Rant number 307
I'm a pretty smart guy - in my opinion at least. If I take pride in anything - it is that I'm pretty bright and that I am quite knowledgeable. Lets face it - it takes a certain amount of pride - arrogance even - to write 365 rants for people to read.
Part of being intelligent, it that I understand things pretty well. I understand the way of the world and I understand people pretty well - and I also understand comedy.
Comedy is of course a very subjective thing. One man will wee themselves at The Office for instance, whereas I found it to be a bit cringey. Others love Scrubs - with its cut aways and endless 'quirky' humour. I prefer the old school channel 4 comedies myself: Father Ted, Black books, Spaced and even the more modern IT crowd manage to combine comedy talent that can combine intelligent, witty and often cutting sitcom characters with enough silliness to entertain anyone at all.
With how subjective comedy is. I guess that it must be hard for comedy series producers to guarantee that everyone will laugh at all the gags. Now, you can make sure everyone laughs by making sure that the show is bloody hilarious and has universal appeal (Faulty Towers for instance!) however, this isn't an easy business and takes some really talented writing.
They don't want to rely on talented writing. It's expensive and too hard to guarantee.
No, instead they put on some canned laughter in the hope that the idiots will laugh along.
I'm sure that there is some psychology involved in canned laughter. If you hear others laughing at every line of a comedy series - you are meant to laugh along.
Maybe that works if you aren't a bright, opinionated, miserable, hard to please git; or if you are an idiot who is unable to think for yourself and interpret whether what you are hearing and seeing is actually funny. For the rest of us - canned laughter is groan-inducing - and highlights bad scripting more than if it wasn't there.
This rant was inspired by a program I heard yesterday on Radio 4 on my way back from band. It was a comedy sketch show, which seemed worth listening to and although not although only around 40% of jokes hit their mark, I still enjoyed it.
What annoyed me though, was that every line (and I mean every fucking line. Every. Single. Fucking. One) was followed by riotous canned laughter. Not just the punchlines, the set ups, the dialogue - everything. It made the show infinitely less funny and made it far harder to enjoy it.
Why aren't we allowed to think our way through what is funny ourselves? Why do they need to tell us. Is it insecurity on the behalf of the creators - or is it producers insisting - in order to increase ratings?
Either way, it gets on my wick!
Knock knock (haahahahahahahahahahaha)
Whose there (hahahahahahahahahahahaha)
Trum (hahahahahhahahahahahaha)
Trum who (hahahahahhahahahahahah)
Fuck off.
Rant over.
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