Laughter from BEYOND THE GRAVE!
That laughter isn’t just canned, it sleeps with the fishes.
Much of the “canned laughter” used on the soundtracks of sitcoms is
said to have come from tapes that were originally recorded during
broadcasts of “The Red Skelton Show” in the late 1950s and early ’60s.
It is eerie to realize that when we encounter a laugh track (or
“sweetening”) in a recent show, some of the people we hear laughing
may have been dead for decades. Yet their guffaws go on forever.
I knew about this years ago from an Ellison story about a TV writer and the ghost of his aunt, whose laugh was being used on laughtracks. Anyone remember the title?
Laugh Track
Posted by Jerry Kindall on July 31 2005 12:07
Evan Dorkin actually wrote about this in the breakdown issue of Dork! He said that the thought of all those people being old or long gone was depressing.
Posted by Kitty on August 8 2005 16:36