Was Sarah Palin's Tonight Show Bit "Laugh Tracked?"

Image from source, Wonkette

I put up the clip of Sarah Palin's Tonight Show stand-up act last week. Radio host Randi Rhodes was offended that Caribou Barbie got to debut her comedy stylings on the show, when seasoned comics often wait years for the gig. Or never get it at all. I thought Palin's set was amusing enough, though I never for a second believed they were her own jokes. But she didn't seem to bomb. Or did she?

A laugh track is often added to comedy in order to cue the home audience to laugh. This--I assume--is to kind of put the home viewer into the experience, much like viewing a movie in a theater with a bunch of other people. The group response at a theater can definitely affect your perception of the film. For a demonstration of this effect in reverse, watch this clip from The Big Bang Theory without a laugh track.



Strange, isn't it? And I really like TBBT. So the question remains, was Palin's Tonight gig sweetened with a laugh track, to make it seem as though she didn't bomb? Perhaps so. Also.

[Excerpt]

Sarah Palin Totally Bombed On Leno Show, Which Is Why She Got a Laugh Track

Hollywood sideshow Sarah Palin got to do a comedy spot on Jay Leno’s new late-night informercial, Why You Should Dump GE Stock, but nobody laughed at her dumb bullshit, which she also didn’t write herself, because come on there are LITTLE PEOPLE to do those write-y things, she’s got shit to steal from the Red Cross Oscar Movie Charity Suite, she’s got reality shows to sell, gonna get her real-estate-mom hair all tarted up and tall again, by one of those fancy West Hollywood hairdressers who will just love her, and her beauty, until she doesn’t tip and then it’s going to be “THAT BITCH,” etc., but anyway when the weary, beaten old people who haven’t yet found the remote saw Sarah Palin do some jokes on the teevee, they heard laughter and delight! SCANDAL. . .

Read more at: Wonkette.com