Laugh along with Friends

Often when we are watching television we don’t consciously realise how much we are being manipulated by the producers, directors, and screenwriters. Most people don’t see any point in examining the nuts and bolts of a TV series or sitcom that they habitually enjoy watching. They would not take much convincing to see that the the reason that they loyally follow and watch such programs is for the comfort of pure escapism. Also to become familiar with a group of fictional characters as if they are your personal “friends” or at least neighbours next door is therapeutic.

Playing around with the laughter track on the sitcom Friends, which was in its day, super popular, it is apparent how essential the interplay between dialogue and the laugh track actually is.
Remove it and you can see how vacuous and meaningless the social interplay and dialogue actually is.

One YouTube genius uploader went one step further and removed the dialogue altogether, substituting it with a continuous laugh track. “Nah,” says J.A. the producer, “they’ll never go for dat.”

An Israeli uploader (Who may have had a crush on the ‘Ross Geller’ character, removed the laugh track from a Friends’ scene, then slowed down the dialogue track, played with the colour saturation, and added some slightly eerie background music (instead of the pacy jazz funk vibe) The outcome is interesting.

But these experiments with media productions lays bare the mechanisms of indoctrination and that A/V reality is quite bendable and the agents behind popular culture have it all down to a practical science. That science is not just technical but more importantly psychological.

If you examine the laugh track for example it is not simply about eliciting a laugh. There are different tones of laughter and number of laughers. The greater the number of laughers means “everyone knows that is funny.” Fewer laughers may mean, “If you yourself also find it funny then you are one of the select aficionados.

The laughter track also defines the characters - without it, the characters cannot be moulded into the type of person you wish you were or the character into the friend or lover you would hope to meet up with.

The exercise is really all about the agenda of defining popularity and current societal values.

No laugh track:



Continuous laughter track:



Friend’s Ross Geller without a laugh track:



Conversely, imagine a laugh track sprinkled through a sad and despondent themed TV series designed to elicit sympathy. But oh, that would be in bad taste wouldn't it?

a reply to: HilterDayon

The first friends clip no laugh track makes joey smarter. I dig it.

Really it seems like Friends was the first softening up of the "image is everything" generation by the senders in preparation for Social Media.

"Through the ever-increasing gaze of a pervasive audience online, we may become overly pressured, even coerced toward collective opinion, as social media's mechanism of likes, dislikes, friends, and followers constantly subjects us to the crowd's judgement along with that gaze."

- Jeremy Weissman - The Crowdsourced Panopticon

Lucky that could never happen on ATS

a reply to: HilterDayon

The audience has the impression that these kind of sitcoms are reflecting culture back at them, which is half true, but actually it’s a feedback loop where culture is first created or suggested by media. Television of course being the most powerful and effective before the internet.

Naturally those that would like to control and manipulate society would gravitate to the most effective means, advertising works great for selling a product, but unconsciously it’s not the product your buying it’s the lifestyle or identity associated with it.

Now when it comes to the actual “programs” they are effectively one big advertisement, but this time what they are selling you is your behaviour. How to think, act or react in a given situation. To laugh on cue, be angry, scared or whatever it is. The audience in turn gets to feel a sense of participation, identifying with one or more characters it’s as if they have a role to play, it’s partly about them...

Bread and circuses has become extremely sophisticated indeed.

It's interesting to see how anti-comedic the clips are without the laugh tracks...

The actors rythm doesn't look natural at all... And with that perspective of the way they do the acting, doing these kind of shows must be so boring.
Say something, give 5 to 10 seconds for the laugh track to be able to play, then resume the scene?

No wonder some of those actors become drunks and all. I know it would make me mad.

a reply to: surfer_soul

Yes, S.S., absolutely. In fact the viewer of such programs is not considered an audience member, but a mark - in the strictest sense. I think it would be quite difficult to convince the average "Telly" fan that their fave sitcom is predatory. That's because they haven't met J.A.

originally posted by: coamanach
It's interesting to see how anti-comedic the clips are without the laugh tracks...

The actors rythm doesn't look natural at all... And with that perspective of the way they do the acting, doing these kind of shows must be so boring.
Say something, give 5 to 10 seconds for the laugh track to be able to play, then resume the scene?

No wonder some of those actors become drunks and all. I know it would make me mad.

That's so true coamanach, but at least some things are natural....."Alright sweety, now push yourself up...a little higher, now arch your back a little ....and...cut....pan to Joey..."

I don't know.. Personally, I still found the no laugh track clip to be amusing. It was more lifelike in my opinion.

The one where it's no talking and just laughter is basically comes across as a typical conversation goes after a good smoke sesh.

The cold blue tone Ross scene was pretty interesting too.

Remembering back when the show (and shows in general) was popular and still in production I recall being aware of the laugh track, but I don't think it had that strong of an affect on me. I recognize it as an attempt to elicit laughter from the viewers, or maybe even help with a weak joke, but to me if it's funny it's funny. There are plenty of times when I've watched a show with a laugh track and the jokes would still fall flat for me and I might have uttered a single ha or meh.

I guess to me the laugh track was more of a cue to analyze the joke and the situation as good writing or lazy/poor writing.