Reading the readings this week, I couldn’t help but think about the laugh tracks that we are forced to hear when we’re watching a sitcom, especially shows such as The Big Bang Theory and Friends. One such example that came to mind was a scene from season 5 of Friends, the infamous “My Sandwich!” scene where Ross discovered a co-worker ate his thanksgiving sandwich, leading to a riot of rage from him.
What we bear witness to is a flurry of Ross exclamations and frequent laughing but not from anyone in scene, no this laughter is from a supposed live studio audience (or more likely than not, a recorded laugh track to signify the intended joke timings of the scene). This laughter is reactionary, instantaneous in response to what the creators deem funny. The fit the criteria that Norbert Elias proposes, where he states that “Laughter is usually an immediate, unpremeditated reaction. Normally, the explosion follows whatever it is that makes us laugh promptly, or even more promptly, as the sneeze follows the snuff”. This laughter, while artificial in its nature, is also accredited to for its signalling, as it works as a cue to the audience watching on their screens, just when to laugh or interpret a moment as a humorous one.
Take this edited version of the clip where the laugh track is omitted completely, I personally can tell when to laugh because I’ve seen the show in its entirety prior, but if someone was to show this to a completely oblivious viewer, someone who somehow hasn’t been exposed to the global phenomenon, they’d be unaware of what to laugh at. Sure we could laugh at his overreaction but without context this could be taken as a serious scene. This reliance on the laugh track is what I wanted to take notice of the sitcom crutch that is this laugh track. Sitcoms are funny, surely if they’re a popular mode of television they would be, but from my experience it’s the ones that lack the laugh track that crack me up the most, from The Office to Community, their jokes are written in a way that I can comprehend the joke, this series however isn’t always as clear. Laughter can set a tone, even if we cannot see the facial proportions of those involved, we can hear in their pitch, their timing and their sense of excitement, whether or not the tone set is positive or negative, with these clips I gathered that the presence or lack of one, can paint multiple tones even if the scene in question remains the same elsewhere.