Bad Move Page 6

Yes that is true enough although I'd call Hancock's persona on HHH more downbeat and lugubrious than despondent, and with mood swings from low to high which was possibly to do with the real Hancock's alcoholism. Quite a different character to Dee's continually flat and downcast sitcom persona.

Hancock was also given some of the finest comedy lines ever written, Dee hasn't yet been given any. And HHH's drabness was inventive, and reflective of contemporary life whereas Bad Move isn't, except for a few who move to the country and aren't suited to it.

Quote: Chappers @ 27th February 2019, 11:11 PM

What is all this new demand for laughter tracks? It is definitely NOT the way forward for English sitcoms. You don't need to be told when to laugh. Laugh when you think it's funny and I think Jack Dee is a good comedy actor.

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I don't know what's new about it, they've been popular since the birth of sitcom. They're not there to tell you when to laugh or shouldn't be used for that, they enhance a sitcom by showing how an audience enjoyed it and keep a tab of the number of funny lines and events, the lifeblood of a good sitcom. Although lately laugh tracks themselves have been artificially enhanced and can spoil the enjoyment, but that's a misuse of them by clueless modern producers.

So the way forward is more dross like Bad Move? Sitcoms where there is no real laughs anymore, just sly musings on life with moments of awkwardness, poor plots, more drama than comedy and hardly any funny lines or actions? You're welcome to that if that's what you want but I won't be watching if that's the future.

Dear oh dear oh dear!

Stone me. What a life!

Alfred's views on "Bad Move" are not unreasonable but they're very different from my own.

Hancock did indeed have some of the funniest lines in the history of sitcom but you'll struggle to find a joke in a Hancock script. That's because Hancock went through every script and carefully struck out every single joke that the writers had tried to sneak into it. For Tony, sitcom was all about character and I feel exactly the same way.

Having said that, I'm not trying to elevate "Bad Move" to the upper echelons of British sitcom history: I am, however, of the opinion that it was a nice little sitcom written and performed with great confidence by people who knew what they were doing and did it well.

I wonder how many episodes there were ?

Quote: Hercules Grytpype Thynne @ 28th February 2019, 9:41 AM

I wonder how many episodes there were ?

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More than "Sunny D", that's for sure - which is surprising really because, when people see Dane Baptiste, they think "Sunny D" but whenever people see Jack Dee, they think "Miserable C".

Quote: Alfred J Kipper @ 28th February 2019, 2:43 AM

I don't know what's new about it, they've been popular since the birth of sitcom.

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But we all hate laughter tracks unless they're genuine. There have been a couple of posts here demanding them back.

Quote: Chappers @ 28th February 2019, 10:32 PM

we all hate laughter tracks unless they're genuine.

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I'm not sure there's such a thing as a genuine laugh track.

Recording a sitcom and then adding laughter recorded fifty years ago from people who are now dead is clearly fraudulent. However, recording several takes of a sitcom scene and then adding the biggest laugh obtained from all the takes to the one selected for broadcast is common practice - although the laugh is not genuine because the laugh was not generated by what is being shown on the screen as the laugh occurs.

We don't have a laugh track on films and we don't have a laugh track on theatrical productions. Why then do we have them on television?

The answer is because TV executives have historically considered TV audiences to be the scum of the earth who aren't bright enough to realise when they think something is funny and then to realise how funny they think it is.

I think "Bad Move" would suffer enormously from the addition of a laugh track simply because comedy, at its most intelligent and most effective, isn't always about making people laugh.

Quote: Rood Eye @ 28th February 2019, 10:49 PM

I think "Bad Move" would suffer enormously from the addition of a laugh track simply because comedy, at its most intelligent and most effective, isn't always about making people laugh.

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I'm sorry but if comedy is effective then it should make you laugh. If it doesn't then it's failed as comedy.

I think Rood Eye's saying that Bad Move is funny but tonally can be quite serious, so a live audience might ruin the feel

Quote: Sitcomfan64 @ 28th February 2019, 11:02 PM

I'm sorry but if comedy is effective then it should make you laugh. If it doesn't then it's failed as comedy.

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On the face of it, that makes a lot of sense as a general rule. I think it's true to say that a sitcom or a stand-up comedian that, having been watched by a substantial and varied audience, has never made anybody laugh can safely be deemed a failure in the world of comedy.

However, there are comedians and sitcoms that, as well as making the audience laugh are also making the audience think - and the thinking and the laughing are not always simultaneous.

There are also comedians and sitcoms that can bring an audience to tears of sadness at times, while at other times rendering them helpless with laughter. Such a comedian's performance and/or such a sitcom can hardly be said to have failed overall as comedy.

There are also gentle comedies that tend to make the audience smile rather than laugh out loud.

There are excellent comedians and sitcoms that I watch on TV in almost total silence. I don't laugh out loud but I might very well be thinking "This is absolute genius!" and thoroughly enjoying every brilliant comedy moment. Such comedians and sitcoms can hardly be described as comedy failures.

In fact, when I'm on my own watching TV, I very rarely laugh out loud at anything - and yet I do watch some absolutely fabulous comedy.

Quote: jsg @ 28th February 2019, 11:17 PM

I think Rood Eye's saying that Bad Move is funny but tonally can be quite serious, so a live audience might ruin the feel

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A live audience is by its very nature obliged to laugh at what's happening onstage whenever a comedy is being performed. Most people will, of course, laugh only at the obviously funny bits but many people feel obliged to laugh at things that they think might have been intended to be funny but didn't get a laugh from anybody else.

Laughing in the wrong place, although done with the best of intentions, can seriously bugger up a theatrical performance both for actors and audience.

I prefer to watch "Bad Move" (and most other sitcoms) as if I'm a fly on the wall rather than an audience member.

Well I liked it (apart from the rock star character) and always used to enjoy Jack's stand-up.

"GARETH !! There's people on here saying where's the laughs?"

"YOU WHAT!?"

That about sums up my feelings too Herc
A good gentle comedy.

Quote: Rood Eye @ 28th February 2019, 10:49 PM

The answer is because TV executives have historically considered TV audiences to be the scum of the earth who aren't bright enough to realise when they think something is funny and then to realise how funny they think it is.

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Really?

If it's recorded in front of a live audience you need the laugh track.
The actors will naturally 'allow' for the laugh. Remove it and the timing is all off.
Then just as you choose the best take you choose the best laugh - if you need to you slide it so it makes the thing flow better, so be it.

If it's not shot in front of a live audience - no laugh track.

Quote: Lazzard @ 1st March 2019, 12:08 PM

If it's recorded in front of a live audience you need the laugh track.
The actors will naturally 'allow' for the laugh. Remove it and the timing is all off.

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When you say "the laugh track", if you mean the sound of the live audience laughing at events which are unfolding before it as they are laughing, I agree entirely with what you say.

In my post(s) about fraudulent laugh tracks, I am using the term to refer to laughter added to the soundtrack to simulate the response of a studio audience - laughter recorded from an audience that, in many cases, died years before the action on the stage was ever performed.

Quote: Lazzard @ 1st March 2019, 12:08 PM

Then just as you choose the best take you choose the best laugh - if you need to you slide it so it makes the thing flow better, so be it.

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That is good industry practice. My point above concerned the extent to which a laugh generated by one thing (say, take one) and subsequently used to replace the laughter generated by another thing (say, take four) might reasonably be described as "genuine" when what we are seeing with our eyes did not generate the laugh we are hearing with our ears. As I made clear in my post, the practice is not even remotely fraudulent but it remains a fact that the broadcast laugh was not generated by the broadcast video.

Quote: Lazzard @ 1st March 2019, 12:08 PM

If it's not shot in front of a live audience - no laugh track.

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That should be the case in an ideal world but, unfortunately, fake laughter is sometimes added to unrelated video material - presumably with the intention of informing the audience that what they're seeing is funny.

"Bad Move" is fine (in my book) without a laugh track.

Quote: Rood Eye @ 1st March 2019, 12:52 PM

That should be the case in an ideal world but, unfortunately, fake laughter is sometimes added to unrelated video material - presumably with the intention of informing the audience that what they're seeing is funny.

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The trouble is, if the bulk of a show is shot in front of an audience, with the odd bit of (usually) location filming inserted, if you don't put the odd laugh on the filmed bit, it sticks out even more from the rest of the show. They often show the filmed bit to the studio audience to try to get the laughs (and so that they get the story) but people tend to switch to "watching the telly" mode and stop laughing.
Tricky.