‘Sweetening’ Laughs Shouldn’t Sour Viewers on Sitcoms
Re “What’s So Funny?” (Calendar, April 15): I found Eve Glicksman’s article concerning sitcom sweetening insulting in its tone, and somewhat misinformed. In seeking her expert opinions, rather than consult professors of media, she should have gone to the source--the people who are actually producing the shows whose practices have offended her.
As executive producer of a popular sitcom and former writer-producer on two of what she calls the “better hit sitcoms” (“Roseanne” and “Murphy Brown”), please allow me to set the record straight.
It’s true--”sweetening” does exist. But unlike her “character in a sound room deviously inserting giggles, titters and roars,” the primary purpose of sweetening is to balance laughs between takes. As most people know, sitcoms are recorded or filmed in front of a live audience. Unlike the 22-minute product you see in your home, the actual filming of a sitcom can take up to four hours. Scenes are sometimes shot three or four times. Well, that joke that got the big laugh on take No. 1 may be reduced to a forced, tired titter by take No. 4. Maybe take No. 4 is the one used in the final cut of the show. Shouldn’t that joke get the actual laugh it got the first time the studio audience heard it? That’s the purpose of sweetening.
The people who do the sweetening, or at least those who do it well, are extremely sensitive so as not to add big laughs to jokes that didn’t get them. Usually the jokes that didn’t get the laughs are cut by the time the home audience sees the show.
John Lent (professor of communications at Temple University), claiming that “if you took out the laughs, you wouldn’t even know you were watching a sitcom,” makes an odd comment. Is he implying that the laughs of the live studio audience should be removed or that sitcoms shouldn’t be filmed in front of a live audience? Without the live audience, you indeed wouldn’t know you were watching a sitcom, because filming in front of a live audience is what makes a sitcom a sitcom.
As to his statement that most television episodes have to be written in three or four days--BZZZZZT! Sorry, wrong again, professor. From initial idea to final script averages a month. And as to his assertion that “the background laugh-a-rama numbs us from material that is sexist, stupid or otherwise offensive,” I can only ask, what the heck are you watching?
Like it or not, on good shows, the laughs you hear at home are about 95% those of a studio audience, a group of people who sat in a room on the night the show was filmed and laughed. You may not think the jokes they laughed at are funny . . . that’s all a matter of taste. Fortunately, you can always change the channel.