Dissecting the Laugh:
Examining the Significance of Laugh Tracks as a Cultural Phenomenon
The article “Laughing Machines”, by Jacob Smith, talks primarily about the use of laugh tracks in comical television. The main point of the article is the claim that television audiences find the use of laugh tracks in the shows they watch to be “unsettling”. This would inevitably lead the reader to question why laugh tracks are continually used in modern day television if they truly do “unsettle” the audience as well as whether or not they are even truly unsettling to begin with. It would also cause a reader to question why we would need laugh tracks at all in television, and the purpose that the serve on a larger scale. Both answers to these…show more content… People no longer had to go somewhere with other individuals for the source of entertainment. This had the negative effect of eliminating individuals’ ability to gauge their reactions against other members of an audience. This brings us back to the laugh track. Not only do laugh tracks tell the audience the location of, as well as how to react to, certain jokes, but the track also helps to create “a communal, theatrical experience for that domestic audience, [because] people laugh more, and find things funnier, if they hear other people laughing too (Mills 104).” A third, and arguably more important, use of the laugh track is that it allows comedy to “feel like a ‘safe’ space where it is okay to laugh at people’s misfortunes or transgressions (Bore 24). It seems the reason behind adding laugh tracks isn’t the part of this that is “controversial”, so what…show more content… Many people, including J.F. Sargent of filmschoolrejects.com, consider laugh tracks to be “a crutch for shows with bad writing.” Shows such as Arrested Development, Always Sunny in Philadelphia, The Office and 30 Rock, among others, have seemingly abolished the notion that laugh tracks are necessary for high ratings or critic approval. Andrew Collins of The Guardian asserts that “we live in more sophisticated times, and resent being ‘told’ when to laugh.” It seems that the problem with laugh tracks is no longer their unsettling nature, but more likely that they represent a tired, overused television
