I was watching The Big Bang Theory a couple of nights ago and there was that moment when Raj says, “My father wants me to be a gynecologist. How can I be a gynecologist?!? I can’t even look a woman in the eyes.” I thought to myself, that’s hilarious, but you know what I really don’t like about this show? All that OTT in-your-face canned laughter that plagues the majority of American sit-coms. I’ve not been a big fan of sit-coms in years now, and maybe that is one reason why. If the jokes are funny to me, I’ll react in my own way as my feelings dictate. But I don’t need someone else to tell me when to laugh and when not to laugh. That’s for my own brain and heart to decide. Ya dig?
To some people’s brains, the laugh track says, “Other people are laughing, therefore it must be funny and good and that means I must like it.” My brain, on the other hand says, “All that fake unnatural forced laughter most likely means one thing. The script isn’t that funny and so a television producer needs to gloss over it and try and convince me it’s funny, which is way too obvious and a total turnoff. Kind of like the way they sell poor quality music using exaggerated sexual dancing and violence.”
Sometimes, not knowing whether something is supposed to be a joke or not is the funniest thing in the world. Canned laughter can rob us of some of our freedom of individual interpretation.
Personally, I loved both seasons of Flight of the Conchords. Maybe half of the appeal was that I am a musician who knows what it feels like to perform to an audience of 2 or 3 people, one of them being my manager. But definitely that show would’ve been ruined for me if all the dry moments of silence and absurd contemplation were botched up and botoxed full of silicon laughter implants. But when it comes to booming songs like this, they are obviously joking and we are supposed to laugh, right?