The Laugh Track Thread

[D'Snowth]

How I Met Your Mother didn't need it. I don't see why it even had it in the first place.

Sitcoms without laughter - live or simulated - are just ghastly and ghoulish; as I've said before, if you watch M*A*S*H on DVD with the laugh track turned off, all of the sudden, the brief pauses are emphasized, making the flow of the show awkward and slow, and certainly a lot less fun.

Case in point: back in the very early days of television, whe the Laff Box was really first starting to come into vogue, one of the networks screened two different pilots to three different test audiences: the pilot the network felt was superior contained no laugh trac, while the pilot they felt was inferior had one. The poor pilot with the laugh track tested through the roof, while the better pilot without the laugh track failed miserably. Similarly, HOGAN'S HEROES tried to forego laughter as well, but when that pilot was tested, audiences watching the silent version had no idea what they were watching, while audiences watching the laffed version loved it.

 

[mimitchi33]

Did you know that Scooby-Doo used to have a laugh track, but like Dinosaurs, it was removed in re-runs because it didn't fit with the theme of the show?
While we're on the topic, here's a funny video about what Arthur would be like with a laugh track:

 

[D'Snowth]

Actually, most cartoons that previously had laugh tracks had them removed from reruns and even DVD releases, like THE FLINTSTONES, for example. Back then, it was simply a standard, but it really wasn't until THE ARCHIE SHOW that laugh tracks for cartoons also joined that standard, because it was the first Saturday Morning show to utilize one. Then a year later, H.R. PUFNSTUF had a laugh track because the show's executive producer was previously a sitcom writer/producer who convinced Sid & Marty Krofft that a funny show without a laugh track was a handicap, so by then all SatAM shows had a laugh track, and because of that by the mid-70s they started adding kiddie laughs to those shows as well.

Speaking of which, the reason I was bumping this thread was because it just now occured to me that THE JUSTICE FRIENDS segments from DEXTER'S LABORATORY had a laugh track as well.