Seinfeld audience shushed... how?

A few seasons back, I believe it was the season of the NBC pilot episodes, the Seinfeld studio audience was developing the annoying habit of whooping it up every time Kramer entered the scene.

Anyone familiar with the old Happy Days series has seen how this happens. First the most popular character (the Fonz, in that case) gets a big ovation when they enter. Then it spreads to the rest of the cast, and eventually you have about half the show's running time on hold as the actors wait for the audience to shut up.

The worst current offender I've seen is Married...With Children.

But thankfully on Seinfeld it stopped not long after it started, and I've always wondered how that occurred. It seems to me there would be no way of ending it once it begins without making a point of it, for example issuing explicit instructions to the audience as they come in to keep it down, or going exclusively with canned laughter.

Does Seinfeld have a live audience any more?

I don't know if it does, but last season would point to indications that it doesn't. I watched "The Rye Bread" episode last night and I was really bothered by the audience's laughs. They seemed recorded and fake. And your right about the wild laughter a few verys ago.

Justin Tribble

I was at the filming of the episode where Jerry shops for a crested blazer this past season and yes they do have live audiences (Not an easy ticket to get despite being distributed for free). There was no mention at all regarding applauding the characters as they entered. It just didn't happen. Could it be that the audience is aware of how annoying it is on TV? I know I am. What was interesting was that they acted out all the scenes in sequence including those scenes that were to be filmed elsewhere(i.e. the parking lot or on a backlot street) so that the audience would see it all in context.

I noticed the same thing. Nobody cheers anymore when Kramer enters the room.

In article Jon Ames, [email] writes:

Do you understand that this doesn't make any sense?

It seems to me that *because* they are distributed for free, they would be much harder to get ahold of. There would be a lot more available tickets if they were $100 apiece.

Meghan

Hello!

Each of the cast and crew gets 2 tickets per taping. Jay's wife attends, Julia's husband, Michael's daughter and scads of friends and contacts. With all the people involved in the show - the small studio audience fills uf fast.

Donna