Why do TV sitcoms still have laugh tracks? It's 2005--I think America is a little sick of the pre-installed laugh track.

 

Don't believe me? Here. Listen in on this Authentic Answer B!tch Panel Discussion culled from Maxine Lapiduss and Stan Zimmerman, both longtime TV producers and the stars of Situation: Comedy, a reality show that starts airing later this month on Bravo. Laugh whenever you want.

MAXINE
Well, most shows actually don't use a laugh track any longer and really haven't since the 1970s.

STAN
Although, God knows we really haven't come that far. Now TV producers do something called "sweetening" their show. What that means is, most sitcoms tape before a live audience...

MAXINE
[And] sometimes the laugh is too big...

STAN
...We should be so lucky--but sometimes that can sound like a fake laugh. So after the taping, the producers listen to the soundtrack with a specialist whose job it is to smooth out the laughs and fill in an occasional dead spot.

MAXINE
Dead spots can happen not just in my career, or from a scene being unfunny, but if you use a take that may have been shot during the dress rehearsal in the afternoon (without the audience) or if you are trimming the scene for time and there's a gap.

STAN
The person who's doing the sweetening has gathered a library of different kinds of laughs --a twitter, a tee-hee...

MAXINE
And of course the much-maligned "whoooo."

STAN
Usually following a kiss or a wardrobe malfunction. The sad thing, or odd thing, or really weird thing, depending on how you look at it--is that some of those laughs are from I Love Lucy tapings or All in the Family, which means that if you're watching a brand-new episode of Will & Grace in 2005 or the two pilots we made for Situation: Comedy on Bravo...

MAXINE
...You're chuckling along with a bunch of dead people.

Why is this B!tch not surprised?


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