Doesn’t it seem weird that MASH has a canned laugh-track? Obviously, there was no studio audience and, after all, there was a war going on. So why did MASH have canned laughter? Well, it certainly wasn’t because the shows creators wanted it.
Was the Laugh-Track Always There, Or Was It Added Later?
MASH always aired with a laugh-track from the pilot episode on. However, the laugh-track was added or dubbed in after the show was made using pre-recorded laughter. There was no audience present during the filming of MASH episodes, including when the filming was done inside the sound-stage, which comprised the bulk of the show.
The “canned laughter” used is the same laugh-track that many other shows would have used, featuring an audience that was made of people who died long ago. You can read more about this process, below.
The Network Insisted on a Laugh-Track
I know we’re all so used to the fake audience laughter we don’t even notice it anymore. But the next episode you watch, pay attention to operating room scenes: No laugh track. It turns out that the only reason canned-laughter was used is because CBS insisted on it. They just couldn’t imagine a comedy without an audience instructing us what to laugh at. But the producers were able to at least convince the network that there shouldn’t be a laugh track in the operating room.
I always thought it cheapened the show. I always thought it was out of character with the show. One of the great joys, again, of England is that if you go there you see it without the laugh track. They never broadcasted with the laugh track.
— Larry Gelbart
MASH producer Larry Gelbart has had plenty to say about the laugh track over the years, as has the MASH audience. A fake audience yucking it up during a show about a war seems as odd as Klinger having his own tent. Interestingly, UK viewers who watched the show broadcast by the BBC got to see it without a laugh track.
But most of us have watched hundreds of episodes of MASH, over and over, with a laugh track in place. It is possible on some of the DVD releases of the series to turn off the laugh track. And, that silence where your brain is use to hearing “audience” laughter is just strange. In fact, some fans report that they find MASH unwatchable without the canned laughter. I guess it’s what you’re used to. Here is what producer Larry Gelbart had to say in an interview.
The laugh track was always a a thorn in our side. The laugh track, as we know, was a carryover from Radio Days when live people came into a studio and laughed out loud at live performances they saw the actors giving standing at microphones in front of them. Well, television was in the beginning run by broadcasting people and they brought that tradition over. Only, unless you were doing a three camera show – four camera – show where an audience is sitting in bleachers and you’re getting laughs…then you have laughs. But if you’re doing what we did working on a sound Stage there are no bleachers, there’s no audience…
We were told that we would have to add a laugh track. that is to say after the picture was finished we would go into a sound…into a mixing studio and we would add laughter – mechanical laughter. There would be a technician there who would we would instruct: Give that a one which would be a small laugh; give that a three; give that a four…and the ironic thing of course is that all of these laugh tracks are primarily these days of dead people. These are people who laughed a long time ago and are still laughing only they don’t know it.
I always thought it cheapened the show. I always thought it was out of character with the show. One of the great joys, again, of England is that if you go there you see it without the laugh track. They never broadcasted with the laugh track.
We had a couple of exceptions. We told the network that under no circumstances would we ever have canned laughter during an O.R. scene – that when that doctors were working it was hard to imagine that 300 people were in there laughing at somebody’s guts being sewn up. They bought that. We did a number of shows – not many – where there were no laugh tracks at all…”The Interview” comes to mind, a show that we did in black and white that was meant to be a documentary. But by and large the network got their way. They were paying for the dinner.
As the seasons went on and MASH became a cash cow for CBS, the laugh track did undergo some changes: It grew quieter and less intrusive.
While canned laughter was almost never used O.R. scenes, a laugh track was used once in the operating room on MASH.
Larry Gelbart stated in an interview with Ed Solomonson, co-author of TV’s MASH Ultimate Guide Book, that he never watched the show regularly because of all the cuts and interruptions, which made it painful for him to view. Once the DVD version came out, he was able to watch a few episodes without the laugh track, although he didn’t have time to watch many. Gelbart said that it was “thrilling to watch the show without the laugh track. I realized how much that device had trivialized the tone of the show.” 1Solomonson, Ed, et al. TV’s M*A*S*H: The Ultimate Guide Book. United States, BearManor Media, 2009.
We learn through this interview that the laugh track also hid a lot of subtle audio, such as “Radar’s little chuckles in the background.” So, if you have MASH on DVD and can turn off the laugh track, you should definitely give it a try!
