Laugh Track

Ellison, Harlan. "Laugh Track." 1984. The Voice From the Edge, Vol 1: I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream. Dove Audio, 1999. "Produced and Distributed by NewStar Media, Inc." of Los Angeles.

"LT" is significant in the audio-book form by its juxtaposition as side 2 of a series in which HE's 1967 "I Have No Mouth" is side 1. If "I Have No Mouth" is extreme tragic horror, bettering Edgar Allen Poe, "Laugh Track" deals with a similar premise, but as satiric comedy. In "I Have No Mouth," the protagonist-narrator and four other humans are trapped in the belly of AM, the computer-monster; in "Laugh Track," the narrator's beloved dead aunt is trapped as a laugh on a laugh track inside a quasi-magic "black box" of a shady TV sound engineer. We won't ruin the joke, so we'll just say she adjusts to her electronic environment. (RDE, 17/08/00)