Q: I enjoy the cast and storyline of the new show “Happy Place.” However, I will probably stop watching it because of the annoying laugh track. It is not at all realistic — it is way too often and sometimes at inappropriate times. It interrupts the conversations and the flow of the dialog.
Can you tell me why the people in charge think that is necessary? So many other popular comedy shows don’t use it.
A: Your complaint is one I get often. Comedies have different ranges of laughter. Just look at “The Big Bang Theory,” which had laughter, while its prequel, “Young Sheldon,” did not, and the in-between story of “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage” has what seems more like a chuckle track.
The laughter you hear may be pre-recorded, or from the show’s studio audience, or a combination of audience reaction and electronic effects “sweetening” the reaction.
As Jennifer Keishin Armstrong wrote on BBC.com, producers often want “some sort of audience reaction to make the viewing experience more communal,” as could be had in a theater. On the other hand, TV veteran Al Franken once told the Chicago Tribune that an inserted laugh is “like putting a bookmark for the audience saying, ‘That was a joke.’”
But did they get the joke? Armstrong noted that Charley Douglass, the sound engineer credited with the first use of pre-recorded laughs, “hated that the studio audiences on the U.S. TV channels’ shows laughed at the wrong moments, didn’t laugh at the right moments, or laughed too loudly or for too long.” An electronic companion was then born.
Still in doubt
Q: I really enjoyed the first season of “A Man on the Inside.” Ted Danson was terrific as an undercover spy in a retirement home. Is there going to be a second season?
A: Like you, I want one. Danson told the Hollywood Reporter in late October that “Netflix has its system” and all they can do at this point is wait for the question to be resolved. Series creator Mike Schur said the show was pitched “as a series, not a limited thing. Before the season was even over, we had started saying (a second season) could be this, and trying to figure out how it would be different and how it would be the same.
