Wednesday, March 12, 2014

On Professional Laughers

During my comment on the Daily Show's terrible treatment of Judge Napolitano, I mentioned that these type of shows generally have professional laughers dispersed in the audience. A commneter to the post questioned that statement. My thanks to Sean, who found a Wired piece revealing the fact:

The Humor Code: Professional Laughers Straight Out of Central Casting

7 comments:

  1. A friend of mine interned for the Daily Show during the premiere summer of the Colbert Report. One of his tasks was to sit in Colbert's studio audience and laugh loudly.

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  2. Yeah, that would make sense. They're not all that funny but always hear people laughing. Inflation for everything including laughter. They must have implemented this tactic quite a bit during the 2000's for that stupid college humor crap.

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  3. I had always thought they liquored people up and did some actual funny standup to warm people up. This is interesting about the professional laughers.

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  4. Some of their stuff is funny sometimes(Daily Show/Colbert Report), but they always retreat behind this business of "we're just a comedy show" after some hack job that they've done right before discussions/debate gets really serious and involved.

    They get to have their cake and eat it too.

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  5. That makes sense. Claiming the Civil War was about a tariff is not really that funny. It's stupid, but not really that funny.

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    1. JW, From the horse's mouth: Lincoln, when asked, “Why not let the South go in peace”? replied; “I can’t let them go. Who would pay for the government”? “And, what then will become of my tariff”?
      Abraham Lincoln to Virginia Compromise Delegation March 1861

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