LAUGH TRACKS
for some inexplicable reason today, i was thinking about scooby doo. i haven't seen a scooby doo cartoon in years. maybe thanks to my brother's velma quote last night. whatever the cause, its been on my mind.
while i enjoyed it from time to time, scooby doo was never a staple in my cartoon diet. i attribute this to several things that always bothered me about it. shaggy and scooby are idiots. they make the same false presumptions and blunders in every episode. stupid is only funny for so long. then, nearly every villain is foiled by their lack of intelligence and coordination. that didn't seem right to me. also, every episode was essentially the same. the icing on the cake was the laugh track. i just don't understand why any show would use a laugh track.
i don't think anyone is fooled by a laugh track. no mass of people ever erupts into joyous exaltations only to all stop on a dime, or, even worse, fade out to silence.
i remember sitting on the couch as a boy, aware of the process involved in animating drawings to make a cartoon (i was a kid who loved to draw after all), and suddenly noticed the canned laughter for the first time. it really confused me. i knew it couldn't be from a studio audience. i think my mom explained to me that it was prerecorded and added to the show to make it funnier. i felt so cheap and used. manipulated like the suckers being terrorized by the swamp creature who's really just a disgruntled butler trying to keep people away long enough for him to dig up a buried chest of gold coins.
curse that mangy dog and those meddling kids!
while i enjoyed it from time to time, scooby doo was never a staple in my cartoon diet. i attribute this to several things that always bothered me about it. shaggy and scooby are idiots. they make the same false presumptions and blunders in every episode. stupid is only funny for so long. then, nearly every villain is foiled by their lack of intelligence and coordination. that didn't seem right to me. also, every episode was essentially the same. the icing on the cake was the laugh track. i just don't understand why any show would use a laugh track.
i don't think anyone is fooled by a laugh track. no mass of people ever erupts into joyous exaltations only to all stop on a dime, or, even worse, fade out to silence.
"ha haha ha aahah ha ha haha" (...and then crickets)
i remember sitting on the couch as a boy, aware of the process involved in animating drawings to make a cartoon (i was a kid who loved to draw after all), and suddenly noticed the canned laughter for the first time. it really confused me. i knew it couldn't be from a studio audience. i think my mom explained to me that it was prerecorded and added to the show to make it funnier. i felt so cheap and used. manipulated like the suckers being terrorized by the swamp creature who's really just a disgruntled butler trying to keep people away long enough for him to dig up a buried chest of gold coins.
curse that mangy dog and those meddling kids!
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1 comment:
You have to admit that the Sandy Duncan episodes were on the very verge of irresistable.
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