• Flying Squid
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    67 days ago

    How exactly would you invent the laugh track if you didn’t understand the concept of recorded sound since it literally requires recorded sound?

    This is like saying the Mayans came up with the car despite not understanding the wheel.

    • You could have a hired group of people to laugh at certain jokes in a theatre show? Would sound exactly like and have the same purpose as a laugh track. It’d be live and not recorded, but just as non-genuine as actual laughter from the audience.

      • Flying Squid
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        17 days ago

        Sorry, but since when does “sounds like/has the same effect” mean it’s the same thing? Is a recording of a trumpet played on a speaker next to an orchestra the same as a trumpeter in an orchestra even though the effect is the same?

        Hiring people to laugh at your jokes is not a laugh track. Saying he invented the laugh track is just not true.

        • I feel like you’re being overly pedantic here. The idea was intended to have the exact same effect, for the exact same reason. The only difference is the medium.

          The most important element of a “laugh track” isn’t the track, it’s the element of laughter purposefully being inserted rather than being elicited from the audience. Sure, these days it’s easiest to do with a recording. But if you wanted to do so before recordings existed, that was possible too: you just need to hire people to do it.

          But you’re correct that they didn’t have recording equipment in ancient times. But that also wasn’t the point of the video.

          • Flying Squid
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            -17 days ago

            No, the most important element is that it is added after the fact. It is a *post-*production tool.

    • Call me Lenny/LeniOP
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      67 days ago

      Nero had people sit in the audience and purposefully laugh and do other reactions on cue. He was the first to do this as a routine, which turned into the practice we know today. Maybe it’s the use of the word “track”; I did not mean the device.

      • Flying Squid
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        47 days ago

        You can call that planted actors or audience participation. Which were things that were probably done long before him. But it’s not the same as a laugh track, which is a specific thing.

    • @Eheran
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      37 days ago

      They obviously understood the wheel, engine would be a better comparison. You are correct otherwise.