After reading Chuck Klosterman's article on laugh tracks, I went on to YouTube, and found two clips from to completely different shows; Fresh prince of Bel-Air from the 90s and Family Guy of present time. In the scene of the episode of Fresh Prince, Will is being interviewed by a man from Princeton. At first, this starts out to be a total disaster, but then once Will solves a Rubik's cube, Will and the recruiter hit it off. Aside from the fact of this being an unusual way of getting accepted in college, what really struck my attention was the amount of moments laughing was inserted. The laughing usually chimed in about almost every line that was spoken or when a physical gesture was made. While I agree with Klosterman's statement of this being a sign of insecurity, it has just become too natural to anyone that normally watches television to even be bothered with this idea. Then, there is the episode of Family Guy where Chris is kicked out of public school for being the least intelligent person in the school. This causes everyone in the Griffin's to get two jobs in order to make this work; Lois and Meg are hookers, Peter is a butt scratcher salesman, and Stewie follows fat people around with a tuba. Moreover, is the fact that there is no laugh present, letting the audience at home decided what is actually, and in turn, is ironically a controversial television program.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdy_Fjdox4w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydVp-2B8qlw
No comments:
Post a Comment