this post was submitted on 12 Sep 2023
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Ko-Fi Liberapay
Ko-fi Liberapay

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Hi there, do you know if there is a way to disable laugh tracks from sitcoms? I really would like to rewatch some shows like King of Queens but I can't bear the constant laughing in the background. Cheers

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 year ago (7 children)
[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the power of an annoyed programmer

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 year ago

I think this (mild/moderate annoyance) is probably the most common reason for inventing things. From cars to remote controls.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

I don't like sitcoms in general but the fact someone made this is funnier to me than any sitcom I have ever seen and I have my own laughing track going on in here right now.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

Woha. WOHA!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I remember trying to filter out the vuvuzelas during the African world cup I mainly failed and just gave up on that whole tournament.

Seeing this makes me think if it happens again I might have better lick.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Seems possible. I dabbled in audio engineering, you can train a filter to remove specific noise, specifically background noise of a location.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If I remember correctly, they did that on TV after some time. But the improved audio still wasn't good.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

Thanks man, I do not understand completely how to do this but will read into it!

[–] Die4Ever 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

this video is 5 years old already, impressive https://youtu.be/DeTQBiKzmYc

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

Wow. Super impressive. Guess with today's technology you could do it pretty much 100%. I saw that model that lets you separate music into separate tracks for guitar, vocals, drums, ... Guess something like that could even separate the laughs from the next actor resuming to speak.

Kind of also reminds me of those videos where they stabilize / de-shake Star Trek. There are some scenes where the ship gets shot at for example. And the actors act that out and the camera is shaking too and a bit at an angle. Looks funny once that camera shake is removed.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That's wild

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (1 children)

But how would you know when something is funny then? (canned laughter)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (2 children)

You just have to use your judgement and laugh at what you find funny on your own, if you need peer pressure (opinions of others) to find something funny then it's not really funny to you and maybe isn't even funny for many people to begin with.

This might be controversial but maybe many Sitcoms that do this were never funny in the first place and used laugh tracks because try as they might they had to force people to find it funny via artificial peer pressure, that either constitutes of a crowd being told to laugh on cue, or a recording of them doing so, which is what a laugh track is.

Here's the key point and why we stopped using them, things aren't funny, people think certain things are funny, and they also think plenty of things are not funny, and like it or not people are not always going to find the same things funny.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I always thought it was because the earliest stuff was actually filmed infront of a live audience (Like a theatre) who did laugh, so when switching to non-live-audience stuff, the viewing public would be 'put off' by no laughter, so they injected it with canned laughter... then as time went on they realised this was rubbish and stopped it.

But maybe I'm just missing the joke in the previous two comments, I dunno.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

In the earlier days it was like that but as time went on it became a technique known as sweetening to make the joke seem funnier, sometimes they would even use it to fill in silence or dead air since that was frowned upon (I wonder why people said TV rots your brain for the longest time... can't be related to any of these practices could it?).

The beginning part is essentially saying that if people need laugh-tracks to find things funny they are dry and humor-less, a joke at their expense but also at the same time it's 100% sincere, a person who can't find things funny without others lacks a sense of humor.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (1 children)

After a little while, you're going to prefer it to the strange pauses in the dialogue.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This is going to sound weird I prefer it to the laughing, makes it feel like they're actually finishing their sentences rather than being cut off by people laughing at random words and seemingly cutting them off. I don't know about most people but I find seemingly random laughter at benign things to be unpleasant and annoying.

Though maybe in the future as media manipulation with Machine learning gets better maybe we'll have a way to chop out the gaps seamlessly as if it never happened for the people that find the gaps more bothersome.

By far the most unpleasant thing I find with current implementations is the fact that most aren't seamless and they leave a lot behind when they can't mute the whole scene such as when it's mixed with dialogue or background audio.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not easily. The laugh track isn't a separate audio stream by the time you get the episode. It's all mixed together with the dialogue and music.

Watching a sitcom with the laugh track missing seems like it would be awkward. The actors are constantly taking extended pauses between lines, or sometimes in the middle of a line, while the laugh is happening.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah I get what you mean, I just watched the link from the comment below and it feels really weird to watch it like this.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Now you must go further down the rabbit hole and watch musicless music videos on youtube.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Hahaha, pure art!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What the hell is that instance name xD

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Just the Invidious instance I found on the official list a long time ago. I like them because they're relatively local, super reliable, and unlike a lot of other instances they actually have the download feature enabled. But yeah, their domain name is a bit awkward, lol.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I used to work in a nightclub. We had a TV show book the club during the day to shoot some scenes, so the cast were acting out drinking and dancing, but without any music. It's probably the most surreal thing I've seen in my life.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Challenge accepted!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you mean muted music videos or is there something else entirely ?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

They're music videos where the music and singing is cut and 'ambient' noise like squeaky shoes, breathing, grunting while doing dance moves, etc is dubbed back in. You'll see what I mean if you watch one. It may be the same thing but I've just always heard of them referred to as "musicless music videos"

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I did. It was quite funny listening to just the lyrics. Would have been nice if they managed to keep the original vocals but that whispering voice made it funnier.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't see anything preventing someone from not just cutting the audio out, but the video, too. Then there shouldn't be any awkward pauses.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It might make for some very choppy transitions in certain areas, you'd need a way to smooth it out to make it less abrupt while still cutting out the majority of it in the parts where hard cutting wouldn't work well.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Original video assets from a studio has multiple audio tracks, but they are transcoded down to a single audio track before distribution to the end user. Sorry.

You could do some fancy editing, or maybe you can use machine learning somehow.

But removing the laugh track really messes with the comedic timing.

https://youtu.be/4BFSZ8XzWOM?feature=shared

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Depends on the show and how it's used, in my opinion it feels more disruptive than the interruptions left behind by its absence.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Have you considered how awkward King of Queens would be without the laugh track? With the actors pausing for laughter every 45 seconds?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

You don't even have to imagine it. Do a youtube search for clips with laugh tracks removed. They exist and it really makes watching it weird.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think the best way would be to re-record the audio. Laugh track usually overlaps the dialog a bit so it's impossible to get rid of it. You just have to find some actors and have them read the script. The casts of most sitcons are not that big. You will need like what? 10 people? You can probably do it with your friends. Then just add some basic sound effects like door closing and cars starting. A bit of work but doable.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago

Extraordinary problems need extraordinary solutions! Thanks :D

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I don't recommend doing this. The dialog is far worse with the awkward gaps of silence.

I remember watching a few short vids on Youtube where people were making claims that Friends is unfunny garbage with out without the laugh track, but the truth is the awkward silences kill all jokes.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not really, unless you know a lot about sound engineering.

I don't think there's any version of the show that doesn't have a laugh track.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

i need this to mute certain people in shows like debbie in shameless

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

She's a pain but she's also part of the family. I think it makes s very good point to make her like that and to have us bear her.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

her voice is too fucking gross and nasty. i dont care about anything else about her she just needs to shut up

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

No doubt AI will be able to remove it soon if not already.

Now the practicality of that is another matter.

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