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This Time with Alan Partridge

Monday at 9:30pm on BBC One (February 2019)

This site closed in March 2021 and is now a read-only archive
JO
Jon
I sometimes wonder how comparable an American sitcom house is to a real-life American house. To live in an American house you see on a sitcom its so massive you can fit the QE2 in it. Hopefully in reality they aren't all the size of a mansion.

Although a middle class North American house is generally going to be larger because there is a much more affordable land in the states.
WH
Whataday Founding member
Not in New York City - I doubt the the Friends could afford that apartment in reality.
MA
Markymark
I sometimes wonder how comparable an American sitcom house is to a real-life American house. To live in an American house you see on a sitcom its so massive you can fit the QE2 in it. Hopefully in reality they aren't all the size of a mansion.


Having been in a few, well, yes, they are quite large. I spent two weeks staying in a friend's house in Houston.
The first thing I noticed walking back into our own house, was how low the ceiling was.
VM
VMPhil
Not in New York City - I doubt the the Friends could afford that apartment in reality.

This is explained in the show - Monica is subletting it from her grandmother (illegally).
AN
Andrew Founding member
I sometimes wonder how comparable an American sitcom house is to a real-life American house. To live in an American house you see on a sitcom its so massive you can fit the QE2 in it. Hopefully in reality they aren't all the size of a mansion.


That is the difference between UK and US sitcoms.

Most of the successful UK ones have been based on working class settings with small or modest normal sized houses, nothing more than a 3 bed semi.

In the US they always seem to have massive detached houses, and tend to have more of a middle class set up.

There is of course exceptions.
MA
Markymark
There seems to be some genuine amazement in this thread that sets are actually sets. Good set design should mean that the audience doesn’t actually see a set but sees a drawing room of an 18th century mansion or whatever.


What possibly made myself, and others assume the AP series were location shot, was that the sound often
matched what you'd expect. 'Boxy' in Alan's hotel room, slightly echoey in the travelodge reception. Perhaps, that's the key, fool the ears, and the eyes will follow !
WH
Whataday Founding member
Yes, the sound and lighting were very true to what you'd expect in those spaces. The lighting for Alan's room was flat and grey whereas the reception had an artificial warmth.

Generally sitcom sets are brightly lit as if it's a stage show.
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
The subject of canned or dubbed laughter is a very interesting one. A lot of people think they can spot it a mile away. It’s a lot harder than you might think though. In the U.K. a lot of sitcoms have always been done in front of a studio audience (to the point where it’s never been necessary to tell the viewing audience - unlike American sitcoms where they added a voiceover to the beginning to point this out!).


At least it explains things like "Two And A Half Men is filmed in front of a live audience" (or whatever).
Some American sitcoms didn't need such an announcement though - Tim Allen's Home Improvement used its live audience both for its show and for the show-in-a-show Tool Time segments.

Mind you Home Improvement went to town on the set design and lighting, managing to convincingly pull off outdoor scenes that were all done in the studio. It did go on location occasionally but not very often.
JA
james-2001
I don't think entirely faked canned laughter sitcoms have ever really been a thing in the UK. Go back to the 50s, 60s and early 70s in the US, the majority of sitcoms were done that way. There were only a few exceptions like The Dick Van Dyke show and the Lucille Ball sitcoms. I think it was All In The Family that made studio audiences become more common over there? I think that may have been the first US sitcom to be shot on tape rather than film as well, which also became common in the 70s and 80s (then tape seemed to die out on US sitcoms again during the 90s).

Even in the UK the sitcoms that were done without an audience tended to be shown to one later, so it's still real laughter. I can only really think of some kiddy sitcoms (like Spatz and My Parents Are Aliens) that have genuinely used fake laughter over here.
Last edited by james-2001 on 22 February 2019 8:56pm
NJ
Neil Jones Founding member
Aliens didn't have canned laughter originally, it was added a few series in. Fortunately it didn't do a Mike & Angelo and get it added to the earlier episodes.

For some reason I was going to suggest Little Britain but I may be thinking of Little Britain USA - which may have actually benefited from canned laughter as it was hard to imagine by that point there was anything actually funny from it.
LL
Larry the Loafer
I was under the assumption Bo Selecta used canned laughter (I know it's not a sitcom, unless you count A Bear's Tall) especially considering some of the DVDs featured a laugh-free audio track.
BR
Brekkie
The BBC have officially announced the commission of The Goes Wrong Show, six brand new shows to be recorded in front of a live audience up in Dock10 Studios at Media City in Salford, where they also filmed the Christmas Carol Goes Wrong.

I would love to be in the audience for those shows. Filming starts in March.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2019/goes-wrong

Great news.

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