Talula78

Previous Thread

Carrying this over but OMG you're in Paris & taking a tour of Versailles?! I'm soooo jealous! Sorry you couldn't get any souvenirs but I'm sure you'll be able to find some around town or in the airports?

TBBT is cute. Sometimes it can get a little silly w/ them having absolutely NIL social skills , but I'm enjoying it.

WeBuiltThePyramids

The silliness of TBBT depends on perspective. To some of my socially fluent friends, they can't even watch it because it seems so forced. To some of my other friends, they've been put in tears how much they can relate to the guys. I fall somewhere in between but much closer to the tears thing. There's a character in S6 that so many people hated because she had such extreme social anxiety, but I ended up relating to her SO much.

At the tapings of episodes, there's a part where they ask audience members to stand up and say why they love the show - every week, people say it's because they used to get judged so hard for their lack of social skills, but then people "just like us" are put on TV and people love them so now they're more understanding. Bill Nye has even said that he knows people who are "almost exactly like that." Which I think is pretty cool, because until that show came around I had almost no self confidence. It's helped me out of my shell a lot because people like me were being so lovable on TV.

Talula78

It does depend on perspective, you're right about that. I'm more in the middle, like you, but lean more towards the former group. And one thing I always HATE about sitcoms are the laugh tracks. I know it's what sitcoms do and I just have to deal with it, but I get frustrated when I don't find things THAT funny but the audience finds it hysterical. This is also why I veer more towards dramedies because I don't have to deal with that. This is just me, though, I have a few friends who LOVE sitcoms & it doesn't bother them so to each his/her own.

fragileღheart

Hi

i feel like i am interrupting a big convo sorry

Doxia

Hello from the quiet one.

I had a wonderful, peaceful weekend. Got a lot of reading done, did some walking and listened to music. Got to see two amazing sunsets. Now, I'm trying to keep cool.

Hope everyone is doing well.

WeBuiltThePyramids

Well now you're gonna get me going on about how it's not a laugh track! Be prepared, this is a topic I could talk about for days. *cracks knuckles*

Laugh tracks are automated canned laughter that is the same laughing after each joke. There are very few sitcoms on today that actually use a laugh track. Actually I think Bill Prady said on Twitter last year that every single multi-cam sitcom on TV today uses a live audience instead of a laugh track except How I Met Your Mother - and they played their episodes before an audience to get natural laughter once it was all edited. TBBT, like the other sitcoms, uses a live audience. I've been to a taping of TBBT and they run each scene at least twice - if there is a joke that doesn't get the reception that the writers want, the next time they do a take of the scene, they have re-written the line until they get the reaction they want, then they use the take and the natural laughter the take got. There are no cues to laugh or clap or say "aw," because that wouldn't help the writers know if a joke worked or not. And in terms of why we laugh so much - we're in a room, within spitting distance of the entire cast of a show - with two hundred other fans. The atmosphere is crazy and we're all going to laugh out loud at everything - whether we would at home or not - because it's just such an incredible experience to actually be there. I was absolutely cackling at stuff that I wouldn't have batted an eye at in my living room!

There have been YT videos that removes the laughter from TBBT and then claims "see? It's just a bunch of awkward silences between lines DEFINITIVE PROOF THIS SHOW IS NOT FUNNY AT ALL!" and I want to beat them over the head with a large book and point out that if it wasn't filmed in front of a live audience the dialogue would be one after the other like actual dialogue is - but the actors have to wait until we can hear them again to say their line. That's where HIMYM would sometimes fall short in timing - the cast would have to try and predict how long the audience would laugh and wait that amount of time to say their line - sometimes it required extra editing out of an awkward silence and other times you couldn't hear the beginning of an actor's line since the audience laughed longer than they expected. The way they do it nowadays, it's like you go to see the show on stage, like you would at broadway or something, and then it's filmed and then shown on TV.

Can you tell I find all this very fascinating? (Pretty much when people start watching TBBT the first thing they learn is "no matter how you feel about the laughter, never call it a laugh track in front of Nicole." )

On any sort of laughter being there, regardless of type...it was never something that bothered me that much. But after I was at the taping for TBBT, I came out with a huge respect for the process and now I will actually watch episodes to listen to the laughter and try to either a.) try to hear my friends' laughter that were there or b.) listen closely to the kind of reaction that happens to each joke to further analyze the fandom. You might say I have problems.

Talula78

Laugh track or a live audience laughing, BOTH of which I find annoying, because I find most of the stuff not as funny as the audience does, but I get that it's different being there with a bunch of fans. Not trying to step on any toes, Nicole, I am just a horse of a different color when it comes to what tickles my funny bone. People's sense of humor varies SO dramatically depending on each individual, so again, to each his/her own. I think it's funny in parts, but not laugh-out-loud guffaw funny...yet. But it also depends on my mood & I just got word of a death in the family so I'm already not too receptive to humor atm.

Hi Audrey! Aw, I rarely see sunsets because I work through them, but I'm glad you got to enjoy a couple.

WeBuiltThePyramids

Oh you're not stepping on toes! The laugh track vs. live audience thing is just so commonly mixed up - it drives the actors and writers crazy when people call it a laugh track - that my brain has defaulted to "explain the difference" whenever I see it. Even in articles, I have a go - to rant that I copy paste there before I leave the site. They're likely not going to read it or care, but I still have to do it. It's like the one fandom thing that I'm ridiculously anal about. I don't think I'm physically able to see someone refer to it as a laugh track without correcting them. If we were robots that would be my default setting.

Talula78

Oh okay, I thought you were mad at me. S'all good. What bugs ME to death is when people laugh at things that aren't meant to be funny but they're already keyed up so much that they laugh at EVERYTHING. (watching Comic Con panels, it happens a LOT) I like shows like GG or Castle or the Office because it avoids those pitfalls. Having said this, I DO love the live experience. I haven't ever been to a taping, but I HAVE been to quite a few plays & it IS different when you're sharing an experience with an audience.

AH! Nikki, I'm sorry, I'm just seeing this. Nah, you're not interrupting, feel free to interject anytime you like. Anything big & exciting happening in your life this week?

WeBuiltThePyramids

Naw, I don't get mad that easily.

Talula78

Good! No worries, though, I do have the tendency to piss people off sometimes because I'm very opinionated.

Ugh, I'm gonna have to leave the board & get some sleep. I'm house & horse sitting so that means I have to get up super early to feed them. I'll get on tomorrow AM & make up for it, I promise!

WeBuiltThePyramids

You sleep, Jen!

ladybugjess

Cadenf

The guy from Castle....

I got it now... man am I slow today!

ladybugjess

Clue: Shares a name with a medical text book