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I used to think laugh tracks were cheating, then I saw the number 62 on a napkin at a diner in Omaha
I always skipped sitcoms with laugh tracks. Felt like the show was telling me when to laugh instead of earning it. Then my uncle Ray, who does open mic nights in Omaha, showed me a napkin from a diner off 72nd Street where he writes bits. He had a note on it, 62, circled twice. I asked what it meant. He said that was how many versions of the same joke he tried at a Tuesday set before one landed. 62 tries for one laugh. He said the track on TV is just the sound of somebody else getting there first. I still don't love them, but I get it now. It's less a cue and more a receipt. Any of you keep a running count of how many rewrites a joke takes before it works?
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averymartin15d ago
Man, 62 tries is wild but I believe it. My buddy does stand-up in Tulsa and he keeps a notebook where he just writes tally marks next to each joke, one mark per bomb, and he won't cut a bit until it hits like 20. Some of those marks turn into whole new jokes, which is the part that gets me.
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