by Patty E Padgett

Created on: June 09, 2009

CANNED LAUGHTER ON SITCOMS

One of my greatest pet peeves is the canned laughter on sitcoms. It is very nerve wracking. Do these writers/producers/directors/actors or whoever decided that we need the canned laughter actually think that I am not intelligent enough to know when something is funny enough to laugh at? I realize that everyone has a different type sense of humor. Some folks find slap stick funny, some just like a good joke, some like a witty come-back or sarcastic remark, some get a laugh from the expression on the actor's face. Everyone's sense of humor is triggered by something different. When they play that canned laughter, it aggravates me so much that I almost miss the humor. They play it when a line is not even smile funny much less laugh-out-loud funny and they play it after every few words; extremely annoying.

I love good old sitcoms and like to watch them for the humor as well as the fact that they only last thirty minutes. I am usually doing something else while I am watching TV so I don't like to watch something that lasts too long. I do my movie watching on the week-ends as a rule and I like the sitcoms on the week nights. However, they are getting so sex-oriented and downright ridiculous that it is getting harder and harder to find one that is fit to watch. I feel that I have a great sense of humor, or so I have been told, and I do know when to laugh. Laughter should be spontaneous and triggered by whatever the individual thinks is funny.not what the writers think that they should think is funny. It is a most annoying sound inserted after almost every line and in my opinion it detracts from the show. Live audience laughter is a different story. I can handle that. That is genuine laughter coming from real people.

The only shows I can think of where almost every line is actually funny are MASH and The Golden Girls. I have to admit that the canned laughter on those two shows is appropriately placed as these are very funny shows. The writers of MASH have to be the all-time best humorists around. The comedy flew out the actor's mouths so fast you could hardly keep up with it. You had to really pay attention so as not to miss a joke.

Oh well, I will keep watching the sitcoms until they get totally unbearable although I have reverted back to the older ones. The canned laughter will always be a sore spot with me but I guess I will have to just grin, no pun intended, and bear it.

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