Monday, August 2, 2010

The Blog Laugh Track

I am not a fan of laugh tracks. It is insulting that people should need an artificial stimulus to let them know when something is funny. I always felt bad for TV shows that used one because even if something was funny, it kind of ruined things. I understand that people have different tastes and some people may not have a sense of humor at all, so a laugh track can provide beneficial cues so they know when to laugh. In the spirit of the laugh track I though I would try an experiment.

Last year I wrote a post about the differences between men and women. I don't think it went over too well since there were no comments on it, so in an effort to feel better about myself and as a public service to let people know what is funny, I am going to post some excerpts from it again, but this time I have highlighted the funny parts in red in case you were wondering.

The Difference Between the Sexes
I was going to call this entry "The Difference Between Men and Women", but I thought I'd experiment to see if my web traffic would go up if I use the word sex in the title of this post instead. If you are new to this blog and just got directed here from a web search, sorry to let you down, but welcome anyway.

I am not smart enough to write a book about men and women and planets, but I do have some observations I'd like to share. I admit these are obvious generalizations, but for the most part they hold true. There are many differences between men and women, but I've found that the obvious physical ones are the least of them.

Shopping-I hate shopping. I don't mind buying groceries since food makes me happy, but if I have to go shopping, I want to get it done fast. The two worst places to go shopping with a woman are 1) for clothes, and 2) to a fabric store. Clothes shopping takes forever and my feet and legs literally give out after only a few minutes of following my wife around. She has learned not to take me along since I only rain on her parade. Fabric stores are even worse. These are stores full of bolts of fabric and patterns. These store are actually quite fascinating if by "fascinating" you mean totally boring.There are usually only a few places to sit down and you can see tired husbands fighting for seats like a game of musical chairs. Luckily they have magazines you can read in case you are waiting for a woman who happens to be checking out every single bolt of fabric in the store. Unfortunately all the magazines are about fabric!

Multi Tasking-It seems that women can do a variety of things at the same time. (One of these is usually talking on the phone). The fairer sex can carry on conversations, cook, clean, send e-mails, and discipline kids all at the same time. I need peace and quiet just to open a can of peaches. Guys are like DOS and women like Windows. Women are almost always better at multi-tasking than men except for one area...

Watching TV-I just said that men are bad mutli-taskers but this is the one exception. I can watch 3 or 4 TV shows at the same time and have excellent comprehension of each program. It's kind of like speed reading but instead of impressing people it just annoys them. A guy obviously invented the channel jump feature on a remote control. I can tell if something is worth watching in a fraction of a second. My wife is not as judgemental. She is more of an optimist and thinks the total gym infomercial might get better the second or third time watching it. She will watch a show for several minutes to decide if it has any merit. This can be frustrating since my superpowers that help me determine within a split second if I should change the channel.. Women want to know what is on TV, Men want to know what else is on TV.

Chaka's World was typed in front of a live audience.

12 comments:

Kristina P. said...

I appreciate the help with the sentences that are funny.

And you are so dead on about the multi-taking. I can mock my male coworkers, fix a child, and make appointment calls, all at the same time.

Cheeseboy said...

I hate the laugh track for the opposite reason: there is laughter when something is NOT funny.

Although this is funny. Hold on, I have to go open a can of peaches.

Dawn Parsons Smith said...

I completely agree with you! I have never understood how my husband can watch 1/10th of a second of a program and just move on...it boggles the mind...I'm totally in it for at least a minute...

Awesome post!!!

Dawn Parsons Smith said...

Oh..almost forgot!

"Chaka's World was typed in front of a live audience"....

Now that's Class A Blogging for ya...Brilliant!!!

BeccaVT said...

shopping - when your husband makes you go to harbor freight tools and stands for about 3.74 hours in front of an endless wall of poorly built socket wrenches, wondering if he should get both the standard AND metric set of colored magnetic looking things that have weird words like "torx" in them, while being forced to inhale probably toxic oil fumes and listening to chicago. and i bet it has even less places to sit down than joann's.

from, a random blog stalker.

Kelly said...

I think you should have highlighted in red the part about your superpowers. (Or maybe you were completely serious about your powers). Thanks for pointing out all the funny for us!

Cam said...

I always hated laugh tracks. The only thing worse was when a TV show would use a live audience and they would over do their reactions. Like when they'd go crazy every time Flo told Mel to kiss her gritz or Florence started talking back to Mr. Jeferson.

Tom said...

Cheeseboy-I think any Jim Belushi sit com is a perfect example of that.

Dawn-It's a guy thing and it's a gift.

Becca- Welcome and point well taken.

Captain- You forgot the dissapointed "Awww" sound the audience made when Rerun's taperecorder fell out of his coat at the Doobie Brother's Concert.

Kal said...

I am not the type of guy that women find 'classically' handsome. But I have gotten more 'action' by just going shopping with a women. I shmooze the store employees, I shmooze the other shoppers and their tortured boyfriends and I always come across as a good sport. If the sex I get off that is just pity sex then I can take that without guilt. After all, I DID put in the time and they got to initially see the show for free.

Oh and for some reason I always loved the laughtrack on MASH, the one show that never needed one.

Eric said...

Would laugh tracks be more bearable if coupled with unnecessary censoring (as featured on the Jimmy Kimmel show)?

No, I'm fairly sure that would get old right away.

Gwen said...

It's taken me a week to get over here to day this, but this post cracked me up. Very clever, you! Ha!

Beckalita said...

I was at a fabric store this past weekend and came across a newlywed couple trying to pick out a pattern/fabric for couch covers. Did I say couple? I meant she was looking and asking his opinion of the pattern. Of course, he couldn't see past the fabric in the picture, and she was trying to explain that you could pick any fabric. I had to hang around just to see how long it all would last. Not long. He finally admitted he didn't care for any of it, took a fake phone call from a buddy, and excused himself to meet her someplace else, and she was none the wiser. But I was. Hilarious!

Happy 20th anniversary, btw.