When the editors of Time magazine compiled the 100 worst things of the 20th century in 1999, along with Milli Vanilli, Titanic and penalty kicks, canned laughter used in sitcoms appeared on the list.
Canned laughter, mainly used in comedies, has been a subject of debate since its invention, mainly because it has the effect of underestimating and manipulating the viewers if a program suggests afterwards when a joke was made. Another criticism against canned laughter has always been, of course, that with this solution, a less funny, not so well-written show can seem entertaining. It’s as if the flatter parts of a comedy are improved with it afterwards.
For example, the writer and main character of the recently ended Half Empty, the head writer of Seinfeld that ran in the nineties, Larry David, for example, avoided and drilled the use of pre-recorded laughs and the use of a live audience wherever he could. According to David’s heart, he would have completely abandoned the audience during the filming of Seinfeld, which had a darker humor and was harsher compared to the sitcoms of the time. However, under pressure from NBC, they stayed with the scenes shot in front of the audience and used canned laughter for the parts that were not shot in front of the audience. The compromise solution for Seinfeld was that the scenes recorded without the audience were also played afterwards for the audience gathered in the studio for the filming, and then the audience voices heard here were then used in the editing.
The original purpose of canned laughter when it was introduced, back in the 1950s, was for the producers to somehow manage the unpredictable reactions of the local audience and facilitate the reception of the then still new genre, TV comedy. In America at this time, like radio programs, TV productions were recorded in front of a live audience, but the creators were not always satisfied with the audience’s reactions. In addition, the creators also aimed to create a community experience by filming in front of the audience. In contrast to cinemas, everyone watched these programs at home with their family and friends on TV, and the simulated laughter of the audience gave the illusion of a communal experience to those watching TV on the couch.
Finally, Charles Douglass came up with the most effective solution to the whole problem with a structure called the Laff Box. This machine was developed to such perfection that its operator could play on it like an organ virtuoso and decide in the editing room when the intensity of laughter needed for a given scene or how much to artificially enhance the quieter reactions of the audience.
The Laff Box remained a completely established solution until the end of the eighties, and the laughs recorded in the fifties served the later programs for a long time. Chuck Palahniuk aptly captured the absurdity of the method when he wrote in his book, Altató, published in 2002:
“Most of the laughs used in TV shows were recorded in the early 1950s. So the people you hear laughing on TV are already dead.”
The method has not only worked in the American entertainment industry, but in South American programs they have gone one step further and specifically made people laugh on instructions, so-called reiodereswere used on the shoots.
The pre-recorded audience reaction had its opponents from the beginning, but according to neurologist Sophie Scott, speaking to the Atlantic, although many people may have thought that they were above this type of control, most viewers simply found the audible audience reaction helpful in interpreting the comedy. The channels also tried from time to time with a program without canned laughter, but these attempts soon died out.
It is typical of the American entertainment industry of the 1980s and 1990s that Aaron Sorkin (The President’s Men, The Newsmen), who would later become a prominent writer, had to plead with ABC executives in 1998 not to use pre-recorded laughs in the episodes of his first series, Evening Games. In the end, the channel refused to allow Sorkin, but by the second season of the series, they realized that the show did not need the post-cut voices.
Over time, however, viewer habits began to change. A 1974 study even concluded that viewers respond better to series recorded with added laughter, but a study conducted in the nineties already concluded that Seinfeld and The Simpsons without added laughter are equally effective for viewers.
It was not until the 1980s that producers trusted shows that abandoned canned laughter, or used live audiences as consciously as the above-mentioned Seinfeld. But the dominant method remained the retroactive enhancement of comedies.
The real turning point was then the rise of British comedies. Already in the 1980s, the BBC said goodbye to canned laughter in more and more comedy series, just as humor based on awkward situations and characters became more and more popular.
The explosion of the British and then the American Office marks the point when awkward silence served a much greater purpose in each scene than the sound of giggling spectators.
The Office, shot in a pseudo-documentary style, would have lost its meaning completely if anyone in the background had laughed during the office scenes.
At that time, the videos in which the audience’s laughter was removed from the scenes of Seinfeld or Jóbarátok were also spread. These videos confronted the fans of the series with the fact that the very funny scenes in their memories rather evoke the seriousness of an existentialist drama without the laughs, where the characters stare awkwardly at each other or into nothing for a long time, obviously at the points where they wait for the reaction of the live audience.
In the case of Jóbarátok, scenes were not filmed in front of an audience only in very rare cases. Typically, only parts containing a cliffhanger or the episodes of the last season, which were kept very secret, used the laughter added to the episode afterwards, in these cases, the creators were obviously afraid of the leakage of some information.
Jóbarátok was by far the most successful sitcom of the 2000s, but at that time the series that further developed the British line, 30 Rock or Arrested Development, were also decisive, and by the 2010s, those sitcoms (Modern family, Parks and Recreation, Community, Brooklyn 99) were in the majority, which did not manipulate the viewers with uproarious laughter. Of course, there were exceptions (Brains, How I Met Your Mothers), but the end of Brains in 2019 already marked the end of an era, even if since then the spinoff of the series, Young Sheldon, has also become popular.
Several series, such as WandaVision or Kevin Can Fuck Himself, now use canned laughter more as a method to deliberately startle the viewer, where the writers use the toolkit of sitcoms in a completely new context, rather ironically.
However, canned laughter seems to be indestructible, for example, CBS recently ordered a new series, another spinoff of Brainiacs, which will also have laughing voices. In addition, the survival of canned laughter is also helped by nostalgia, since recently the streaming sites have presented several productions that use the device that now seems outdated, just the talky Those 90s, the revived Frasier or How I Met Your Mother and the Brainiacs spinoffs to mention.
According to media researcher Robert Thompson, who also spoke to Atlatic, shows that use canned laughter play a similar role to Michelangelo’s frescoes. According to him, people are still influenced by the frescoes, even though they are aware that they are no longer made. Seinfeld or Friends, like the Sistine Chapel, still resonate with a lot of people, even if the added laughter is considered an outdated device.
