Dogs & Doghouses

Part Two: The Laugh Track

The laugh track laughs loudest when the jokes are the most carnal. Solomon compared the laughter of fools to the crackling of thorns in a fire (Ecclesiastes 7:6).

The last article was on so-called situation comedies. This one is related by a thing known as the “laugh track.” You may not at first know what one is, but I guarantee you’ve heard one before. The laugh track is the background laughing viewers hear when someone on a situation comedy says something that’s supposed to be funny. It’s a hold-over from when television was done in front of live audiences. But that’s not the case now. The laugh track was kept for reasons that I’ll discuss below. Laugh track laughter is also known as “canned” laughter; meaning it can happen whenever a producer wants it to happen. If you want some laughing on your show, just open the laugh track.

The old saying about misery loving company is reversed when it comes to the laugh track. Part of the psychology involved is that a person is less likely to laugh when they think they are laughing alone, or when what’s being said isn’t that funny. But to feel as though an entire studio audience is going over the edge in gut-wrenching laughter at what has to be the most hilarious words spoken all week helps the viewers at home loosen up and laugh, or are at least be amused. After all, if it weren’t funny they wouldn’t be playing the laugh track, right? It’s easy to forget the laughter we hear on the television is pre-recorded and, in some cases, computer generated.

If you or I were to say some of the same things we hear on television, even in similar situations, it wouldn’t be nearly as funny. If we don’t laugh during a show we begin to rightly think the show in question isn’t funny. And, in turn, we use the remote control to find something more entertaining. People who pay to have their commercials on the television don’t like low ratings. It is all about making money and laughing on the way to the bank.

Here are a few things you can try at home to get the point. First of all, the next time you watch a situation comedy, try to imagine the dialog without the laugh track. Objectively, as though you were listening to someone from your local church say the words, ask yourself, “Would that be funny?” Or, better yet, “Would I allow someone to come into my home and say that in front of my children and wife?” See, you’re smiling already.

Secondly, appreciate that laugh tracks are timed. In other words, the frequency that the laughs are released increases the closer the show gets to its final moments. Initially, the laugh track runs about once every 15 to 20 seconds. Towards the end of the show the laughter comes about every 5 to 10 seconds. This helps set the mood for the viewer, so we think that towards the end the show is getting funnier. And then, right at the very end when most situation comedies moralize and teach their “lessons”, the laugh track stops. This helps emulate the seriousness of the conclusions. By the end of the show, we’re supposed to not want it to end so that we’ll tune in again next week. This crescendo of hilarity goes by mostly unnoticed. Get yourself a stop watch, a piece of paper, and a pencil - you’ll see for yourself.

Also know there is another track, but I don’t know its name. Once in a while you’ll hear it when something that’s supposed to be particularly emotional happens; like when an unmarried character holds her illegitimate baby in her arms for the first time or when two characters who have known each other for a long time decide to commit fornication for the first time. This is the “aawwws” track. It helps detract us from thinking about things (like how difficult it is in real life for a single mom to raise a child who may or may not know who its father is and how we’re not supposed to play around with our sexuality). But don’t worry; it’s just another day in situation comedy land. The kids will be fine and the sex will be good. Might as well laugh.

Thinking back to just this past year, I can count about four or five times when I’ve had a really good laugh. Most of the time I just chuckle or smile. But every night, for every situation comedy, there are phantom audiences roaring with laughter. It’s part of the alternate reality we succumb towards when watching television. The people we watch are far happier than we are. The folks on television can be as carnal as they want and, laugh all the time about it. They are worldly and joyous, their delight comes not of the Lord.

Funniness Quiz

Here’s a little test. For each item listed, take a minute and ask yourself the following three questions:

1. Is this funny on television?
2. Is this funny in real life?
3. Is this pleasing to the true God of the Bible?

• Children talking back to their parents
  
• Cursing
  
• Displays of selfishness
  
• Double-entendre about sex
  
• Filthy Innuendo
  
• Insults
  
• Joking about fornication
  
• Lying
  
• Invoking the name of God in vain
  
• Planning to commit fornication
  
• Rudeness
  
• Stupidity
  
• Bodily noises (farts & belches)
  

Situation Comedies

We’re all familiar with the description, “situation comedy”. These are the funny little half-hour shows with the same characters, week after week, cracking the most hilarious jokes that have ever been cracked; encountering and solving some pseudo-ethical dilemma week after week after week. They are brought to us by products like Bayer®, Tampax™, any number of restaurants, and Budweiser. What better sponsors of quality entertainment could a nation ask for? And in return all these sponsors ask is that we buy their products, what a bargain.

Now think about your favorite situation comedy. What exactly was the last situation? Can you remember the week before that? Maybe, being a super fan, you can remember three weeks worth of situations in a row. If you can, I think you’re the exception. But if you can’t that’s ok because, you see, the situations are really secondary to the characters. For every situation we can’t remember we certainly do recall most if not all of the characters involved with them. Situation comedies are actually character comedies. The situations aren’t sold to us. It’s the human characters involved within them where the connection with the viewer is mostly made.

Again, we know the names of the characters, but seldom recall the zany situations in which they find themselves. As far back as my memory of television goes, this has been true. I remember Captain Parmenter of “F-Troop”. I don’t recall what he did in particular. I know of Gilligan, Mary Ann, and most of the others, but for the life of me don’t remember many specific episodes (except maybe the one about the guy in the gorilla suit). I remember Lucy, Ricky, and their neighbors (the bald guy and his wife) but I can’t tell you much else. The same is true of Wally, the Beaver, their parents, and Eddie Haskel.

The general theme of almost all such shows is the same, week after week. You know it already, don’t you? There’s a problem and it gets solved. That’s the plot. There are no ramifications, no lasting significance, and certainly no consequences to actions, either good or bad. It’s the ultimate ideal of modern living – all the fun and none of the responsibilities. It’s less filling and it tastes great. Nothing can withstand modern man, just so long as a witty comeback can be told with a straight face. Television increasingly turns the law of the harvest (reaping what one sews) into a quaint ideal of a lesser age. At least that’s the theory.

From the standpoint of Christianity, our comedies beg the question, “What is Christianity?” You see, it’s never portrayed. Or what is sin to the characters of situation comedies? Characters never pray nor worship. They don’t tithe or own Bibles. By an ironic quirk of fate the only Christians they know are either the most rotten people in the neighborhood or are those who only come around during the Christmas specials. Again, the plot is to fix a problem, not to choose between right or wrong. Our characters are out to have a good time and get away with it. You would think we’d be bored with it by now, but the makers of Viagra™ must think otherwise, or else they would stop sponsoring our shows.

There have been two primary changes to this formula in the past 20 years. First of all, their used to be an authority figure in the shows. Lucy was always getting into trouble and her husband was always getting her out. The Beaver was always messing up and his mom and dad always let him, but only for a little while. In the end, reason and authority prevailed. This is the ghost of television past. Such has been laid to rest. And this leads me to the second change to the formula.

You see, there has been a great decline of what was once called decency. In our modern shows, there is no authority and no one knows best. And anyone who thinks they know best is usually portrayed as a buffoonish hypocrite. Thirty years ago, 1973 or thereabouts, it would have been unimaginable to base an entire show around the flaunted message of in-your-face homosexuality. No one would have watched such perversion. What a difference a few years make.

As an example, remember the show called “Friends”. Each main character on this show had numerous sexual partners through the years. Three of the characters either fathered or mothered illegitimate children. There’s drinking, gambling, promiscuity, homosexuality, and absolutely no Bible in any way, shape, or form. If anyone finds themselves in a church building, it’s only due to a hilarious funeral or wedding that never quite gets finished. Week after week this continues. The laughter rolls along and nothing much changes; all continues to be well among the friends.

I’m still waiting for the wacky episode when Rachel gets AIDS and spends her last days hooked to machines, taking drug cocktails as her body slowly shuts down, all because she committed fornication with the wrong guy. I just can’t wait to hear the one-liners zing on that episode. I’m still waiting for one of the male characters from “Will and Grace” to commit suicide, supporting the studies that have proven a very high rate of suicide among sodomites. Alas, I think I’ll be waiting for a while because that reality goes against the situation comedy episode template.

America likes to be shown people who aren’t real having problems lasting no longer than the prescribed 21 minutes (accounting for commercial breaks). The cult of personality is wildly popular. We eat it up.

Fifteen observations I’ve made while watching situation comedies:

1. All problems can be solved in a short period of time.
2. There’s no such thing as right and wrong.
3. People who worry about right and wrong are hypocrites.
4. As long as you are sexually attractive you can do whatever you want.
5. “Going to church” is for special occasions like funerals and weddings that never quite happen.
6. No one ever prays; unless you can get a laugh of it.
7. Bibles don’t exist.
8. Children never cause problems and never get spankings.
9. You can have children and continue living like a single idiot.
10. Children don’t need attention for more than a minute and apparently never have to eat.
11. Children are always clothed with nice, clean, new, latest fashions.
12. Since all problems get solved in short periods of time you can live your life without worrying about consequences.
13. There’s no such thing as a 40-hour a week job. Maybe that’s why there’s a generation of men who won’t work to support their families.
14. Everybody is a comedian and if what you say isn’t intentionally funny then it’s unintentionally funny (i.e. you’re stupid).
15. Serious minded people don’t exist.