Tickled to boredom

Have you ever considered the utility of TV8217;s canned laughter? How it presumes you will laugh because it laughs? How the harder it laugh...

Have you ever considered the utility of TV8217;s canned laughter? How it presumes you will laugh because it laughs? How the harder it laughs, the funnier the joke becomes?

There is canned laughter and then canned laughter. In sitcoms such as Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, Frasier Star World or Seinfeld and Mad About You Zee English, the 8216;laugh box8217; giggles 8212; hee-hee. In Indian sitcoms, it guffaws 8212; haw-haw. And the poorer the joke, the louder its amusement.

The laugh box used by our stand-up comics can8217;t keep its lid down. On Archana Ahaa Zee, every time she delivers a punch-line, the laughter erupts like Mount Vesuvius. Quite unnecessary because some of her 8216;8216;Ahaa-Na-na8217;8217; jokes are amusing. For example:

Indian film stars at the Miss World contest, Ahaa, film stars with underworld connections Na-na.

TV par Amitabh ka aana Ahaa, television par Madhuri ka aana Na-na or Nene.

Now, if only Archana Puran Singh would silence the box and be herself rather than a female impersonator of Shekhar Suman.

Speaking of Suman, his laugh box went where no box has ever ventured before 8212; into Parveen Babi8217;s home Simply Shekhar, Zee where it loudly appreciated her sallies Amitabh Bachchan handsome? That8217;s a joke! 8212; more than Suman did. You wanted to box its ears.

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Finally, Khichdi Star Plus, the weekly sitcom about a dysfunctional parivar, has dispensed with canned laughter trusting us to get the joke for ourselves. Its humour is gentle, satirical and farcical all at once. Last week8217;s episode on the possible death of Dina Pathak8217;s character was hilarious. That Pathak has past away since added to the poignant humour of daughter Supriya8217;s mock mourning.

Khichdi and Shubh Mangal Savdhan Sahara are genuinely funny with some outstanding performances. They don8217;t require laugh boxes. Think of it: television humour is the only genre which uses false laughter. Films don8217;t, theatre doesn8217;t, nor do comics, cartoons or books.

Every time Archana Puran Singh delivers a punch-line, the laughter erupts like Mount Vesuvius. Unnecessary since some of her jokes are funny. Khichdi has dispensed with canned laughter trusting viewers to get the joke

The condition of women in the subcontinent invites outrage, nowhere more so than on foreign TV channels. Within a week, we saw a lengthy feature on women in Afghanistan Your World Today, CNN, female child marriage in Bangladesh and the tragic suicide of a Nepalese actress Asia Today, BBC World 8212; all depressing and deserving exposure. However, the reports tend to stereotype and their newsworthiness is questionable: according to BBC, Bangladesh has seen 6 million child marriages in the last 30 years. So what was the immediate impulse for the story?

In Christiane Amanpour8217;s in depth report on the improved condition of Afghan women since the departure of Taliban, Islam came across as entirely regressive for women. Do such reports enhance our understanding of complex situations or reinforce preconceptions?

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TV news grows stale so quickly. The evening prime time bulletin simply serves up left-overs, it8217;s during the day that you get a proper meal. They8217;re not just 8216;breaking news8217; and feeding it to you 8216;live8217;, they8217;re making a meal of it.

Before technology made this 8216;fast food8217; possible, news was half an hour of sedately read-out items with a few visuals as masala. Now, there are spoken headlines with written headlines moving one way, the latest share index moving the other and the current cricket score standing by the time. Then we have video-conferences, a phone-in, a 8216;Newsflash8217; with the headlines, without the headlines, with live feeds without live feeds and all the above with live coverage of a concert, Amitabh Bachchan8217;s birthday bash, Dussehra celebrations, shoot-outs in Kashmir, Mufti Mohammed Sayeed8217;s arrival and swearing in as CM, Salman Khan popping in and out of court, cricketers arriving, hockey stars departing, press conferences.. or Amr Singh and Vinay Katiyar talking to each other in Lucknow via New Delhi8217;s studio8230;

Question: What do you call the news when it is not live?

Consequently, the news anchor is becoming increasingly redundant, reduced to making critical inquiries: 8216;8216;Yeh bataye8230;. is vaqt wahan ka mahaul kaisa hai?8217;8217; Or 8216;8216;8230;thank you for joining us from8230;. Tell us, at this moment, what is the real picture?8217;8217;