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No. This was a great article. Think about laugh tracks the next time you watch a TV show that them, like Gilligan's Island. 99% of the time, what is being laughed at on the track isn't something you would laugh at. Try this experiment.

Then ask yourself if you are really experiencing a funny TV show, or are you being cued like a Pavlov dog to find humor where it doesn't really exist. You'll say "yes" I know. Now, extrapolate this to the new crop of movies and start watching for the cues. parsy the poor man's pundit.

Parsifal, I agree with you. I had thought it was me these last few years. I just was not "getting" the jokes others seem to get.

Movies didn't seem to make sense, and they certainly were not entertaining.

I chalked it up to being a generational thing. I was getting to be an "old foggy", that just wasn't "hip" to the new culture.

Kind of like reading Cliff Notes, instead of the book. You get all of the information, but miss the experience and pleasure of the book.

One thing I've noticed is that other people don't watch movies as closely and carefully as I do. Often, if I'm playing a video for someone of a movie I reccommend, I'll notice that they're talking, laughing, commmenting, moving around, and so on and they're just not hearing and seeing the things that make the movie good. Then, usually twenty minutes later they announce their opinion of the movie - usually, "it's okay, I guess, but it's not that great."

This "paying attention to details" difference would explain things like someone prefering "Back To The Future II" to the original (according to Amazon.com there are quite a few.)

The sequel does have more "plot devices" and moves around more between more time periods, and so on.

But, the original is a wonderful cohesive blend of dialog, acting, timing, camera work, music, background music, background detail, and editing and the sequel is really a piece of thrown-together junk by comparison.

"No. This was a great article. Think about laugh tracks the next time you watch a TV show that them, like Gilligan's Island. 99% of the time, what is being laughed at on the track isn't something you would laugh at. Try this experiment.

"Then ask yourself if you are really experiencing a funny TV show, or are you being cued like a Pavlov dog to find humor where it doesn't really exist. You'll say "yes" I know. Now, extrapolate this to the new crop of movies and start watching for the cues. parsy the poor man's pundit."

The way I explain it to people (or at least try to explain it) is to say "there's a reason they call it 'programming.'"

It's hard to understand the Laugh Track without taking stuff like B.F. Skinner into account. Add some Vance Packard and Marshall McLuhan, and pretty soon you'll look at "entertainment" with a new eye. It'll be a bit of a jaundiced eye, and you'll never be able to "enjoy" the "programming" again, but frankly I consider that no more a loss than one would experience by losing "three hots and a cot" when released from prison.