Technically, only one show on this list has a "Laugh Track" - Andy Griffith. The rest are performed before a live audience - there is no separate laugh track. A laugh track is created by applying pre-recorded laughter to a show filmed without an audience. There is actually a laugh track company with a machine that has different tracks for chuckles, guffaws and titters. For many years, only one person applied the laugh track to most network shows and he could play that machine like a piano. Most of the laughs recorded were done back in the 1940s!
M*A*S*H had a laugh track added for the first few years, but it was never used in scenes in surgery, regardless of how funny the dialogue was. Over several seasons, they used the laugh track less and less, and at least the last 5 years of the show did not have a laugh track at all.
It pays to read Ken Levine's blog. (He was the head writer on M*A*S*H for years.) |
TV Character Nicknames
Det. John Munch Is Everywhere
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