My latest multi-camera rant

As you know I’m a big proponent of multi-camera sitcoms. I’ve always maintained that they force you to be held accountable. An audience will tell you whether something is actually funny so you really have to up your game to make sure they laugh. And I’ve proudly been associated with several series that lived up that — and still are funny to this day.

The criticism often leveled at multi-camera shows is that the laughter is not genuine. It’s sweetened with a laugh machine.

For the past number of years I’ve been writing plays and those are even tougher to get people to laugh. Not only is there no laugh track, there’s no warm-up guy, and the audience isn’t familiar with the premise or characters like they would be with a popular sitcom. Laughs have to really be earned.

But that’s part of the challenge and when I do make audiences laugh it’s that much more rewarding. And it seems a worthy goal as a writer to push yourself and continue to raise your standards.

That said, I recently watched some current multi-camera shows. And I was appalled. The jokes were terrible and yet the laugh machine was orgasmic. The most obvious lines, the lamest quips were met with explosive laughter. Half the time I was saying, “What are they laughing at?” I’ve been in multi-cam long enough to know the difference between real audience laughter and the machine. And these shows, some highly regarded, were drenched in canned laughter.

I can only assume the studio audience didn’t laugh (and why would they?) so the show runner sweetened the shit out of the show. But that defeats the purpose of the audience. If you’re presenting subpar material you’ve got to circle the wagons. You’re not trying hard enough, you’re settling, you’re fooling yourself, or you have the wrong writers.

Again, as someone who believes in the form, please step it up. I can’t believe that show runners and writing staffs can objectively look at the final product they’re turning out and not say, “this is unacceptable. We’re better than this.”

Imagine you can’t use the laugh machine one week. Imagine every laugh has to be earned. I guarantee you’ll turn out a better show. You might stay up later rewriting. You might have to throw out a whole scene or subplot. But as a comedy writer, if you don’t believe you can write something that will make strangers laugh out loud you shouldn’t be on staff. If nothing else, have some pride. Your names are on these damn shows.

from By Ken Levine