Chapter 4
SOCIAL PROOF
Truths Are Us
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
—WALTER LIPPMANNI
DON’T KNOW ANYONE WHO LIKES CANNED LAUGHTER. IN FACT, when
I surveyed the people who came into my office one day—several
students, two telephone repairmen, a number of university professors,
and the janitor—the reaction was invariably critical. Television, with
its incessant system of laugh tracks and technically augmented mirth,
received the most heat. The people I questioned hated canned laughter.
They called it stupid, phony, and obvious. Although my sample was
small, I would bet that it closely reflects the negative feelings of most
of the American public toward laugh tracks.
Why, then, is canned laughter so popular with television executives?
They have won their exalted positions and splendid salaries by knowing
how to give the public what it wants. Yet they religiously employ the
laugh tracks that their audiences find distasteful. And they do so over
the objections of many of their most talented artists. It is not uncommon
for acclaimed directors, writers, or actors to demand the elimination of
canned responses from the television projects they undertake. These
demands are only sometimes successful, and when they are, it is not
without a battle.
What could it be about canned laughter that is so attractive to televi-
sion executives? Why would these shrewd and tested businessmen
champion a practice that their potential watchers find disagreeable and
their most creative talents find personally insulting? The answer is at