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Early live U.S. television, film; "sweetening"
In early television, most shows that were not broadcast live used the single-camera filmmaking technique, where a show was created by filming each scene several times from different camera angles.[3] Whereas the performances of the actors and crew could be controlled, live audiences could not be relied upon to laugh at the "correct" moments; other times, audiences were deemed to have laughed too loudly or for too long.[3]
CBS sound engineer Charley Douglass noticed these inconsistencies, and took it upon himself to remedy the situation.[4] If a joke did not get the desired chuckle, Douglass inserted additional laughter; if the live audience chuckled too long, Douglass gradually muted the guffaws. This editing technique became known as sweetening, in which recorded laughter is used to augment the response of the real studio audience if they did not react as strongly as desired.[4] Conversely, the process could be used to "desweeten" audience reactions, toning down unwanted loud laughter or removing inappropriate applause, thus making the laughter more in line with the producer's preferred method of telling the story.[5]
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1960s
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Hogan's Heroes
Network research indicated that the inclusion of a laugh track was considered essential for categorizing a single-camera show as a comedy. This hypothesis was tested in 1965 when CBS conducted an experiment involving its new single-camera sitcom Hogan's Heroes (1965-71), presenting two versions of the pilot episode to test audiences: one with a laugh track and one without. The version without the laugh track, due in part to the show's more cerebral humor, performed poorly, while the version with the laugh track garnered a more favorable reception. Consequently, Hogan's Heroes was broadcast with the laugh track, and CBS subsequently incorporated laugh tracks into all of its comedic programming.[3]
Sitcom laugh tracks differed, depending on the style of the show. The more outlandish the show, the more invasive the laugh track. Shows like Bewitched, The Munsters, I Dream of Jeannie and The Beverly Hillbillies relied heavily on laugh tracks, while more subdued programs, like The Andy Griffith Show, The Brady Bunch and My Three Sons, had more modulated laughter. Certain shows, like Get Smart, featured a laugh track that became more invasive as the series progressed, while shows like M*A*S*H toned down the laughter as the series became more dramatic; it was entirely absent during operating room scenes.[10]
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1970s; Comeback of live audiences
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The resurgence of live audiences began to gradually take hold. More sitcoms began to veer away from the single-camera, movie-style format, reverting to the multi-camera format with a live studio audience providing real laughter, which producers found more pleasing because it had a better comic rhythm and helped them write better jokes. Creator Norman Lear's All in the Family (CBS, 1971–1979) followed suit in 1971. Videotaped live, Lear was more spontaneous; he wanted the studio audience to act like the performer, with hopes of the two developing a rapport with each other. Lear was not a fan of pretaped audiences, resulting in no laugh track being employed, not even during post-production when Lear could have had the luxury of sweetening any failed jokes (Lear relented somewhat in later seasons, and allowed Douglass to insert an occasional laugh).[11] Lear's decision resulted in the show being a huge success, and ushered in the return of live audiences to the U.S. sitcom mainstream. To make his point clear, an announcement proclaimed over the closing credits each week that "All in the Family was recorded on tape before a live audience" or during the show's final seasons where live audiences no longer attended tapings of the show, "All in the Family was played to a studio audience for live responses."[11]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laugh_track
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To think George Orwell wrote 1984 at the dawn of the television age and I'm wondering how decades of laugh tracks shaped modern perceptions in regards to empathy?
= new reply since forum marked as read
