Canned Laughter

It can be forgotten that blogs are read or have contributions from across the world so some subjects are specific to where the Blogger is posting from and I guess some sensitivity should be included if its decided that to talk of something controversial in the news.

So I am talking about...

Canned Laughter and the doctoring of an audience's response on live or recorded television/radio programmes. I think this is something that probably plays a part in practically any country that has a big media business.

Comedy or variety radio programmes were recorded or performed live in front of an audience especially in America during its golden years where it offered more than just phone-ins or dj's spinning records. Comedians of the day such as Fred Allen, Jack Benny or Milton Berle interplayed with their audience. It gave the performer something to bounce their performance off and probably added to to the effect and enjoyment at home so in that instance probably enhanced the experience.

As television was more complicated to produce and often meant halting the production, lots of retakes I guess it could mean that the audience present might get bored and/or not laugh at something they've seen a number of times.

Charles Douglas who was born in Mexico in 1910 and grew up in Nevada USA. He had a degree in Electrical Engineering and managed to get work with CBS Radio in Los Angeles but eventually moving into television having worked on live radio shows with Bob Hope, Jack Benny etc...
Charlie realised that audiences having watched rehearsals would not laugh as much at the same joke when it came around again as in the live transmission or recorded programme. So in the later years of radio the idea of playing in laughter from disc's but to do it with television was harder.

Somehow, Charles managed to invent a gadget that could add laughter at the press of a button. From what I understand there were a series of platters contained in a box with various sounds on them but they would rotate a certain amount of time and return to their original position until required again. He started getting called in by the Producer of programmes who would supply him with a script and feed the sound from the box into the mixing desk and it was very much Charlie's judgement where and what sounds would be added to the soundtrack whether laughter, cheers or applause.

Eventually, he started his own business and added more staff capable of using the machines and therefore more shows could make use of the "Laugh Box" the mystery of what was in the box and how it worked remained a secret for many years and any such box was padlocked and guarded from the gaze of eyes.

A backlash against what was seen as something false that might influence people at home did happen, even in America where it was invented. But it survived and was used on many of what you probably remember as favourites programmes of your youth such as The Munsters, Mr Ed, The Addams Family, Bewitched, I Love Lucy etc...

Where it gets a little uncomfortable is the fact that if you have a keen ear you probably are listening to laughs on say I Love Lucy and maybe hear the same ones on Mork & Mindy for example. They never changed and chances are those laughing have been dead for a number of years.

Then we have the problem what do you do with a series such as M*A*S*H* that has dark humour and a conscience and deals with a difficult subject. When I watched it originally as shown in the UK on the BBC being young I never suddenly thought "Where's the laughter of the audience?" it had no laughter track but in the 90's it showed up on satellite tv over here and suddenly I was aware that the laughter track was back and it did seem strange to have it included. Perhaps inappropriate.

To some extent American television is going back to using a live audience and generally the UK has tended to avoid using prerecorded laughter. So when it says "Recorded In Front Of Live Audience" it probably has still been tampered with. Though live, it is being combined or having parts of the sound sweetened by adding laughs from a machine.

Even some live events are tweaked here and there.

So that's the background...therefore in recent years and I think that it happens more in commercial television in the UK than the BBC or perhaps will happen more on BBC shows that are independently produced for them by other companies.

One that sticks out like a sore thumb has to be "Just For Laughs" I'll stand corrected and apologise if that can be proven to be a genuine audience. I'm not sure that with or without "Canned Laughter" anyone could say it is laugh out funny. The same these days with "You've Been Framed" and especially as it now is produced with just a voice over, its a fair bet its produced in some production suite. Another has to be the one ITV show with the Animal clips.

Most worrying are shows such as "Ant and Dec's Takeaway" where they give a shot of the audience and you can hear the audience cheering wildly amongst the sound of applause but none of the audience shown has their mouths open and are usually just smiling or they take a shot of the audience and though there is laughter to be heard it appears no one is actually laughing. So its a fair bet live sound is being enhanced in some way. Another practise that has been talked of and causes heated debate is that of turning up the reaction of an audience therefore its not strictly recorded laughter but nor is is it strictly how the audience reacted.

Then we have Stars In Their Eyes, the same problem. At the same point in every performers song, the applause comes in and finishes and sounds exactly the same. I can guess every time when it will start and end. I am sure that you can think of some shows yourself.

Once many performers and comedy/variety programmes were genuinely funny and had people who had learned their craft and the adding of laughter did no real harm but today the fact that it is needed so much begs me to ask how many of today's shows and performers are genuinely funny? And how much of what we see is fixed?

At least in the early days of Canned Laughter we knew that's what it was and therefore it was actually more truthful.