It's cool to see this and the other old threads that become, in the jargon of radio programming, "recurrents".
I still see the same faces in post production facilities painstakingly adding a full pallete of audience reactions to sitcoms and game shows. Although with "reality" programming taking many of those time slots as the "flavor of the month", I imagine their work has lessened lately. Bob LaMasney is one; he sweetened Supermarket Sweep. Another is a really cool guy with a great ear named Boyd. I see him all over town; we worked a number of shows together, including Twenty One and I believe Weakest Link, as well. John Bickelhaupt was the post production laugh-meister for "The Nanny".
Each of these guys carries his own mysterious hardware into the sessions. I remember at Metromedia Square in the early 80s, in the era when tape loops were still king, seeing one of the old-timers with his large 3 or 4 foot high box, a dozen piano-style keys and a footpedal that he shlepped on a handtruck to multiple sessions a day. These days the hardware is significantly smaller, but equally mysterious; it's always "hands off" as far as playing with the tools of these guys' trade. Although I did have endless access to the electronic keyboard and it's internal audience that's used on "Price".
Some of the audience sounds on Price must be unique to the show, as the "oooh", the "aaahhh" and the screaming (used during the one-bids) are far from subtle. I can't imagine hearing them anywhere else. The smaller giggles and the small smatterings of applause could work anywhere.
The NBC-Burbank McKenzie loops resided in the Sound Effects department across the hall from Studio 1 until the entire department was closed around 2001 after so many decades. I did manage to dub everything that remained in the room on the week it closed. The techs there told me that indeed the same loops were used for years, as were some of the game sfx. I remember a really talented guy's intensity and flailing hands in Studio 3 at a "Sale Of The Century" taping as he worked on-the-fly with his set-up of 4 five-loop McKenzie machines.
In recent years, my experience in the studio with Boyd on the first day of a show's taping was that it was serious work for him. We would take the audience through several dozen different sounds; the subtle ones where only a small portion of the audience participated were the most important to him ("This time let's hear it only from those with birthdays in January, February and March"). He was even painstaking in getting a solid 30 seconds of silence on tape so that he could have the room ambience available to cover edits.
Right now I'm wrapping work on Fremantle's five 1-hour "Game Show Moments" specials, but my sessions in post production have not yet coincided with any of the audience sweetening.
btw, I think my life will be far more entertaining after it's edited and sweetened. I hope it tests well ;-)
Randy
tvrandywest.com
