Situation comedy on television has thrived for years on 'canned' laughter, grafted by gaglines by technicians using records of guffawing audiences that have been dead for years.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Situation comedies are old-fashioned - they stick to formulas. I resent their music which is old fashioned. I resent the use of a laugh track.
We need comedies in the world! We need to laugh, it's all so hard.
I like situational comedy when people are being completely serious and yet you can find something extremely funny, not jokes.
The one thing I think I've noticed about shows that are supposed to be funny on television is that they've sort of become routinized, so there's an awful lot of mannerisms and joke lines that are sort of there to trigger laughter, rather than give actors a chance to play a moment.
I have always liked shows that have laughter in them.
Comedy is tragedy that happens to other people.
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh.
I think serious situations actually make for the best kind of belly laughs. But they're also the hardest to convert into comedy at the outset.
In point of fact, I'm not sure there are too many comedies with laugh tracks anymore. Most of what you hear is live studio audience laughing as a show is filmed. If this prompts you to wonder who those actual human beings are who are laughing at some of this stuff, that is a mystification I share.
I think comedy is drama, often. It's hard to have comedy over a period of time - commercials are one thing, but over a period of time - comedy and tragedy go hand in hand.