MovieChat Forums > Reggie Perrin (2009) Discussion > Why the ridiculous laugh track?

Why the ridiculous laugh track?

posted 13 years ago by groggo
6 replies | jump to latest

The laugh track (the BBC says there was no laugh track, but it would say that, wouldn't it?) spoiled this series for me, because, frankly, I didn't find it funny enough to elicit the great gales of giggles that bombarded my ears. It was dumb and insulting.

Martin Clunes's great series Doc Martin suffers badly by comparison (it doesn't have a laugh track). Clunes is a terrific actor, but he's just miscast as a character so solidified by Leonard Rossiter, an entirely different kind of actor.

I truly hate laugh tracks. I particularly hate them when there's nothing to laugh about on the screen and yet we hear squeals of laughter. It's just a stupid add-on, and not well thought out.

[–] Mr_Pipes 12 years ago

I'm fairly sure that there was a live studio audience there.

[–] grendelkhan 12 years ago

I have to say, from watching the first episode, if it was a live audience, they laughed very mechanically.

"Fortunately, Ah keep mah feathers numbered for just such an emergency!"

[–] DrWhen 11 years ago

I thought it was even worse in the second series when they were being more dramatic. It seemed really out of place.

[–] krossticca 11 years ago

This show was in fact filmed in front of a live studio audience.

[–] sluggr-2 10 years ago

That doesn't mean that a laugh track wasn't added because the audience wasn't laughing.

"I think my percentage of Chimp DNA is higher than others" Cleaver Greene

[–] vinsane 9 years ago

Exactly^

I just attempted to re-watch this after a few years and it immediately struck me how clumsily the laugh track was done.

The matter of being filmed in front of a live studio audience is NOT a contradiction to the fact a laugh track was used in the final program mix - and very poorly too. In deed they may have made tapes of the actual audience(s) and used those responses to try and sweeten the final sound edit.

It's still a laugh track being added but the producers get to fall back on the white lie of saying there was a real audience. That's probably literally true, yet a deception by implying that what we hear is the exact true response as it happened in real time with no enhancements.

The first episode's initial office scene featured the same roaring laugh sequence being turned on and off abruptly where the activity really didn't call for such an uproarious bout of laughter.

I don't mind that a laugh track was used, only that it was done so inexpertly. The true art of good sound editing, including such sweetening, is to make it go unnoticed in the final mix. When the viewer can hear the laughs being switched in and out, it's a total distraction. Terrible!

Eeek!!! I'm getting dressed.