Do you not find it distracting sometimes, Aaron? I don't mind it most of the time, but there are occasions like in Mr. Bean for example, where you have one person snorting and shrieking their head off. It detracts from the show.
70s/80s are normally the worse offenders, and I'm not even talking about canned laughter, just the live audience.
I'd say the worst ones are the clip/home movie/hidden camera shows, but fortunately I don't watch too many of them.
I've found it annoying in a couple of recent examples; the inexplicably shit School Of Comedy, for example, where the levels are awful and screechy. But no.
Operation Good Guys - series 1; beautiful and untouched by CL.
Series 2 and 3 destroyed by the maniacal braying of the demented donkeys at the animal sanctuary they surely used for the canned laughter.
Woody Allen tackles this subject in 'Crimes and Misdemeanours;' one of his greatest films.
Quote: SlagA @ November 29 2009, 10:16 PM GMTWoody Allen tackles this subject in 'Crimes and Misdemeanours;' one of his greatest films.
Are you sure you're not confusing this with Annie Hall? Where Alvy (Allen) is out in California watching his friend Max (Tony Roberts) add canned laughter to his sitcom edit?
ALVY: You add fake laughter with a machine? Do you have any idea how immoral that is?
MAX: We tape in front of a studio audience.
ALVY: But nobody laughs because the jokes aren't funny.
MAX: Yes, that's why this machine is dynamite.
(A PARTICULARLY BAD JOKE ON THE SITCOM VT.)
ALVY: (TO EDITOR.) Do you have booing on there?
(I don't recall any "canned laughter" gags in Crimes And Misdemeanours, but I may be wrong. It is a great film though.)
I love that bit in Annie Hall. Or whatever film it's in. I remember scenes, but never which film they're in.
Yep, you're right, Tim. I'm watching the whole series in order and not up to Annie Hall yet. I confused the film Allen edits for Alan Alda's character in C and M. And then thought maybe it was a memory from Hannah but no, it's Annie Hall.
We can't complain because every time we go to a live recording we're told it could be used anywhere!
Quote: Tim Walker @ November 28 2009, 6:53 PM GMTA nice little piece in The Times today by David Baddiel, once again bemoaning the use of the phrase "canned laughter" by critics and their ilk...
I can't access this anyway. has it been transplanted into other threads by any chance?
David, The Times' website is REALLY crap. Just refresh the page and it'll load fine.
Quote: SlagA @ November 29 2009, 10:49 PM GMTI confused the film Allen edits for Alan Alda's character in C and M.
That is a brilliant sequence. 
C&M is a very dark film in some ways. Woody's character doesn't get the girl and evil isn't punished. Fortunately, it's rescued from being too bleak with some wonderful comic lines.
Quote: Ming the Mirthless @ November 29 2009, 9:16 AM GMTI love canned/added/live laughter on TV programmes. I love any televisual device that saves me the trouble of deciding for myself what's funny and what's not.
I want also to hear canned/added/live crying, wailing and gnashing of teeth whenever something sad is happening.
Long gone are the days when we had to get off our arses to change channel. Surely, it's time to go the whole hog and remove all necessity for us to make up our own minds about a programm's funniness or sadness?
It's nearly 2010 for God's sake!
I think we should all go back to 'getting up to turn over'. We'd probably actually see more TV as we won't be bothered to get up from sofa. Does anyone else surf through all the channels then start again from the beginning? Or is that just me? 
".....when you hear laughter during a sitcom, it is almost always the case — and I'm going to put this in italics for any TV critics reading — that that laughter will be the sound of the studio audience, yes, laughing."
I believe that's not quite true. The sound we are hearing has been recorded by technicians, who have taken a whole series of decisions about how to present the sound. They have chosen where to put the mics, and at what level to mix the audience sound, relative to that of the performers. What we hear is not 'canned' in the sense of another laughter track being added to the show, but it's certainly not 'the' sound of the studio audience.
".....when you hear laughter during a sitcom, it is almost always the case — and I'm going to put this in italics for any TV critics reading — that that laughter will be the sound of the studio audience, yes, laughing."
Yes. And maybe laughing at something elsewhere in the script or the warm-up guy?
Dear Jim. I have never introduced myself as "Dave" in my entire career. DB
Quote: David Baddiel @ November 30 2009, 9:52 AM GMTDear Jim. I have never introduced myself as "Dave" in my entire career. DB
Maybe Dave Baddiel is someone completely different?
Quote: David Baddiel @ November 30 2009, 9:52 AM GMTDear Jim. I have never introduced myself as "Dave" in my entire career. DB
I suspect this is not THE Dave Baddiel but a different Dave Baddiel but in case it's the real Dave Baddiel could you get me a job writing for THE David Baddiel please?
Oh yes and canned laughter or whatever you want to call it is rubbish. Spoils anything it's put in in my opinion which of course is correct