Is it possible that actual human beings respond to a barrage of vagina jokes with such gusto? And if so, why is it that a 59-year-old Hollywood sound engineer named John Bickelhaupt is so busy this fall?
This is a great article about laugh tracks.
Coincidentally, there’s a very interesting, and very sad, story about the history of professional laughers, or people who get paid to sit in on sitcoms and laugh on queue. After two armed men broke into her house and brutally raped her and a friend, Fran Drescher did not feel comfortable letting strangers onto the set of The Nanny. The producers called a casting director to hire people to do the laughing on set. Now a full on profession, professional laughers are responsible for some of the most recognized laughs on television.
Also on the subject of laughing, I wrote a just okay article about the health benefits of laughing in college called ‘Laughing To Live.’
Source: New York Magazine
