[QUOTE=lmlacross;8653901]
I’ve not seen the show, but I’m pretty sure that even shows filmed in front of a live studio audience can and have added canned laughter.[/QUOTE]
Yes, correct. They can and they do as a rule.
If you’ve ever been to a taping of a traditional sitcom like Big Bang, the show always hires a standup comic to warm up the crowd. The laughs that the comic generates are taped, and used in the edit. Also the comic will often coach the crowd as to when in the script they ought to “booooo” or say, “OOOhhhh” or to really guffaw.
And I once went to the taping of an HBO comedy special, at which the warmup guy actually held up one, two, or three fingers to prompt increasing levels of laughter. And the cameras turned around to capture our reaction shots, which were then later spliced in to make it look as if we were responding to the jokes (Phyllis Diller) when all we were really doing was looking at some guy’s fingers onstage.
Big Bang is definitely this kind of traditional sitcom, filmed primarily on a studio set, in a standard three-cam format. And with the audience in raked bleachers and with afternoon and evening tapings, the best parts of which will be edited together to one show. I agree it’s a very fake-sounding laugh track. Or at least a little cheesey. It’s Chuck Lorre’s bread and butter (among many others) and it’s a proven formula.
Non-traditional sitcoms in the vein of a 30 Rock or Arrested Development are filmed with traveling cameras, in multiple locations, and therefore with no seated audience. And they use no canned laughter. Lots of people hated those “smart comedy” shows when they first came out because they couldn’t tell what was supposed to be funny about them. They were considered risky.
Many well-known standup comics got their starts in Hollywood in the role of the warmup-act for TV shows. Although right now not a one comes to mind.
Oops, how’s that for a tangent? :o
