About a week ago, I wondered if the Jon Stewart show was even done in front of an audience – the audio sounded dubbed in like the Newsbusters daily video. I have a bunch of answers
http://www.yelp.com/biz/the-daily-show-new-york
The show is taped in a studio in New York at 11th @ 51st. 11th Ave is the far west end of Manhattan and pretty seedy – it’s where stuff needed by the city are done – taxi businesses, barns for the Central Park carriages, parking lots, warehouses, etc.
The studio holds 200 people – about 1/3 of the audience has VIP seating, the rest are fans. The audience is warmed up to make sure they know to whoop and holler. Since much of the content is visuals on screen, the audience watch the taping of the show mostly by watching the monitors.
The show is mostly done “live to tape”, meaning they try to do the show in a single try – what doing it to tape allows retaking something that doesn’t go right, and doing post production work like dubbing in audience reaction if they didn’t react according to the script.
So in conclusion, I think the answer is both. The show is taped in front of n audience, and is edited and dubbed as necessary to negate the audience if necessary.
A stand-up comic does his routine. One guy thinks the comic is funny and laughs his head-off. The other guys never laughs. The laugher thinks the non-laugher doesn’t get the jokes so he tries to explain the what the jokes mean.
Maybe Stewart’s audience thought his jokes were offensive.
Back when I was somewhere between 5 and 10 years old, I wanted to watch a stupid comedy show during prime time… probably because there no 24/7 cartoon channels then and I would be able to understand more of the comedy than the show my dad wanted to watch.
He was about to change the channel when I objected. I remember he said that the comedy show was really not one that I could understand because I was too young. He was right… but then I noticed the laugh track and every time the show had a dubbed laugh, I would laugh out loud, only harder and louder than the people on the show. My dad let me watch for a while, more entertained by watching me than the show he had had in mind. In just a few minutes, it got old for both of us and I didn’t object when he asked the change the channel again.
Here is another way to get inside the boob tube psychology. In the case if my dad, he had no choice.
Turn in a comedy show and listen to the audio without the picture. Even if you like the show, after a couple minutes you’ll be wondering why you thought you enjoyed it.
The flickering picture opens the portal to your brain, and then they start shoveling the crap in. I’m hyper aware of TV when restaurants and airport seating lounges have TV blaring mindlessly. It’s extremely annoying and a major impediment to social interactions with those around you. The average American is up to something like 7 hours a day watching TV