of laughter that is
triggered for effect, psychological um or otherwise. It essentially is
a prerecorded sound effect that is intended to imply to
an audience that something was funny, even if maybe it
(02:20):
wasn't that funny. Yes, oh, you nailed it. And that's
my actual laugh. I don't think that Max uh put
that in or punched that up. I am. That's one
of the kind of little laughs you'd hear for for
realism in between like like like the good laugh tracks
(02:41):
are designed to feel like there is some actual interaction
with the content, and so occasionally they'll be like someone
kisses maybe in like an episode of Full House, or
like a little in between kind of like yeah, or
like maybe right, or maybe a little in between kind
of snicker like you just did or what would you
call that sort of a not a guffa? Uh? What
(03:04):
do you call that kind of a muffled low laugh?
I call it an internet laugh. I don't know, Yeah,
there it is. It's it's the golf clap of excelation.
So here's our story, folks. Thanks to our research associate
Jeff Bartlett, we dove deep into the world of laugh tracks.
(03:30):
And as you so, uh, we were arguing about this
off air, I was saying, I was looking for the
right word, Noli said astute lee. And I don't think
astute lee covers it. No, it's amazing, it's amazer focused lee.
How about that? There we go, there we go and uh.
(03:53):
And so what we're talking about here is a way
to guide audience urience. That's what situational comedies known as
sitcoms aimed to do. But where do laugh tracks come from?
The story dates back, uh, if you're talking about the
(04:16):
modern laugh track, the story dates back to the nineteen
fifties and a brilliant television engineer named Charles Douglas with
the invention of the laugh box. But as we'll see,
it goes even further slash farther back. Just made a
(04:38):
lot of a lot of sticklers angry in the English. Yeah,
and leave it to an engineer to solve a problem
that no one even knew was a problem. Where it's like,
how you know it was? It was? I imagine it
was this eureka moment where it's like, how do we
hold the audience by the hand, because back in the
day things were much more stock you know, early situation
(04:59):
comedies where situational comedies every character kind of was a
type almost like old school Greek Comedia del arte and
things like that, where there was like the fool and
the you know, the romantic and all of these differently
kind of like stock characters. So it was already the
writing kind of leading the audience by the nose, But
what if we took it a step further and literally
(05:19):
kind of told them how to react and told them
what was supposed to be funny or touching or sad.
So for anyone who has watched something by yourself, you
understand it's uh, maybe somewhat rare for you on your
lonesome to go all or to go I mean, something
(05:42):
real really has to nail it and be incredibly funny
for you to laugh out loud when you're by yourself,
because you know, that's why it's fun to go see
movies with an audience or like see theater and things
like that, because laughter and emotion is kind of infectious
and what the last contagious? Yeah, And what I guess
Charles Douglas kind of figured out was that he could
(06:04):
enhance the view quote unquote enhance the viewing experience by
kind of letting people know how to feel. So if
they did happen to be by themselves and there was
no one around them for them to laugh with, they
had this kind of virtual friend group to like laugh with.
M Yes, yeah, because humans like to feel connected, right,
(06:25):
And this is where the laugh box comes in. By
the way, folks, for those of us playing along at home,
it is the laugh box l a F F styled
box spelled the regular trademarks trademark. It's like more fun
because a laugh is spelled incorrectly with a double F
(06:48):
is somehow sillier. I don't know. Yeah, there you go.
You get it. So if you have ever seen sitcoms
from the nineteen fifties on you the nineties, I would
say until about early two thousand's in the US, then
(07:10):
you are familiar with Charles Douglas indirectly. Nowadays, pretty much
no one likes laugh tracks, right, It's like a weird
meta commentary because everyone is aware of it. But back
in the day when this was happening, it communicated directly
(07:32):
with people. Now, if we have writers in the audience,
if we have TV writers in the audience, Noel, Max
and I love comedy and we legitimately research it and
send the stuff we'd like to each other. Uh, if
we have writers in the audience here, fellow ridiculous historians,
(07:53):
you will know that often, uh, these days, a laugh
track is immediately idea unified as a band aid over
a bad joke. And maybe we do a sitcom here
where it's like, you know, uh, we're doing like, oh gosh,
Perfect Strangers and Dreams or something, and one of us
(08:21):
walks in and says, still, hey, got all these grapes,
And someone looks up from the couch and they go, well,
that's grape for you. How do you do? Right there?
It's true, And you know it's especially shows like that,
like Perfect Strangers for example, And again like this was
(08:42):
created in the fifties, but the imprint of it, you know,
really carried over into the eighties and it really becomes
sort of a historical marker of like early sitcoms again
through about the mid nineties, when it was much more
standard and when things were filmed like on sets, you know,
there there was also obviously a period where there were
live studio audiences and if there wasn't a laugh track,
(09:05):
there might be like a like a sign that would
come on that it would say applause, and then people
would you know, and and and sometimes before the actual shoot,
you have like a warm up comedian that would come
out there and kind of teach people the ropes and
like get people kind of like oiled up and ready,
you know, to to laugh, and then that sometimes would
be mixed in with maybe other sound effects. Totally, you're
(09:27):
absolutely right, now, this is a this is a thing
I see when I go to watch like live tapings
of you know, late night shows or whatever. What you
don't see when the program starts is easily the first
thirty minutes of the warm up comedian. And also, don't
(09:49):
think I didn't clock that oil up language there. Again,
did we teach people how to how to react? And
that's also what this laugh track is doing. It's kind
of getting people, oh yeah, I hear you. It's getting
people um in the mindset to kind of engage with
the content, but also sort of be not really given
(10:12):
the agency to engage of their own kind of accord.
And again it's sometimes is like you said, a band
aid and becomes sort of a hallmark and when you
hear it now, it's usually used in like you know,
adults swim, like too many cooks or something like that.
It's meant to like satirize these types of shows where
the laugh track is almost like you know, dated, almost
(10:32):
like a filter you'd put on the video to make
it look more like you know, VHSE or something. Oh good,
call yeah. And there's a guy who agrees with us.
He is a journalist named Rob Walker. Way back in
two thousand and three, he wrote a piece for The
New York Times called The Lives They Lived Making Us
(10:53):
Laugh and Uh. One thing that really stands out in
this article is a conversation with a professor of psychology
at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Robert Provine or
Provine But I suspect Provine, who says, Oh, he's an
(11:13):
actually guy, And I say that with deep affection. He says, actually,
laugh tracks do increase the likelihood that you'll think a
joke is funny and laugh at it. So what Charlie
Douglas and company we're doing was based in fact. This
is the funny thing about laugh tracks. For a long
time they worked. You would be passing by casually, casually
(11:38):
encountering a show perhaps, and you would see, you know,
a prap fall or something, and then all of a
sudden you hear this cacophonists laughter. Everybody in the perceived
audience is using their mind. Europe person, you like cool stuff,
(12:00):
so you are more tempted to laugh. Yeah. Pravine refers
to in that same New York Times article something called
a laugh detector. That is, you know, similar to like
when when we hear see somebody yawn, we're compelled to yawn.
(12:21):
And this laugh detector is sort of hardwired, as he
describes in that article, into our brains, and it's sort
of like infectious. When we hear somebody start to laugh,
it triggers that response in ourselves. Also, did you guys
know it is possible for Austin's humans to pass a
yawn to our casts, and the casts to pass thought
(12:43):
I should just drop that note in here. Also blinks
backs h did not know that one? You can blink
at your cat. Blinking it a cat is like hugging
the cat. I only do staring contest with mine and
I was winn by the way, all right, we'll put
a laugh track in or in awe up to you. So,
so which is it gonna be? Which is it gonna be?
(13:06):
We don't know, We don't know. So there's this interesting
research that goes into the history of the laugh track.
Uh if you look back at some of the earlier experiments.
The guy made a list of twenty five pre laugh comments,
(13:28):
by which he means comments that elicit the laughter response
and there very basic. You're not gonna hear any surprises.
We're not going to read all but there are things
like well it was nice meeting you too, and can't
see you guys later, that kind of stuff almost catch phrases.
(13:50):
You know, if you've ever seen the Fisher king, um,
what's his name? Jeff Bridges plays this like shock chock
DJ who does like a TV pilot and I believe
his catch phrase laugh, well it forgive me and like
you know, a line like that always gets the laugh
or like you know, Steve Rkel saying did I do
or whatever it might be, Like those are the moments
(14:12):
that are like they're they're sign posting, you know, what
they want their brands to kind of be built around
in a lot of ways to Yeah, and this, uh,
this has proven laughter is contagious, just like Max you
pointed out that yawning can be contagious across species. So
(14:32):
here's the thing the research is in, right, Uh, we
know laughter is contagious, not just between human groups. It's
not just the universal human thing. You can communicate amusement,
right and share that experience, just like yawning. And that
(14:53):
necessarily means that something like a laugh track, some sort
of leverage or exploit of that realization came to pass
way before television. Think about the last time you were
at a concert maybe or a religious event. There are
(15:16):
certain things you do as a group, right, and these
are social cues. So the idea of having some sort
of social cue ha ha, laugh, clap, clap, clap, boo
hoo hoo, all that stuff is very old and experts
say it dates back to the Roman Empire, if not before. Uh.
(15:40):
Nero a guy who like is his own episode honestly,
uh not not a great guy, not the best in
the fiddled while Rome burned well psy that might be propaganda,
but it's like between Nero and Woodrow Wilson. For terror leaders,
(16:04):
I don't know a little tiny aside. I don't know
if you'll remember this, but back in the day, there
was a piece of CD burning software. I don't know
if you'll remember when you would like burn CDs and
it was called Nero. I always thought that was a
little bit like inappropriate, right, So so this this is
the thing. Rome I had a lot of you know,
(16:27):
bread and circuses. Not to be too on the nose,
they had many amphitheaters. It was there was a drive
towards entertainment, right like to either amuse or distract the
civilian population. And Nero was a real ham. He loved
chewing the scenery, he loved performing. He was called by
(16:52):
the people that he didn't kill an actor and a
poet and also of course the emperor. But he did
something that might surprise folks. It's very big dictator energy
he would have. Yeah, oh I didn't think about that. Now,
(17:17):
let's keep it in the laugh track, will save us.
Uh So he uh. He had members of the military.
He forced them to go to his shows. Like if
you've ever felt socially obligated to go to a show
like NOL one time, a couple of times, actually you
(17:37):
felt socially obligated to go to one of my like
weird improv things or or stage performance, and I'm glad
you were there, but also you were not a member
of the military, and you did not have the Emperor
telling you, upon pain of death to clap. Well, that's
(17:57):
the first law sign. It reminds me of like if
you watch The Sopranos, they're always referring to themselves, the
Gangsters and the Sopranos as being like Roman soldiers, because
obviously Italians are descendants of Romans, and there is this
hierarchy of like the capos and like the sort of
like you know, pecking order, and a joke that always
(18:17):
kind of comes around in The Sopranos is everyone laughing
at Tony Soprano's bad jokes, and there comes a moment
in the series where he kind of gets wise to
that where he realizes that, like everyone is just sort
of kissing his butt. And obviously what we're talking about
here with Nero was very intentional, but it happens sort
(18:38):
of like you know, organically too in leadership structures, where
you have the kind of head han show and everyone
sort of falls in line and acts as though what
everything that person says is is hilarious or genius, sort
of a yes man kind of mentality. But we're seeing
here with Nero is a sort of organized, codified version
of that, where these literally conscripting soul Jersey to sort
(19:01):
of pad the audience. Yeah, yeah, weird time. And in
the fifteen hundreds we see this trend return. I mean,
this trend has always existed. There's a French poet named
gen Dur who buys a bunch of tickets to his
own show and gives them out for free. With one caveat,
(19:27):
he says, I'm giving you this free ticket. You have
to go to it. When you go to my show,
you have to applaud my poetry, whether or not you
like it. Well, isn't it interesting how there's theater on
both sides of the precedium. You know, there's obviously, you know,
scripted kind of stuff happening on stage in terms of
(19:48):
a play or you know, stand up or whatever it
might be. But oftentimes, like with Awards shows for example,
you know, there are seat fillers and there are individuals
that are hired to come in and pat out the
audience to make it look better attendive than maybe it
actually is or you know, to kind of take the
place of people that are getting up and going to
the stage. It's all theater on that side as well
(20:10):
to a degree. Yeah, agreed. And we we head forward
to the mid seventeen hundreds, we see this becomes a
popular thing in French opera houses. This didn't just start
with Hollywood award shows. It's it's a very old, very
old concept, as you pointed out, and at this time
(20:34):
in the seventeen hundreds, the theater would consider it a
cost of production. You would pay organized groups or crews
to come through and clap their hearts out, you know,
laugh is loud, maybe weep openly. Uh, and may probably
have specialized folks, you know those. This guy's a good class.
(20:58):
He's got a really you know, big hand ends right
exactly and you know, I love clapping. We gotta get
to this, no, uh, what a great set up. Clack
hours can tell us a little bit about them. Yeah,
it's essentially something that the Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines a
clack rather from the French verb clacker, as a band
(21:19):
of hired applauds in a theater. So at this point
was already so kind of entrenched in culture that it
got its own word. So this is just an escalation
or a kind of evolution of what we've been describing,
you know, from the start, from back to Roman times. Um.
And it really is part of the cost of doing
business because you want, especially for like an opening night,
(21:39):
you want to make a big splash and a lot
a lot of times. It's the same with like critics.
If you have a good critical response to something, people
are more likely to shell out the money to go
see it. And back before the days of maybe like
instant rotten tomatoes reviews, it would be more a real
time experience where maybe like, oh, well these people see
(22:00):
very well to do and they seem to be enjoying it.
It's it must be good. Yeah, yeah, because people pick
up social cues, right, that's the hack, that's the exploit.
And uh, I love this. I love this idea because
m Max you may not know this, but no, you
know this very well. I love clapping. I love clapping
(22:25):
for people. One of the number one fears in the
modern West is the fear of public speaking. So anything
I can do to support I'm on board. Uh, And
I think and I again, I know it comes from
a place of honesty because you would want to be
(22:45):
treated that way as well. And you have been in
that situation where maybe walking on the stage, your worst
possible fear would be crickets. Nobody wants crickets. Crickets are great.
They like, you know, eat certain insects that are maybe bad,
but like nobody wants to hear them when you just
you know, made a singer or told the personal story.
(23:07):
Also they are, so maybe we should just eat them
so they don't like, you know, an upisode about that
or something that we're about when we're all talking about crickets. Yeah, delicious,
only nose, guys, God only nose. God only knows. So
this is this is a part where you know, there's
some applause or nol does a really good like a
(23:28):
whole lot of you know, okay, yeah, and it's only
Darth Vader. If you breathe in first, I got you. Yeah,
they'd be like, can I say really quickly? Um. Early
in my career, when I was still in college, I
used to record a symphony orchestra pretty regularly, and a big,
(23:51):
the biggest pain in the butt about those edits. It
was literally just two microphones in a beautiful sounding concert
Hall was editing the applause. But the funny thing about
applause is when it's being recorded on like two microphones,
like a stereo microphone in a room, it is easy
to just cut out a giant chunk because once the
whole audience is kind of going wild like that, it
(24:14):
just kind of becomes white noise and there are very
unless there's like a really you know, obvious prominent clapper
that's closer to the mic, or someone saying a bravo
or whatever it might be, the din of a crowd
is pretty interchangeable, and it really does become this kind
of It's very interesting the the just the sonic phenomenon
of applause. Maybe Darth Vader was applauding the entire time.
(24:38):
That changes the story. Yeah, like what was plotting? Your
guess is as good as mine, right, yes, just so. Uh,
there's also this idea of organization, right, so these class hours, Uh,
they would they would roll deep and they would be
coached in advance. You clap here or you or you
(25:03):
weep here, right, Uh, And they were orchestrated. I like
that comparison. They were orchestrated just the same way a
conductor says, to the cello or to the oboe, you
go in here, you stop here. This is an old,
old thing, and you know, we don't have to get
(25:26):
too lost in the history. Well, and to your point,
then the orchestration of applause. If you've ever seen a
really good performer, you know, do crowd work where they go, okay,
the left side of the audience, yeah, now you're competing
with the right side. It really is this kind of
like collective unconscience that becomes this sort of like unified
(25:50):
thing that you can game, not only psychologically but physically
by saying, you know, you applaud and then for this,
and then you applaud for that, And you can kind
of get a sense of like how much people like
something by how loud they get or how you know,
raucous they get. Just the ladies, just the dudes, just
(26:12):
the people. You know what, if you're a person, clap,
what's that old Mitch Hedberg joke? Who here feels like
a person? Who here feels like a animal or a monster. Well,
I'm not gonna write Mitch Hedberg's jokes for him. He
did it, God bless Uh. There's also a of course
(26:33):
there's an equal opposite reaction. Right, Nothing exists in a
vacuum unless you have cleaned my vacuum, which I did earlier,
and there's a lot of stuff in there. What we
mean to say is IM glad you got to bring
that out into the actual podcast. You made that joke.
We were hanging out the other day and I thought
it was spot on. Definitely exists in a vacuum. He
(26:56):
was really proud of that joke because I don't remember
where he made it to me, but he made maybe
look at the text or base campaign or something, but
he really went out of his way to make that
joke to me. Also, I want you guys to like
me and laugh at that. I don't. I want to.
I want to be clack houred, not bird because there
(27:16):
were boers. That's a real thing. That's the equal opposite reaction.
You might have forced applause makes your show look good.
But of course there were a lot of artists to say,
that's bs. You know what I mean, that's a frame up.
My work exists on its own merit, Yes, but then
(27:40):
they becomes this this yeah, yeah, it almost is like
this like racket right where you know they knew about
the system, and this certain kind of like opposite contingent
um of like almost sabboteurs kind of knew the game.
They're like, well, we're gonna buy a bunch of tickets
and pay these people to come and jeer and boo
(28:01):
and you know, cat call and like do all kinds
of things to disrupt the performance unless you pay a
big you know, it really is kind of like a
almost like a protection or or like what's the word
collection kind of situation where it's like, be a shame
if something happened to your nice play. Yes, yes, uh,
(28:22):
this is the thing it is. It is a bit
of a racket because you know, if you have this
established hierarchy of people who bring cruise to clap for
your shows and you don't make nice with them, you know,
you don't you don't pay your due deference. Uh, then
(28:44):
the the clack hours or what were they called the
chefs dick lakhur Uh chefs think that's the full the
full extended title. Yes, yeah, okay, So if you if
you didn't tow the line with these folks, then they
would buy the tickets themselves and they would tell ticket
(29:06):
holders don't clap or they would say wait for this
one guy and then booing. So this is like, this
is mob style heckling. It's crazy that the mob is
not more into this currently. I guess they have other
(29:29):
stuff to do. Yeah, and um, and and then and
then the promoters or whomever you know was hiring the
clack hours, the ones that were meant to kind of
big up the performance, got wise to this sort of
like terrorist contingent that was coming in and started to
hire like like spies or moles to sort of like
infiltrate the you know, the saboteurs and figure out who
(29:52):
was coming in there to kind of disrupt things and
then issuing you know, kind of equal and opposite threats
in their direct and making sure they didn't make it
into the performance. It's nuts. There is so much more
to the laugh track. The laugh track existed before sitcoms,
before television, before radio. It's an ancient idea and Douglas
(30:17):
leveraged it very very well. I would say, I mean, okay,
let's go back to the present, NOL. When's the last
time you saw a show with the laugh track? I
think it was that Louis c. K Um kind of
(30:39):
like Revival sitcom sort of parody Life with Louis or
Lucky Louis right, and it had a laugh track, and
or again like things like some of these adults Swim
Little sketches are kind of late night shows where it's
meant to make something seem dated or kind of create
like a certain atmosphere. Sometimes you'll see it in you know,
(31:00):
like um movies for example, like if you've seen the
movie Nope, there's this whole subplot surrounding a sitcom called
like Gordy's Home or something like that about a rangatang
and you hear that, you know, when you see it
played back, you know, on a screen, and it usually
looks kind of like you know, has like sort of
like scan lines and like very dated kind of visuals
as well, and that creates this sense of a time
(31:23):
and place. Um. But usually it's either used for that
kind of stuff, you know. Another good example is in
the movie Natural Born Killers. There's a whole sequence where
it's like this fantasy world, this sort of like really
maccabre sitcom involving Mallory, the character played by Juliette Lewis
and her father is this like abusive slubby you know,
(31:44):
awful man played by Rodney Dangerfield. And in those uh sequences,
there is a laugh track because it's meant to be
this surrealist kind of experience where you're you feel like
you're sort of placed in this sitcom. Yeah, absolutely, Uh,
you know, laugh tracks subsists in a lot of British
comedy way after we fell out of in in the
(32:08):
US now there's certain form formulaic prit coms that definitely
I believe it only more recently was shows like The
Office you know has that have they tried to lean
more into more of like a cinema verite or like
kind of like documentary style. But you're right, like shows
like absolutely Fabulous long after maybe not long after, but
(32:29):
long you know after a lot of American sitcoms abandoned
that you did still see it in In in British
and maybe other European Uh Sig Mitchell and Webb look
one of the coolest sketch shows to come out of
the United Kingdom in recent years. They use the laugh track. Also, Max,
you've got some opinions you've been sabotageing us this whole time. Bro.
(32:53):
I hope you are clacking and not booing here, we'll
never know, well, we will know, well, we will know eventually.
Is I don't know, But I do find that funny
because you go back and like watch like Seinfeld, and
I don't know if it's a laugh track or live
audience or it's a combination. Yea, they would sweeten They
would sweeten quote unquote the audience reaction that usually was
(33:13):
triggered by some sort of sign or some again to
your point, ben orchestration, and then they would sweeten it
with things that made it feel more organic or like
you know, adding those little kind of moments of sound
design or fully work that they would do after the fact.
You know, I just found it funny because it's like
I think of, like, you know, I had that like,
you know, I believe that when the show has a
(33:33):
laugh track or something that I kind of just like
the great a little bit. But then you think with
like Seinfeld's like one of the greatest in American history,
probably it's like, oh, yeah, it has that there. Yeah,
it was still in that era though, you know it's
still was, And honestly, it was studio executives that were
sort of like you know, hooked on the stuff. They
were like, no, no, no, no, we need this, you know,
like Mash. For example, a lot of the creators of Mash,
(33:55):
which which was it on location type show. It was
a comedy that was about, you know, the Vietnam War,
and while it was it's very funny, it also has
some heavy stuff and some more drama. It really is
kind of more of a drama, I guess, than like
a full sitcom. The creators of that show fought pretty
hard with network executives to ditch the laugh track, and
they finally got to a compromise where they would only
(34:17):
allow them, rather, the studios would only allow them to
not use it during heavy moments or like, you know,
things in an operating theater because Mash is about these
uh you know, wartime field surgeons. So no, what you're
saying is studio executives were hooked on two things, and
one of them was laugh tracks. It's very funny, Max.
(34:48):
They also like money. You know, I'm laughing, But it's true.
Studio executives like things that they know work. They're not
about taking risks. So it takes a lot to have
a ce change in like the whole culture of television
when it's been happening since the fifties. You know, they're like, no,
no, no no, no, why would we change the formula? We
know it works, right, Yeah, you want predictable, predictable results, right,
(35:13):
you want measurable projections of income. And if the soul
of the creative act is lost in that pursuit, a
lot of people make a devil's bargain and say, so
be it. So this is the thing right now, as
you're listening to this episode, you're probably not hearing shows
(35:35):
with un ironic laugh tracks. The laugh track now has
become meta commentary. Uh. There's a great episode of It's
Always Sunny in Philadelphia wherein they create a sitcom and
show the dangers of laugh tracks. It's a very clever
show and I recommend people check it out. Well, it's
(35:56):
funny mentioning the dangers of laugh tracks. Um. There is
an article on Looper the real reason TV sitcom stopped
using laugh tracks the references of nineteen seventy four study
that found that laugh tracks um created a sense of
what's called conformity pressure in test subjects. Um. You know
in The New York Times reported on these findings that
(36:18):
compared Seinfeld with this like you know, baked in laugh
track with The Simpsons, which never had a laugh track.
It was it was an animated show. It was an
animated sitcom. But unless I'm mistaken, the Simpsons never had
a laugh track, even though it's certainly debuted during that era.
The executives must have been like, oh, no, cartoons don't
get laugh tracks, but UM didn't. Didn't like the flint
(36:39):
Stones have laugh tracks, like I swear, some like old
cigarette commercials. I just I don't know if that's a
good basis for us. Fair enough, But my point is
the study found um in Science News that when they
compared reactions to Seinfeld with the laugh track to reactions
to The Simpsons, there wasn't really that much of a difference,
and how viewers respond bonded Um. And that's because those
(37:02):
are also two shows that are very smartly written. So
it was a band aid and a lazy tactic for
shows that were more like Broad and not nearly as
clever as The Simpsons are Seinfeld. So maybe the case
study here is a little bit inflated or or a
little bit loaded, because those are two of the most
brilliant comedy shows of all time. But maybe a show
(37:23):
like Green Acres needed the laugh track, I don't know,
but then you have something called cringe comedy like the office,
shows like Dirty Rock or you know, Arrested Development, Malcolm
in the Middle, where a big part of the joke
is not knowing whether it's okay to laugh or not
not knowing whether something is actually funny or not. In
fact something maybe being actively not funny and uncomfortable, and
(37:47):
then getting diffused in some clever way. Yeah, exactly. And
this is where this is where we land. If you
are hearing a laugh track on a show now in
two or so, then you will be hearing it ironically
or you'll be looking at an earlier program. The laugh track,
(38:14):
as it is recognized as a social cue, it met
a diminishing return, you know what I mean, They're like,
it's the idea in order reminds me of folks. It
reminds me of the old thought experiment where you say,
if I had entrance music whenever I walked into a room,
(38:36):
what what would the music that make me received better? Yea?
Or would that like? What would what would be the
result there? I think a big part of this too
is shows have just gotten better. Like I mean, if
you if you go back and watch like an episode
of Full House or Family Matters. They're just inherently dated
and just a little bit corny. And then shows like
The Office and Arrested Development they're just better shows. They're like,
(38:59):
I think Sinfeld is one of the lone examples of
sitcoms from the nineties that really still holds up and
doesn't need the laugh track at all. In fact, you
could argue Seinfeld was sort of the precursor to this
cringe comedy. But in general, audiences just won't stand for
things that are just like super broad and corny, and
therefore maybe you could argue you have gotten smarter. I
(39:22):
believe you, man, I am tempted to agree. I really
like that. Also, you know, I think it was was
it Larry David who pointed out the primary issue with Seinfeld.
If cell phones existed when Seinfeld was being written, then
(39:42):
none of those episodes would happen. And thank god, thank
god they were slow with the cell phones coming out, because, man,
Seinfeld is a legitimately amazing show. It's really good. I've
heard that said, and I don't think I quite under
Maybe I just don't know Seinfeld. You know, after in
verse enough to understand is it mainly just like a
(40:03):
lot of jokes are based around communication and like waiting
for a pay phone or like somebody getting like stood up,
or just you know, miscommunication, where were just like a
simple text message would have solved this entire all the
problems of this episode. Well you say that, but also
like then you wouldn't have a show exactly knowing Larry.
(40:26):
It would just be a recursive feedback loop of weird
text messages, you know what I mean. And there there
would be an episode where he learns emoji and then
one where he learns gifts. It would be like hanging
out with my dad. I don't know if that's the best,
but I think it would apted. I think Larry David
(40:47):
still probably uses a flip phone if I'm not if
I'm not being too bold there. But what's funny when
you mentioned Larry David and sort of how Curb your
Enthusiasm is like a progression of Seinfeld while also still
kind of king to a lot of the things that
made sein felt funny Because obviously Larry was a massive,
if not the biggest driver in Seinfeld. He still has
(41:09):
this lexicon of sound cues that he uses all that's
on a little do do do Do Do Do do do,
which is also guiding you somehow. It's it's more clever
than the literally leading you by the ear laugh track. Yeah,
it's less imposing, right, it takes you. Uh, it's somewhat comfortable.
(41:31):
It cuts your elbow instead of like grabbing the back
of your neck, right, which is what a laugh track does.
So the oh that's a little n lp perhaps, But
at this juncture is our research associate Jeff points out,
the laugh track doesn't really have a practical use other
(41:52):
than to be commentary upon itself. It's it's strange because
that pressure you were talking about earlier, man, Uh, that
social conformity pressure, people clocked it. And audiences are amazingly
intelligent and in no small part contrarian, you know what
I mean. So if if some you don't like to
(42:13):
feel like they're being manipulated, so the so the manipulation
has to become much more um subconscious, So you can't
like let people know they're being manipulated. But then you
certainly have broader shows that you could argue are like
less clever than I curb your enthusiasm or arrested development,
and they just work in broader strokes, you know what
(42:34):
I mean. Like, the themes are just much bigger, the
acting is much bigger, the dialogue is a little more
on the nose. But still even those shows you don't
get to have a laugh track anymore. Those days are gone. God,
I love this stuff so much. Can we end today's
show with doing like a really brief sitcom bit? Can
we do a sitcom bit? Only if I can? Can
(42:56):
I do the punch line? Yeah? Do the punch line? Yeah,
I don't know what it is you leave you okay, okay, okay,
I got your back, alright. So um picture with us.
There is a ranch style house, right, that's our wide shot.
I love I love it as a ranch style that
we have to have a little bit the little jingle here,
(43:17):
like did it it did? Studio back from the commercial?
Pray perfect? Okay, that's the name of our show. Back
from the commercial. We'll make it shorter, um back from
(43:38):
We'll call it back from all right, welcome to back
back from and then and then in like parentheses of
the commercial commercial, Yes, perfect, all right. So our scene
opens on uh, Max Williams playing Max Williams. Uh. He
is walking down the stairs, because there's always as out
(44:00):
of stairs in the background behind the couch, Max, you
walked in, Max Williams, attorney at law. Max Williams, attorney
at law. Yes, and uh so. Max Williams, attorney at
law walks down from the stairs weirdly, has a suit
like he's going to court. And he sits on the
couch and he says, Benjamin, where did you put the
(44:21):
orange juice today? Where didn't I put it? Uh says
ben walking from the kitchen. And then I come in
and I go, where's my orange juice? And then everyone
(44:45):
can say they freak out, they lose their mind. I
think that's the you know, because I'm a fool. I
can I just say that I enter a room and
I say, where's my orange juice? And it just so
happens that at dovetail with y'all's conversation about orange, you
have a couple of orange juice in your hand because
I've I've misplaced it. But I'm just such a buffoon
(45:05):
that I don't know that I'm not holding my hand. Okay, Wayne,
In scenario soft at it, we all are holding glasses
of orange juice while we are talking about this boom
done end credits. This is all Big Orange. That's right, folks,
(45:39):
we've brought to you yeah, Big Orange. But also, like
another fun trope and sitcoms and certain echelon of television
and movies is when people have cups of stuff, they're
usually empty, and they the physics of people handling those
cups just doesn't line up with the reality of carrying
a cup of either hot or cold liquid a hundred percent.
(46:02):
So we hope you enjoyed this exploration of the history
of laugh tracks. Please let us know your favorite examples
of it. Uh, please let us know times that you
thought a laugh track could have been used or time
a laugh track should not have been used. As always,
thanks to our number one sponsored Big Orange Juice. Thanks
(46:25):
to also to Mr Max Williams super producer Alex Williams,
who could pose the track. Oh my gosh, no, we're
doing the ending credits right. This is like introducing the characters.
They're losing their mind. It's sort of like at the
end of certain sitcoms you'd almost or maybe there were
special episodes of sitcoms where they show the studio audience
(46:47):
and then the cast would kind of come out and
take a bow. That's what's happening right now. Um, Christopher
haciotes here in spirit. His ghostly form wafts across the
sound stage. There is uh and and we have a
we we have a candid look up at the camera
and pause moment for Eve's Jeff coat. Uh. You know,
(47:10):
you know you just caught me hanging out. Jonathan Strickling.
The Quister's bald head pops up from behind the couch,
making a sinister glare, and he has the orange he's
had of the whole time. Yeah, the whole time. We're done.
We're done, See you next time, folks. For more podcasts
(47:32):
from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's give it up for
the man, the myth legend, the one and only super producer,
Mr Max Williams. Max Williams, Now, who's that? Who's that
(00:51):
with that beautiful dulcet laugh over there? Why that's my
writer die. Mr Noel Brown h called me ben no.
We gave we gave Max a little uh, a little
extra TLC in the opening here. To be fair, he
gave himself most of that TLC. We just kind of
supplied the the impetus for the sound design and then
(01:14):
who knows where he went with it. And it was
probably a whole chorus of of laughs and jeers and
booze and applause. And it's very confused how the virtual
audience feels about Max Frogs Okay, crickets, I feel you,
But we were we're gonna but we're gonna be buttoned
(01:35):
up on our sound design at the front and you'll
see why because we're getting very weird as this goes on.
You may Ridiculous Historians be familiar with the concept of
a laugh track, right, a laugh track? No, what is
(01:57):
the laugh track? What would you just if no one
had ever heard of? How would you describe it? Well,
it is a track, a recording of laughter that is
triggered for effect, psychological um or otherwise. It essentially is
a prerecorded sound effect that is intended to imply to
an audience that something was funny, even if maybe it
(02:20):
wasn't that funny. Yes, oh, you nailed it. And that's
my actual laugh. I don't think that Max uh put
that in or punched that up. I am. That's one
of the kind of little laughs you'd hear for for
realism in between like like like the good laugh tracks
(02:41):
are designed to feel like there is some actual interaction
with the content, and so occasionally they'll be like someone
kisses maybe in like an episode of Full House, or
like a little in between kind of like yeah, or
like maybe right, or maybe a little in between kind
of snicker like you just did or what would you
call that sort of a not a guffa? Uh? What
(03:04):
do you call that kind of a muffled low laugh?
I call it an internet laugh. I don't know, Yeah,
there it is. It's it's the golf clap of excelation.
So here's our story, folks. Thanks to our research associate
Jeff Bartlett, we dove deep into the world of laugh tracks.
(03:30):
And as you so, uh, we were arguing about this
off air, I was saying, I was looking for the
right word, Noli said astute lee. And I don't think
astute lee covers it. No, it's amazing, it's amazer focused lee.
How about that? There we go, there we go and uh.
(03:53):
And so what we're talking about here is a way
to guide audience urience. That's what situational comedies known as
sitcoms aimed to do. But where do laugh tracks come from?
The story dates back, uh, if you're talking about the
(04:16):
modern laugh track, the story dates back to the nineteen
fifties and a brilliant television engineer named Charles Douglas with
the invention of the laugh box. But as we'll see,
it goes even further slash farther back. Just made a
(04:38):
lot of a lot of sticklers angry in the English. Yeah,
and leave it to an engineer to solve a problem
that no one even knew was a problem. Where it's like,
how you know it was? It was? I imagine it
was this eureka moment where it's like, how do we
hold the audience by the hand, because back in the
day things were much more stock you know, early situation
(04:59):
comedies where situational comedies every character kind of was a
type almost like old school Greek Comedia del arte and
things like that, where there was like the fool and
the you know, the romantic and all of these differently
kind of like stock characters. So it was already the
writing kind of leading the audience by the nose, But
what if we took it a step further and literally
(05:19):
kind of told them how to react and told them
what was supposed to be funny or touching or sad.
So for anyone who has watched something by yourself, you
understand it's uh, maybe somewhat rare for you on your
lonesome to go all or to go I mean, something
(05:42):
real really has to nail it and be incredibly funny
for you to laugh out loud when you're by yourself,
because you know, that's why it's fun to go see
movies with an audience or like see theater and things
like that, because laughter and emotion is kind of infectious
and what the last contagious? Yeah, And what I guess
Charles Douglas kind of figured out was that he could
(06:04):
enhance the view quote unquote enhance the viewing experience by
kind of letting people know how to feel. So if
they did happen to be by themselves and there was
no one around them for them to laugh with, they
had this kind of virtual friend group to like laugh with.
M Yes, yeah, because humans like to feel connected, right,
(06:25):
And this is where the laugh box comes in. By
the way, folks, for those of us playing along at home,
it is the laugh box l a F F styled
box spelled the regular trademarks trademark. It's like more fun
because a laugh is spelled incorrectly with a double F
(06:48):
is somehow sillier. I don't know. Yeah, there you go.
You get it. So if you have ever seen sitcoms
from the nineteen fifties on you the nineties, I would
say until about early two thousand's in the US, then
(07:10):
you are familiar with Charles Douglas indirectly. Nowadays, pretty much
no one likes laugh tracks, right, It's like a weird
meta commentary because everyone is aware of it. But back
in the day when this was happening, it communicated directly
(07:32):
with people. Now, if we have writers in the audience,
if we have TV writers in the audience, Noel, Max
and I love comedy and we legitimately research it and
send the stuff we'd like to each other. Uh, if
we have writers in the audience here, fellow ridiculous historians,
(07:53):
you will know that often, uh, these days, a laugh
track is immediately idea unified as a band aid over
a bad joke. And maybe we do a sitcom here
where it's like, you know, uh, we're doing like, oh gosh,
Perfect Strangers and Dreams or something, and one of us
(08:21):
walks in and says, still, hey, got all these grapes,
And someone looks up from the couch and they go, well,
that's grape for you. How do you do? Right there?
It's true, And you know it's especially shows like that,
like Perfect Strangers for example, And again like this was
(08:42):
created in the fifties, but the imprint of it, you know,
really carried over into the eighties and it really becomes
sort of a historical marker of like early sitcoms again
through about the mid nineties, when it was much more
standard and when things were filmed like on sets, you know,
there there was also obviously a period where there were
live studio audiences and if there wasn't a laugh track,
(09:05):
there might be like a like a sign that would
come on that it would say applause, and then people
would you know, and and and sometimes before the actual shoot,
you have like a warm up comedian that would come
out there and kind of teach people the ropes and
like get people kind of like oiled up and ready,
you know, to to laugh, and then that sometimes would
be mixed in with maybe other sound effects. Totally, you're
(09:27):
absolutely right, now, this is a this is a thing
I see when I go to watch like live tapings
of you know, late night shows or whatever. What you
don't see when the program starts is easily the first
thirty minutes of the warm up comedian. And also, don't
(09:49):
think I didn't clock that oil up language there. Again,
did we teach people how to how to react? And
that's also what this laugh track is doing. It's kind
of getting people, oh yeah, I hear you. It's getting
people um in the mindset to kind of engage with
the content, but also sort of be not really given
(10:12):
the agency to engage of their own kind of accord.
And again it's sometimes is like you said, a band
aid and becomes sort of a hallmark and when you
hear it now, it's usually used in like you know,
adults swim, like too many cooks or something like that.
It's meant to like satirize these types of shows where
the laugh track is almost like you know, dated, almost
(10:32):
like a filter you'd put on the video to make
it look more like you know, VHSE or something. Oh good,
call yeah. And there's a guy who agrees with us.
He is a journalist named Rob Walker. Way back in
two thousand and three, he wrote a piece for The
New York Times called The Lives They Lived Making Us
(10:53):
Laugh and Uh. One thing that really stands out in
this article is a conversation with a professor of psychology
at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Robert Provine or
Provine But I suspect Provine, who says, Oh, he's an
(11:13):
actually guy, And I say that with deep affection. He says, actually,
laugh tracks do increase the likelihood that you'll think a
joke is funny and laugh at it. So what Charlie
Douglas and company we're doing was based in fact. This
is the funny thing about laugh tracks. For a long
time they worked. You would be passing by casually, casually
(11:38):
encountering a show perhaps, and you would see, you know,
a prap fall or something, and then all of a
sudden you hear this cacophonists laughter. Everybody in the perceived
audience is using their mind. Europe person, you like cool stuff,
(12:00):
so you are more tempted to laugh. Yeah. Pravine refers
to in that same New York Times article something called
a laugh detector. That is, you know, similar to like
when when we hear see somebody yawn, we're compelled to yawn.
(12:21):
And this laugh detector is sort of hardwired, as he
describes in that article, into our brains, and it's sort
of like infectious. When we hear somebody start to laugh,
it triggers that response in ourselves. Also, did you guys
know it is possible for Austin's humans to pass a
yawn to our casts, and the casts to pass thought
(12:43):
I should just drop that note in here. Also blinks
backs h did not know that one? You can blink
at your cat. Blinking it a cat is like hugging
the cat. I only do staring contest with mine and
I was winn by the way, all right, we'll put
a laugh track in or in awe up to you. So,
so which is it gonna be? Which is it gonna be?
(13:06):
We don't know, We don't know. So there's this interesting
research that goes into the history of the laugh track.
Uh if you look back at some of the earlier experiments.
The guy made a list of twenty five pre laugh comments,
(13:28):
by which he means comments that elicit the laughter response
and there very basic. You're not gonna hear any surprises.
We're not going to read all but there are things
like well it was nice meeting you too, and can't
see you guys later, that kind of stuff almost catch phrases.
(13:50):
You know, if you've ever seen the Fisher king, um,
what's his name? Jeff Bridges plays this like shock chock
DJ who does like a TV pilot and I believe
his catch phrase laugh, well it forgive me and like
you know, a line like that always gets the laugh
or like you know, Steve Rkel saying did I do
or whatever it might be, Like those are the moments
(14:12):
that are like they're they're sign posting, you know, what
they want their brands to kind of be built around
in a lot of ways to Yeah, and this, uh,
this has proven laughter is contagious, just like Max you
pointed out that yawning can be contagious across species. So
(14:32):
here's the thing the research is in, right, Uh, we
know laughter is contagious, not just between human groups. It's
not just the universal human thing. You can communicate amusement,
right and share that experience, just like yawning. And that
(14:53):
necessarily means that something like a laugh track, some sort
of leverage or exploit of that realization came to pass
way before television. Think about the last time you were
at a concert maybe or a religious event. There are
(15:16):
certain things you do as a group, right, and these
are social cues. So the idea of having some sort
of social cue ha ha, laugh, clap, clap, clap, boo
hoo hoo, all that stuff is very old and experts
say it dates back to the Roman Empire, if not before. Uh.
(15:40):
Nero a guy who like is his own episode honestly,
uh not not a great guy, not the best in
the fiddled while Rome burned well psy that might be propaganda,
but it's like between Nero and Woodrow Wilson. For terror leaders,
(16:04):
I don't know a little tiny aside. I don't know
if you'll remember this, but back in the day, there
was a piece of CD burning software. I don't know
if you'll remember when you would like burn CDs and
it was called Nero. I always thought that was a
little bit like inappropriate, right, So so this this is
the thing. Rome I had a lot of you know,
(16:27):
bread and circuses. Not to be too on the nose,
they had many amphitheaters. It was there was a drive
towards entertainment, right like to either amuse or distract the
civilian population. And Nero was a real ham. He loved
chewing the scenery, he loved performing. He was called by
(16:52):
the people that he didn't kill an actor and a
poet and also of course the emperor. But he did
something that might surprise folks. It's very big dictator energy
he would have. Yeah, oh I didn't think about that. Now,
(17:17):
let's keep it in the laugh track, will save us.
Uh So he uh. He had members of the military.
He forced them to go to his shows. Like if
you've ever felt socially obligated to go to a show
like NOL one time, a couple of times, actually you
(17:37):
felt socially obligated to go to one of my like
weird improv things or or stage performance, and I'm glad
you were there, but also you were not a member
of the military, and you did not have the Emperor
telling you, upon pain of death to clap. Well, that's
(17:57):
the first law sign. It reminds me of like if
you watch The Sopranos, they're always referring to themselves, the
Gangsters and the Sopranos as being like Roman soldiers, because
obviously Italians are descendants of Romans, and there is this
hierarchy of like the capos and like the sort of
like you know, pecking order, and a joke that always
(18:17):
kind of comes around in The Sopranos is everyone laughing
at Tony Soprano's bad jokes, and there comes a moment
in the series where he kind of gets wise to
that where he realizes that, like everyone is just sort
of kissing his butt. And obviously what we're talking about
here with Nero was very intentional, but it happens sort
(18:38):
of like you know, organically too in leadership structures, where
you have the kind of head han show and everyone
sort of falls in line and acts as though what
everything that person says is is hilarious or genius, sort
of a yes man kind of mentality. But we're seeing
here with Nero is a sort of organized, codified version
of that, where these literally conscripting soul Jersey to sort
(19:01):
of pad the audience. Yeah, yeah, weird time. And in
the fifteen hundreds we see this trend return. I mean,
this trend has always existed. There's a French poet named
gen Dur who buys a bunch of tickets to his
own show and gives them out for free. With one caveat,
(19:27):
he says, I'm giving you this free ticket. You have
to go to it. When you go to my show,
you have to applaud my poetry, whether or not you
like it. Well, isn't it interesting how there's theater on
both sides of the precedium. You know, there's obviously, you know,
scripted kind of stuff happening on stage in terms of
(19:48):
a play or you know, stand up or whatever it
might be. But oftentimes, like with Awards shows for example,
you know, there are seat fillers and there are individuals
that are hired to come in and pat out the
audience to make it look better attendive than maybe it
actually is or you know, to kind of take the
place of people that are getting up and going to
the stage. It's all theater on that side as well
(20:10):
to a degree. Yeah, agreed. And we we head forward
to the mid seventeen hundreds, we see this becomes a
popular thing in French opera houses. This didn't just start
with Hollywood award shows. It's it's a very old, very
old concept, as you pointed out, and at this time
(20:34):
in the seventeen hundreds, the theater would consider it a
cost of production. You would pay organized groups or crews
to come through and clap their hearts out, you know,
laugh is loud, maybe weep openly. Uh, and may probably
have specialized folks, you know those. This guy's a good class.
(20:58):
He's got a really you know, big hand ends right
exactly and you know, I love clapping. We gotta get
to this, no, uh, what a great set up. Clack
hours can tell us a little bit about them. Yeah,
it's essentially something that the Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines a
clack rather from the French verb clacker, as a band
(21:19):
of hired applauds in a theater. So at this point
was already so kind of entrenched in culture that it
got its own word. So this is just an escalation
or a kind of evolution of what we've been describing,
you know, from the start, from back to Roman times. Um.
And it really is part of the cost of doing
business because you want, especially for like an opening night,
(21:39):
you want to make a big splash and a lot
a lot of times. It's the same with like critics.
If you have a good critical response to something, people
are more likely to shell out the money to go
see it. And back before the days of maybe like
instant rotten tomatoes reviews, it would be more a real
time experience where maybe like, oh, well these people see
(22:00):
very well to do and they seem to be enjoying it.
It's it must be good. Yeah, yeah, because people pick
up social cues, right, that's the hack, that's the exploit.
And uh, I love this. I love this idea because
m Max you may not know this, but no, you
know this very well. I love clapping. I love clapping
(22:25):
for people. One of the number one fears in the
modern West is the fear of public speaking. So anything
I can do to support I'm on board. Uh, And
I think and I again, I know it comes from
a place of honesty because you would want to be
(22:45):
treated that way as well. And you have been in
that situation where maybe walking on the stage, your worst
possible fear would be crickets. Nobody wants crickets. Crickets are great.
They like, you know, eat certain insects that are maybe bad,
but like nobody wants to hear them when you just
you know, made a singer or told the personal story.
(23:07):
Also they are, so maybe we should just eat them
so they don't like, you know, an upisode about that
or something that we're about when we're all talking about crickets. Yeah, delicious,
only nose, guys, God only nose. God only knows. So
this is this is a part where you know, there's
some applause or nol does a really good like a
(23:28):
whole lot of you know, okay, yeah, and it's only
Darth Vader. If you breathe in first, I got you. Yeah,
they'd be like, can I say really quickly? Um. Early
in my career, when I was still in college, I
used to record a symphony orchestra pretty regularly, and a big,
(23:51):
the biggest pain in the butt about those edits. It
was literally just two microphones in a beautiful sounding concert
Hall was editing the applause. But the funny thing about
applause is when it's being recorded on like two microphones,
like a stereo microphone in a room, it is easy
to just cut out a giant chunk because once the
whole audience is kind of going wild like that, it
(24:14):
just kind of becomes white noise and there are very
unless there's like a really you know, obvious prominent clapper
that's closer to the mic, or someone saying a bravo
or whatever it might be, the din of a crowd
is pretty interchangeable, and it really does become this kind
of It's very interesting the the just the sonic phenomenon
of applause. Maybe Darth Vader was applauding the entire time.
(24:38):
That changes the story. Yeah, like what was plotting? Your
guess is as good as mine, right, yes, just so. Uh,
there's also this idea of organization, right, so these class hours, Uh,
they would they would roll deep and they would be
coached in advance. You clap here or you or you
(25:03):
weep here, right, Uh, And they were orchestrated. I like
that comparison. They were orchestrated just the same way a
conductor says, to the cello or to the oboe, you
go in here, you stop here. This is an old,
old thing, and you know, we don't have to get
(25:26):
too lost in the history. Well, and to your point,
then the orchestration of applause. If you've ever seen a
really good performer, you know, do crowd work where they go, okay,
the left side of the audience, yeah, now you're competing
with the right side. It really is this kind of
like collective unconscience that becomes this sort of like unified
(25:50):
thing that you can game, not only psychologically but physically
by saying, you know, you applaud and then for this,
and then you applaud for that, And you can kind
of get a sense of like how much people like
something by how loud they get or how you know,
raucous they get. Just the ladies, just the dudes, just
(26:12):
the people. You know what, if you're a person, clap,
what's that old Mitch Hedberg joke? Who here feels like
a person? Who here feels like a animal or a monster. Well,
I'm not gonna write Mitch Hedberg's jokes for him. He
did it, God bless Uh. There's also a of course
(26:33):
there's an equal opposite reaction. Right, Nothing exists in a
vacuum unless you have cleaned my vacuum, which I did earlier,
and there's a lot of stuff in there. What we
mean to say is IM glad you got to bring
that out into the actual podcast. You made that joke.
We were hanging out the other day and I thought
it was spot on. Definitely exists in a vacuum. He
(26:56):
was really proud of that joke because I don't remember
where he made it to me, but he made maybe
look at the text or base campaign or something, but
he really went out of his way to make that
joke to me. Also, I want you guys to like
me and laugh at that. I don't. I want to.
I want to be clack houred, not bird because there
(27:16):
were boers. That's a real thing. That's the equal opposite reaction.
You might have forced applause makes your show look good.
But of course there were a lot of artists to say,
that's bs. You know what I mean, that's a frame up.
My work exists on its own merit, Yes, but then
(27:40):
they becomes this this yeah, yeah, it almost is like
this like racket right where you know they knew about
the system, and this certain kind of like opposite contingent
um of like almost sabboteurs kind of knew the game.
They're like, well, we're gonna buy a bunch of tickets
and pay these people to come and jeer and boo
(28:01):
and you know, cat call and like do all kinds
of things to disrupt the performance unless you pay a
big you know, it really is kind of like a
almost like a protection or or like what's the word
collection kind of situation where it's like, be a shame
if something happened to your nice play. Yes, yes, uh,
(28:22):
this is the thing it is. It is a bit
of a racket because you know, if you have this
established hierarchy of people who bring cruise to clap for
your shows and you don't make nice with them, you know,
you don't you don't pay your due deference. Uh, then
(28:44):
the the clack hours or what were they called the
chefs dick lakhur Uh chefs think that's the full the
full extended title. Yes, yeah, okay, So if you if
you didn't tow the line with these folks, then they
would buy the tickets themselves and they would tell ticket
(29:06):
holders don't clap or they would say wait for this
one guy and then booing. So this is like, this
is mob style heckling. It's crazy that the mob is
not more into this currently. I guess they have other
(29:29):
stuff to do. Yeah, and um, and and then and
then the promoters or whomever you know was hiring the
clack hours, the ones that were meant to kind of
big up the performance, got wise to this sort of
like terrorist contingent that was coming in and started to
hire like like spies or moles to sort of like
infiltrate the you know, the saboteurs and figure out who
(29:52):
was coming in there to kind of disrupt things and
then issuing you know, kind of equal and opposite threats
in their direct and making sure they didn't make it
into the performance. It's nuts. There is so much more
to the laugh track. The laugh track existed before sitcoms,
before television, before radio. It's an ancient idea and Douglas
(30:17):
leveraged it very very well. I would say, I mean, okay,
let's go back to the present, NOL. When's the last
time you saw a show with the laugh track? I
think it was that Louis c. K Um kind of
(30:39):
like Revival sitcom sort of parody Life with Louis or
Lucky Louis right, and it had a laugh track, and
or again like things like some of these adults Swim
Little sketches are kind of late night shows where it's
meant to make something seem dated or kind of create
like a certain atmosphere. Sometimes you'll see it in you know,
(31:00):
like um movies for example, like if you've seen the
movie Nope, there's this whole subplot surrounding a sitcom called
like Gordy's Home or something like that about a rangatang
and you hear that, you know, when you see it
played back, you know, on a screen, and it usually
looks kind of like you know, has like sort of
like scan lines and like very dated kind of visuals
as well, and that creates this sense of a time
(31:23):
and place. Um. But usually it's either used for that
kind of stuff, you know. Another good example is in
the movie Natural Born Killers. There's a whole sequence where
it's like this fantasy world, this sort of like really
maccabre sitcom involving Mallory, the character played by Juliette Lewis
and her father is this like abusive slubby you know,
(31:44):
awful man played by Rodney Dangerfield. And in those uh sequences,
there is a laugh track because it's meant to be
this surrealist kind of experience where you're you feel like
you're sort of placed in this sitcom. Yeah, absolutely, Uh,
you know, laugh tracks subsists in a lot of British
comedy way after we fell out of in in the
(32:08):
US now there's certain form formulaic prit coms that definitely
I believe it only more recently was shows like The
Office you know has that have they tried to lean
more into more of like a cinema verite or like
kind of like documentary style. But you're right, like shows
like absolutely Fabulous long after maybe not long after, but
(32:29):
long you know after a lot of American sitcoms abandoned
that you did still see it in In in British
and maybe other European Uh Sig Mitchell and Webb look
one of the coolest sketch shows to come out of
the United Kingdom in recent years. They use the laugh track. Also, Max,
you've got some opinions you've been sabotageing us this whole time. Bro.
(32:53):
I hope you are clacking and not booing here, we'll
never know, well, we will know, well, we will know eventually.
Is I don't know, But I do find that funny
because you go back and like watch like Seinfeld, and
I don't know if it's a laugh track or live
audience or it's a combination. Yea, they would sweeten They
would sweeten quote unquote the audience reaction that usually was
(33:13):
triggered by some sort of sign or some again to
your point, ben orchestration, and then they would sweeten it
with things that made it feel more organic or like
you know, adding those little kind of moments of sound
design or fully work that they would do after the fact.
You know, I just found it funny because it's like
I think of, like, you know, I had that like,
you know, I believe that when the show has a
(33:33):
laugh track or something that I kind of just like
the great a little bit. But then you think with
like Seinfeld's like one of the greatest in American history,
probably it's like, oh, yeah, it has that there. Yeah,
it was still in that era though, you know it's
still was, And honestly, it was studio executives that were
sort of like you know, hooked on the stuff. They
were like, no, no, no, no, we need this, you know,
like Mash. For example, a lot of the creators of Mash,
(33:55):
which which was it on location type show. It was
a comedy that was about, you know, the Vietnam War,
and while it was it's very funny, it also has
some heavy stuff and some more drama. It really is
kind of more of a drama, I guess, than like
a full sitcom. The creators of that show fought pretty
hard with network executives to ditch the laugh track, and
they finally got to a compromise where they would only
(34:17):
allow them, rather, the studios would only allow them to
not use it during heavy moments or like, you know,
things in an operating theater because Mash is about these
uh you know, wartime field surgeons. So no, what you're
saying is studio executives were hooked on two things, and
one of them was laugh tracks. It's very funny, Max.
(34:48):
They also like money. You know, I'm laughing, But it's true.
Studio executives like things that they know work. They're not
about taking risks. So it takes a lot to have
a ce change in like the whole culture of television
when it's been happening since the fifties. You know, they're like, no,
no, no no, no, why would we change the formula? We
know it works, right, Yeah, you want predictable, predictable results, right,
(35:13):
you want measurable projections of income. And if the soul
of the creative act is lost in that pursuit, a
lot of people make a devil's bargain and say, so
be it. So this is the thing right now, as
you're listening to this episode, you're probably not hearing shows
(35:35):
with un ironic laugh tracks. The laugh track now has
become meta commentary. Uh. There's a great episode of It's
Always Sunny in Philadelphia wherein they create a sitcom and
show the dangers of laugh tracks. It's a very clever
show and I recommend people check it out. Well, it's
(35:56):
funny mentioning the dangers of laugh tracks. Um. There is
an article on Looper the real reason TV sitcom stopped
using laugh tracks the references of nineteen seventy four study
that found that laugh tracks um created a sense of
what's called conformity pressure in test subjects. Um. You know
in The New York Times reported on these findings that
(36:18):
compared Seinfeld with this like you know, baked in laugh
track with The Simpsons, which never had a laugh track.
It was it was an animated show. It was an
animated sitcom. But unless I'm mistaken, the Simpsons never had
a laugh track, even though it's certainly debuted during that era.
The executives must have been like, oh, no, cartoons don't
get laugh tracks, but UM didn't. Didn't like the flint
(36:39):
Stones have laugh tracks, like I swear, some like old
cigarette commercials. I just I don't know if that's a
good basis for us. Fair enough, But my point is
the study found um in Science News that when they
compared reactions to Seinfeld with the laugh track to reactions
to The Simpsons, there wasn't really that much of a difference,
and how viewers respond bonded Um. And that's because those
(37:02):
are also two shows that are very smartly written. So
it was a band aid and a lazy tactic for
shows that were more like Broad and not nearly as
clever as The Simpsons are Seinfeld. So maybe the case
study here is a little bit inflated or or a
little bit loaded, because those are two of the most
brilliant comedy shows of all time. But maybe a show
(37:23):
like Green Acres needed the laugh track, I don't know,
but then you have something called cringe comedy like the office,
shows like Dirty Rock or you know, Arrested Development, Malcolm
in the Middle, where a big part of the joke
is not knowing whether it's okay to laugh or not
not knowing whether something is actually funny or not. In
fact something maybe being actively not funny and uncomfortable, and
(37:47):
then getting diffused in some clever way. Yeah, exactly. And
this is where this is where we land. If you
are hearing a laugh track on a show now in
two or so, then you will be hearing it ironically
or you'll be looking at an earlier program. The laugh track,
(38:14):
as it is recognized as a social cue, it met
a diminishing return, you know what I mean, They're like,
it's the idea in order reminds me of folks. It
reminds me of the old thought experiment where you say,
if I had entrance music whenever I walked into a room,
(38:36):
what what would the music that make me received better? Yea?
Or would that like? What would what would be the
result there? I think a big part of this too
is shows have just gotten better. Like I mean, if
you if you go back and watch like an episode
of Full House or Family Matters. They're just inherently dated
and just a little bit corny. And then shows like
The Office and Arrested Development they're just better shows. They're like,
(38:59):
I think Sinfeld is one of the lone examples of
sitcoms from the nineties that really still holds up and
doesn't need the laugh track at all. In fact, you
could argue Seinfeld was sort of the precursor to this
cringe comedy. But in general, audiences just won't stand for
things that are just like super broad and corny, and
therefore maybe you could argue you have gotten smarter. I
(39:22):
believe you, man, I am tempted to agree. I really
like that. Also, you know, I think it was was
it Larry David who pointed out the primary issue with Seinfeld.
If cell phones existed when Seinfeld was being written, then
(39:42):
none of those episodes would happen. And thank god, thank
god they were slow with the cell phones coming out, because, man,
Seinfeld is a legitimately amazing show. It's really good. I've
heard that said, and I don't think I quite under
Maybe I just don't know Seinfeld. You know, after in
verse enough to understand is it mainly just like a
(40:03):
lot of jokes are based around communication and like waiting
for a pay phone or like somebody getting like stood up,
or just you know, miscommunication, where were just like a
simple text message would have solved this entire all the
problems of this episode. Well you say that, but also
like then you wouldn't have a show exactly knowing Larry.
(40:26):
It would just be a recursive feedback loop of weird
text messages, you know what I mean. And there there
would be an episode where he learns emoji and then
one where he learns gifts. It would be like hanging
out with my dad. I don't know if that's the best,
but I think it would apted. I think Larry David
(40:47):
still probably uses a flip phone if I'm not if
I'm not being too bold there. But what's funny when
you mentioned Larry David and sort of how Curb your
Enthusiasm is like a progression of Seinfeld while also still
kind of king to a lot of the things that
made sein felt funny Because obviously Larry was a massive,
if not the biggest driver in Seinfeld. He still has
(41:09):
this lexicon of sound cues that he uses all that's
on a little do do do Do Do Do do do,
which is also guiding you somehow. It's it's more clever
than the literally leading you by the ear laugh track. Yeah,
it's less imposing, right, it takes you. Uh, it's somewhat comfortable.
(41:31):
It cuts your elbow instead of like grabbing the back
of your neck, right, which is what a laugh track does.
So the oh that's a little n lp perhaps, But
at this juncture is our research associate Jeff points out,
the laugh track doesn't really have a practical use other
(41:52):
than to be commentary upon itself. It's it's strange because
that pressure you were talking about earlier, man, Uh, that
social conformity pressure, people clocked it. And audiences are amazingly
intelligent and in no small part contrarian, you know what
I mean. So if if some you don't like to
(42:13):
feel like they're being manipulated, so the so the manipulation
has to become much more um subconscious, So you can't
like let people know they're being manipulated. But then you
certainly have broader shows that you could argue are like
less clever than I curb your enthusiasm or arrested development,
and they just work in broader strokes, you know what
(42:34):
I mean. Like, the themes are just much bigger, the
acting is much bigger, the dialogue is a little more
on the nose. But still even those shows you don't
get to have a laugh track anymore. Those days are gone. God,
I love this stuff so much. Can we end today's
show with doing like a really brief sitcom bit? Can
we do a sitcom bit? Only if I can? Can
(42:56):
I do the punch line? Yeah? Do the punch line? Yeah,
I don't know what it is you leave you okay, okay, okay,
I got your back, alright. So um picture with us.
There is a ranch style house, right, that's our wide shot.
I love I love it as a ranch style that
we have to have a little bit the little jingle here,
(43:17):
like did it it did? Studio back from the commercial?
Pray perfect? Okay, that's the name of our show. Back
from the commercial. We'll make it shorter, um back from
(43:38):
We'll call it back from all right, welcome to back
back from and then and then in like parentheses of
the commercial commercial, Yes, perfect, all right. So our scene
opens on uh, Max Williams playing Max Williams. Uh. He
is walking down the stairs, because there's always as out
(44:00):
of stairs in the background behind the couch, Max, you
walked in, Max Williams, attorney at law. Max Williams, attorney
at law. Yes, and uh so. Max Williams, attorney at
law walks down from the stairs weirdly, has a suit
like he's going to court. And he sits on the
couch and he says, Benjamin, where did you put the
(44:21):
orange juice today? Where didn't I put it? Uh says
ben walking from the kitchen. And then I come in
and I go, where's my orange juice? And then everyone
(44:45):
can say they freak out, they lose their mind. I
think that's the you know, because I'm a fool. I
can I just say that I enter a room and
I say, where's my orange juice? And it just so
happens that at dovetail with y'all's conversation about orange, you
have a couple of orange juice in your hand because
I've I've misplaced it. But I'm just such a buffoon
(45:05):
that I don't know that I'm not holding my hand. Okay, Wayne,
In scenario soft at it, we all are holding glasses
of orange juice while we are talking about this boom
done end credits. This is all Big Orange. That's right, folks,
(45:39):
we've brought to you yeah, Big Orange. But also, like
another fun trope and sitcoms and certain echelon of television
and movies is when people have cups of stuff, they're
usually empty, and they the physics of people handling those
cups just doesn't line up with the reality of carrying
a cup of either hot or cold liquid a hundred percent.
(46:02):
So we hope you enjoyed this exploration of the history
of laugh tracks. Please let us know your favorite examples
of it. Uh, please let us know times that you
thought a laugh track could have been used or time
a laugh track should not have been used. As always,
thanks to our number one sponsored Big Orange Juice. Thanks
(46:25):
to also to Mr Max Williams super producer Alex Williams,
who could pose the track. Oh my gosh, no, we're
doing the ending credits right. This is like introducing the characters.
They're losing their mind. It's sort of like at the
end of certain sitcoms you'd almost or maybe there were
special episodes of sitcoms where they show the studio audience
(46:47):
and then the cast would kind of come out and
take a bow. That's what's happening right now. Um, Christopher
haciotes here in spirit. His ghostly form wafts across the
sound stage. There is uh and and we have a
we we have a candid look up at the camera
and pause moment for Eve's Jeff coat. Uh. You know,
(47:10):
you know you just caught me hanging out. Jonathan Strickling.
The Quister's bald head pops up from behind the couch,
making a sinister glare, and he has the orange he's
had of the whole time. Yeah, the whole time. We're done.
We're done, See you next time, folks. For more podcasts
(47:32):
from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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