The Laff Box
99% Invisible1 Maj 2018

The Laff Box

For nearly five decades, the laugh track was ubiquitous on television sitcoms, but in the early 2000s, it began to disappear. What happened? How did we get from the raucous canned laughter of the Beverly Hillbillies to the silent, sly “joke every 20 seconds” of 30 Rock? The curious story of the laugh track starts with one man who created the laugh track as a homemade piece of technology that took over the sound of television and then fell out of fashion with the rise of a more modern sense of humor. What happened to the laugh track is one of the cultural mysteries that are being explored on Slate’s new monthly podcast: Decoder Ring with Willa Paskin

The Laff Box

Plus, Roman talks to The West Wing Weekly co-host Joshua Malina about his time acting on Sports Night, which was a turning point in the history of the television laugh track.

Learn more and subscribe to Decoder Ring

Subscribe to The West Wing Weekly

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Avsnitt(778)

The Sunshine Hotel

The Sunshine Hotel

The Bowery, in lower Manhattan, is one of New York’s oldest neighborhoods. It’s been through a lot of iterations. In the 1650s, a handful of freed slaves were the neighborhood’s first residents. At th...

5 Aug 201526min

From the Sea, Freedom

From the Sea, Freedom

In 1933, delegates from the United States and fourteen other countries met in Montevideo, Uruguay to define what it means to be a state. The resulting treaty from the Montevideo Convention established...

29 Juli 201518min

Awareness

Awareness

By the late 1980s, AIDS had been in the United States for almost a decade. AIDS had be the number one killer of young men in New York City, then of young men in the country, then of young men … Contin...

22 Juli 201516min

On Location

On Location

So many classic movies have been made in downtown Los Angeles. Though many don’t actually take place in downtown Los Angeles. L.A. has played almost every city in the world, thanks to its diverse land...

15 Juli 201514min

Johnnycab (Automation Paradox, Pt. 2)

Johnnycab (Automation Paradox, Pt. 2)

More than 90% of all automobile accidents are all attributable to human error, for some car industry people, a fully-automated car is a kind of holy grail. However, as automation makes our lives easie...

1 Juli 201521min

Children of the Magenta (Automation Paradox, pt. 1)

Children of the Magenta (Automation Paradox, pt. 1)

On the evening of May 31, 2009, 216 passengers, three pilots, and nine flight attendants boarded an Airbus 330 in Rio de Janeiro. This flight, Air France 447, was headed across to Paris. Everything pr...

24 Juni 201528min

Freud’s Couch

Freud’s Couch

Sigmund Freud’s ground-breaking techniques and theories for therapy came to be called “psychoanalysis,” and it was embodied, in practice and popular culture, by a single piece of furniture: the couch....

17 Juni 201513min

All In Your Head

All In Your Head

People who make horror movies know: if you want to scare someone, use scary music. Some of the most creative use of music and sound to evoke fear and anxiety is on the TV show Hannibal. Hrishikesh Hir...

10 Juni 201530min

Populärt inom Business & ekonomi

badfluence
framgangspodden
varvet
rss-svart-marknad
rss-jossan-nina
rss-borsens-finest
uppgang-och-fall
svd-tech-brief
lastbilspodden
dynastin
avanzapodden
borsmorgon
rss-inga-dumma-fragor-om-pengar
fill-or-kill
24fragor
bathina-en-podcast
rss-dagen-med-di
rss-kort-lang-analyspodden-fran-di
rss-veckans-trade
tabberaset