|
So it seems that nobody is willing to speak out in favor of the laugh track. The best we have is people who don't really care. So what I want to know is, why do they keep using them?
I guess it's because laughter is contagious, and they can sort of trick you into thinking a joke is funnier than it really is. I wonder if anybody has done a scientific study on this. That is, investigating whether the laugh track actually increases people's enjoyment of the show, which in turn would increase ratings.
It seems that such an experiment would be fairly easy to perform. Simply get two groups of people. Show one of them a sitcom with the laugh track, and the other the same sitcom without. Have each person rate the show afterwards and compare the results.
Now that I type all this out, it occurs to me that the networks probably have done something exactly along these lines, and that their results must have been in favor of the laugh track... Well fooey on them!
|