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> Looking back, I think this idea was somehow rooted in the idea that jokes have delivery and that if you use that delivery (rythmn, emphasis, body language) ma
by Max-q 4y ago
> Looking back, I think this idea was somehow rooted in the idea that jokes have delivery and that if you use that delivery (rythmn, emphasis, body language) maybe you could say anything and be funny.
This is “Friends” summed up. We are only laughing because they tell something like it was funny, and the canned laughter tells our brain to laugh.
- triceratops 4y ago> This is “Friends” summed up... the canned laughter Are you not aware that the show was filmed before a live audience? Watch how the actors pause between lines - they're actually waiting for the crowd to finish laughing. And that's the case for most sitcoms from the previous century. It might not be your kind of humor. But real audiences found the show funny enough to laugh so long and hard, when they were under no obligation to do so, that the actors had to have unnaturally long pauses between their lines. Many modern internet commenters have a misguided tendency to automatically dismiss any show with a laugh track as inferior. FWIW I think Friends was a great show for most of its run, with top-notch comic writing, within the constraints of the medium at the time. Sitcoms were nearly always single-camera format, and shot in a studio with a live audience. The storylines had to be accessible to casual watchers. The shows lived and died by weekly ratings, and needed to have ad breaks at specific times, which also influenced the writing, casting, and pacing. Just to show you that I'm not swayed by mere laugh tracks and longevity, let me also announce that anything made by Chuck Lorre is absolute drivel.
- darkerside 4y agoFriends was funny, but I'm sure they also had a big Laugh sign to tell people when to laugh
- triceratops 4y agoEvery show with a live audience does. But notice how long they laugh at some points. You can't fake that.