SEINFELD BLOG

Please someone find HARD evidence for my foreign ( and naive ) friend who seems unabvle to accept that the canned laughter on Seinfeld is canned.

His name is enzo1258@yahoo.com

Interesting, and true.

Really interesting topic. I've thougth about this a lot, especially since I was first exposed to "Curb Your Enthusiasm," which has no laugh track. I think the issue is comfort. When there is a laugh track, you feel more comfotably laughing, because you hear others laughing. It's just group mentality. Though you would find it just as funny without the laugh track, you're more likely to laugh out loud with the laugh track. It's the same thing with watching a comedy with friends as opposed to watching it alone. Personally, I laugh more when I watch it with friends, just because they're laughing too, and I get more caught up in the humor.

I often feel more comfortable watching a show with a laugh track, for those reasons, but you're right -- when I stop to think about it, it seems really strange.

Actually, this reminds me of a question I've had for a while. Seinfeld was filmed in front of a live studio audience, wasn't it? If so, does anyone know how much of the laughter is real (live), and how much is a recorded laugh track?

"You know, those are dead people laughing?"

i watch seinfeld here and there and some of it is funny ..but i dont need a laugh track to tell me when i should find something ammusing

every show that has one usually has 98% unfunny crappy jokes based on situational obviousness repeated over the generations to where anybody that has watched tv for more than a month can see whats coming

STOP USING LAUGH TRACKS, basically corporate america thinks youre too stupid to realise a joke so they decide to laugh for you

whats worse is when actors pause as if there is an actaul audience laughing at their non-funny material

the solution? no laugh track funny shows will live on ..ones that just plain suck will have to give up using the boring overplayed humor and get the hell off the air

want examples? look at cartoons

simpsons, futurama, family guy etc..

smart humor

the same people that fall into laugh track jokes are the ones that find the jew-bashing and poop toliet humor of south park funny

damn them to hell

Some people need it to laugh and some don't. Didn't They taped Seinfeld in front of an live audiance? So there are real laughers.

My 2 cents: I loathe laugh tracks. I mean I &@#$ing HATE laugh tracks (and therefore 99% of most sitcoms).

It's one of the reasons I've always had a hard time watching most sitcoms. Seinfeld included. I have this really close friend who has spent years practically bending over backwards just to get me into the show, but I never really could. Sure, I recognize the exemplary writing (Larry David rocks), and appreciate the fine performances, but I simply cannot get over the canned laughter.

I'm sorry for being elitist here, but I can't imagine anyone with half a brain feeling "more comfortable" laughing simply because they hear a canned laugh track. That's kind of like feeling more comfortable eating simply because there's a plate of wax fruit in front of you.

It's more like people who watch Seinfeld don't need a laugh track. But the network puts them in all sitcoms anyway so that drooling, single-digit IQ idiots like you will know when to laugh...But even that doesn't help someone as mentally-deficient as you, since you don't get any of it....oh, well, we tried.