Can the Laugh Track

OK, so I had a photo of cans, and wanted to write words to surround it. A title like Cannes came immediately to mind. But then I might have to show how little I know about Cannes, the French city or the film festival that takes its name by virtue of being there.

I grew up in the earlier days of television, peppered with sitcoms and laugh tracks. Perhaps it was canned laughter that ultimately turned me off to television. (Or was it the banal content?) Laugh tracks certainly contributed.

Essentially a laugh track is a tool that television producers use to juice up an audience response. It is a way of letting viewers know, "Hey, that was funny." It is as if we need a cue, like trained monkeys. Come on, people, if it is funny, we will laugh.

In point of fact, canned laughter has the opposite effect. First off, due to its implied insincerity as if to say "we do not know if this is funny, but we wanted you to know that it was intended to be funny."

Doing stand up in front of a live audience is no piece of cake when you're not funny. The canned laughter really would help at times, but isn't the aim in comedy to actually be funny?

I was thinking it might be fun to used canned laughter in a few scenes of No Country For Old Men, because of the absence of sound... It would certainly change the mood. Especially in the motel scenes.

These cans also reminds me of my idyllic childhood in Maple Heights, Ohio, where we played whiffle ball and games like spud and kick the can endlessly. We were oblivious to the grit of life, in our brand new suburban Cleveland neighborhood. Neighborhoods get rundown, though and after we left in '64 that one did the same. It's uncanny how in childhood we can be preserved from life's harsher realities... That was my experience, though I know it is not everyones.

Oh well, time to hit the laugh track if you can.