RD 1-8 box set 66% of at Amazon US

I was very VERY pleased with the Sheldon thing. Millions of people the world over had ‘Red Dwarf’ held up in front of them! And you know how crazy people get over boxsets…

>did Amazon get a rush of sales after everybody found out that Sheldon has it?

Would like more information.

http://youtu.be/9LL6FbEFip0

God, that Red Dwarf reference didn’t even get a slight reaction from the studio audience. Usually a reference will have them laughing or reacting in some way, but Red Dwarf got complete silence. Sad really.

Do you think the bubble wrap is a direct reference to the Red Dwarf tension sheets? Seems a weird coincidence if not.

>Usually a reference will have them laughing or reacting in some way, but Red Dwarf got complete silence.

It’s almost as if references aren’t inherently humorous.

>It’s almost as if references aren’t inherently humorous.

Quiet, Pete. The past six seasons’ worth of Family Guy might hear you.

> I was very VERY pleased with the Sheldon thing. Millions of people the world over had ‘Red Dwarf’ held up in front of them! And you know how crazy people get over boxsets…

I will admit to screaming like a 9-year-old girl at a Hannah Montana concert when Sheldon said the words Red Dwarf. My dad was watching with me and I made him jump in his chair, poor guy.

>God, that Red Dwarf reference didn’t even get a slight reaction from the studio audience. Usually a reference will have them laughing or reacting in some way, but Red Dwarf got complete silence. Sad really.

It could be that they laughed on the first take but not the second take. They could have even added the Fiddle-Faddle line for that reason. (I learned about this strategy from reading certain set reports…)

However, you’re right. It is sad but not at all surprising if no one in the audience knew about Red Dwarf. Most PBS programs are educational - your average American does not watch it enough to catch Red Dwarf on the rare occasion it gets broadcast.

>Do you think the bubble wrap is a direct reference to the Red Dwarf tension sheets? Seems a weird coincidence if not.

This could go either way. I lean toward it being just one of many jokes they could have used to point out how awful it is to spend time with Sheldon. Even if he’s watching Red Dwarf.

It’s almost as if references aren’t inherently humorous.

Oh they’re not. But Big Bang studio audiences tend to react even when anything vaguely geeky is mentioned. But with Dwarf, not a titter.

Until a minute ago I could’ve sworn the Big Bang Theory used canned laughter instead of an audience. How wrong I was:

http://www.audiencesunlimited.com/fmi/xsl/shows/browserecord.xsl?&Show=b...

Not that I have a problem with the show, I think it’s pretty good, but I notice the laugh track alot, and I definitely hear some recycled laughs used. (Like that sort of whining high-pitched one you hear on atleast six other shows.)

Hmm, I’m taking this off-topic a bit…

…so, how ‘bout that Red Dwarf.

>Until a minute ago I could’ve sworn the Big Bang Theory used canned laughter instead of an audience.

There’s a simple way to tell whether a sitcom uses canned laughter or not:

It doesn’t.

>There’s a simple way to tell whether a sitcom uses canned laughter or not:

>It doesn’t.

Apparently “How I Met Your Mother” uses canned laughter.

>There’s a simple way to tell whether a sitcom uses canned laughter or not:

>It doesn’t.

So does canned laughter even exist? Or is it something made up? Bloody hell, nothing makes sense now, how can something mentioned so mu- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqyznqnH33U#t=0h0m03s

>Apparently “How I Met Your Mother” uses canned laughter.

I didn’t actually know this, but it appears you’re right. Wow.

The bastards; they’re ruining it for the rest of us…

What defines Canned laughter? Can a recording of people watching the edited episode be classed as that? Like Series 7 of Dwarf was? Or does it only actually mean when a laugh is artificially created using a sound library or whatever. How I Met Your Mother i believe does it the same way as Dwarf series 7 did.

Although several YouTube videos seem to suggest otherwise. Maybe they mix and match.

I’d define Canned Laughter as when the laughter isn’t caused by what’s actually on screen but I guess it’s an ambiguous term, especially when the crew starts cherry-picking laughter and rearranging it.

It sounds like HIMYM uses a bit of canned to sweeten scenes. I always thought that show would have worked better with one camera and no laugh-track, really.

> I didn’t actually know this, but it appears you’re right. Wow.

To be fair neither did I until I went looking for something to prove you wrong. I actually thought a lot more of the American sitcoms used it.

I forget the ‘technical’ name for this, but I once heard that live studio audiences sometimes include a planted ‘laugher’ who has a really infectious guffaw that spurs the audience on if/when required. So, maybe even so-called genuine audience reaction can be manipulated *before* the edit, too.

That’s not all. In the early days of American sitcoms when they needed the audience to gasp, Desi Arnaz would stand just to the side of the cameras and beat an orphaned child to death with his bare hands.

Yeah, I think Pete is right. How I Met Your Mother *is* shown to an audience - but presumably, the YouTube clips which seem to disprove this are sections which have been sweetened with added/replaced laughter, hence the apparent discrepancy. You’d think they’d do it with a laugh that wasn’t so distinctive!

Really annoying, as it’s the kind of thing people who bang on about canned laughter will leap upon, when the truth is slightly more complex. Wish it was just never done at all, though. Would be interesting to hear what the original reactions were.

> That’s not all. In the early days of American sitcoms when they needed the audience to gasp, Desi Arnaz would stand just to the side of the cameras and beat an orphaned child to death with his bare hands.

I was that child.

Would be interesting to hear what the original reactions were.

The only laughter in the blooper reels is from cast and/or crew for what that’s worth.