Laugh Tracks??

[zacharrison]

During the last WAN Show, May 10,2024, they talked about how they couldn’t do the kind of jokes they want to do because a small percentage of the audience doesn’t think it’s a joke and takes it too far. What if they pulled a sitcom trick, and just used laugh tracks when they make a joke that could potentially be misunderstood? 

[TetraSky]

That would just make it even more tacky

[ToboRobot]

I don't think that will stop the people who are looking to for opportunities to cause chaos.

[Erioch]

46 minutes ago, zacharrison said:

During the last WAN Show, May 10,2024, they talked about how they couldn’t do the kind of jokes they want to do because a small percentage of the audience doesn’t think it’s a joke and takes it too far. What if they pulled a sitcom trick, and just used laugh tracks when they make a joke that could potentially be misunderstood? 

Ever watch Big Bang Theory with laugh tracks turned off?  It's a 1000x more cringy than the actual show. 

 

No, just no.

[Spotty]

Yeah, I don't think the issue is people don't realise it's a joke. It's likely people who just want something to be mad about. Those people aren't going to hear a laugh track and go "Oh, it was a joke", they'll probably be more mad that whatever they want to be offended about was treated like a joke by playing a laugh track.

Laugh tracks are tacky. Only time they should be used is when Linus makes a really awful dad joke just to make fun of how unfunny his dad jokes are.

 

 

For context on the discussion here's the WAN show clip (1h14m mark).

 

[undergroundbeef]

I’d say they should stick with it and let the people who can’t understand what a joke is find somewhere else to go. 

[ARandomPerson]

     Using laugh tracks to indicate a joke is like saying, "Charge your phone 3 hours ago" It sucks. If a laugh track is needed to signal that it is a joke, it was not that great for your audience anyway. This is not a sitcom or a crappy comedian. I think that using a laugh track to indicate that it is supposed to be funny makes the viewer feel disconnected from the content and decide it is not for them. Also, not indicating whether or not a joke was there makes it more rewatchable to hear something new you wouldn'tve enjoyed otherwise.

On 5/12/2024 at 2:19 PM, Spotty said:

Only time they should be used is when Linus makes a really awful dad joke just to make fun of how unfunny his dad jokes are.

The only socially acceptable use, even then, should be treated as salt. 

[Kisai]

On 5/12/2024 at 10:28 AM, zacharrison said:

During the last WAN Show, May 10,2024, they talked about how they couldn’t do the kind of jokes they want to do because a small percentage of the audience doesn’t think it’s a joke and takes it too far. What if they pulled a sitcom trick, and just used laugh tracks when they make a joke that could potentially be misunderstood? 

 

"Canned laughter" used to be a thing because at some point ALL television shows were live. When it became possible to "film before a live studio audience", you see all the "pauses" in dialogue for the audience to laugh and it comes off as unnatural. So they just stopped doing that in the 90's and now stick canned laughter in shows so they can turn the show around faster, and not have to make everyone speak stilted waiting for the audience. 

 

As for how to deal with it in live streams. You drop the punchline and then "cut away" to something that reinforces the joke. The WAN show doesn't make use of features other streamers use to do this. The most over-used "cut away" people have is the spongebob "___ minutes later" one on the clip compilations of the same stream. 

 

"Soundboards" are historically used by radio shows to do the folley effects live. Like adding canned laughter to a live stream where there is clearly no audience, doesn't work, but you can just add any "funny sound effect" like the slide whistle, to take the edge off the seriousness.