Not sure how he expects Leo Benedictus to find the page by googling his own name, when he doesn’t include the word “Benedictus”.

Still, good point, well made.

I think the problem now is that some people refer to ANY TV comedy audience laughter as ‘canned’ as though that’s what it’s supposed to be called. Calling it ‘canned laughter’ makes it easier for the thick reader of the article to get what he’s talking about.

If he had just said “Mitchell and Webb’s self-doubting Nazis were much improved by the subtraction of laughter” or “audience laughter” it makes it sound like the sketch got no laughs (which, incidentally, it SHOULDN’T HAVE seeing as doing that Nazis routine AGAIN was a fucking embarrassment. Even Cordon and Horne, with their pointless jumping around and shouting routine, deserved more laughs! I mean, FFS…).

But he MEANS the original sketch show laughs were ‘canned’. Where’s the virtue in saying - and meaning - “This sketch with live audience laughter was better for having live audience laughter compared to the original which had live audience laughter”?

It’s not that he’s using ‘canned’ to describe a genuine laugh track, it’s that he actually thinks the stuff on the TV show was fake.

To be fair, on first viewing I assumed that the Nazis sketch was shot on location.

> To be fair, on first viewing I assumed that the Nazis sketch was shot on location.

Still would have been shown to an audience, though.