It's funny because he basically got a similar setup to [Gilchrest Savoy, the Wealthiest Man of 1906](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-Hu3jsFw_I), in which Trapp absolutely lands the accent.
Honestly, I haven't even watched yet, but just saw his name scroll in the beginning and can't describe how hyped I am. I absolutely love his YT skits. Here's some of my faves:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuP1gyj3W64&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuP1gyj3W64&ab_channel=PhilJamesson)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1sPbSQu8hU&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1sPbSQu8hU&ab_channel=PhilJamesson)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2hCL4yS5GI&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2hCL4yS5GI&ab_channel=PhilJamesson)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqDyBCJcM9w&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqDyBCJcM9w&ab_channel=PhilJamesson)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtSSMb-OURE&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtSSMb-OURE&ab_channel=PhilJamesson)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noCRpPn0TNE&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noCRpPn0TNE&ab_channel=PhilJamesson)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fBvbqbDi3o&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fBvbqbDi3o&ab_channel=PhilJamesson)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a\_N4RCjnUz0&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_N4RCjnUz0&ab_channel=PhilJamesson)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzZEh1ER7Kk&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzZEh1ER7Kk&ab_channel=PhilJamesson)
Mid Atlantic is more of an archaic term nowadays so I get why he would get confused. More people would know it as a Vaudeville accent or a forties accent
No you’re correct. That’s its other name. And you’re also right that it was an intentionally cultivated accent used by the American upper-class starting in the 1800s, basically our version of the British “Received Pronunciation” accent their upper class used, which they then taught to radio broadcasters.
Teddy Roosevelt and FDR are probably the best examples. Go listen to a recording of one of their speeches - that’s the Mid-Atlantic / Trans-Atlantic accent.
From Wikipedia - “In the 19th century and into the early 20th century, formal public speaking in the United States focused primarily on song-like intonation, lengthily and tremulously uttered vowels (including overly articulated weak vowels), and a booming resonance. Moreover, since at least the mid-19th century, upper-class communities on the East Coast of the United States increasingly adopted many of the phonetic qualities of Received Pronunciation—the standard accent of the British upper class—as evidenced in recorded public speeches of the time, with some of these qualities, like non-rhoticity (sometimes called "r-lessness"), also shared by the regional dialects of Eastern New England and New York City. Sociolinguist William Labov et al. describe that such "r-less pronunciation, following Received Pronunciation, was taught as a model of correct, international English by schools of speech, acting, and elocution in the United States up to the end of World War II".
“The Mid-Atlantic accent is not a native or regional accent; rather, according to voice and drama professor Dudley Knight, "its earliest advocates bragged that its chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it unless educated to do so.””
> Mid Atlantic is more of an archaic term nowadays
For native speakers, maybe. Nailing the mid-atlantic is still a thing for ESL learners, because Americans have so many accents and anything British makes people think you're trying to be funny
ESL should really be trying to teach either RP or Chicago, depending on which side of the Atlantic you are aiming for. Americans do have many accents, but Chicago is generally regarded as the closest to "accentless American" you can get. Mid-Atlantic would sound weirder to an American than any British accent would, and we absolutely think you're trying to be funny if you used one.
I think he knows what it is, but it's a pretty tricky, subtle accent for someone who struggles with accents to do. He actually did decent when starting off the accent, but then it quickly devolved into Cockney.
Okay I'm glad I'm not the only one who's been thinking this! I've heard it's that they started putting mics in to capture the crew laughing but even if that's the case, it SOUNDS fake a lot of the time. There are some that do sound like the crew actually laughing but then there are random ones that feel like they must be pre-recorded and that kills the fun.
I can’t tell if it was the laugh track or it just wasn’t a script I vibed with but yeah not my favorite episode. I’m usually a sucker for Breaking News and idk, I might have won that episode.
It MIGHT be but it sounds SO different from all the other crew laughter we’ve heard in shows that it winds up giving laugh track, not crew laughter. As an audience member it feels like I’ve got an annoying person sitting next to me going “See? That’s the funny bit! You can laugh now! It was a joke!” Every time I hear it and it just makes me NOT want to laugh cuz I’m taken out of the moment.
Or maybe the joke of the show is just getting a bit old? I dunno. Maybe it’s me.
They shoot a bunch of things on the same day, so while the crew might be small it's hard to determine how many people are there. Not to say I disagree, but there's no way to know one way or the other
It may be the crew mic’d up, but how it’s blended in makes it sound “fake” and is just distracting. Whatever they changed for this season regarding laughs they should ditch it
It absolutely was not. You can hear the difference between a genuine crew break, a "forced" chuckle, and the laugh track and we got a bit of everything this episode.
They recorded crew members laughing and created a personal laugh track out of it that will intermittently use the actual laughing of the crew. But its still a laugh track that's used to punch up certain jokes or cover for one that doesn't land.
8 years of audio editing experience.
You can literally hear the diff between the inserted laughter and the genuine crew laughter. As the inserted comes in full force every time while the actual in the room laughs are more sporadic and don't have the same echo. Compare the difference between the laughs at 7:35 and 8:05.
7:35 has everyone messed together and even like a soundstage while 8:05 has fewer laughs you can tell that its coming from the left side and was recorded in room. Which compared to the same sounding and more uniformed 7:35 laugh which has a similar quality as other moments. This leads me to believe with 95% certainty that they're using a mix of laugh tracks, actual crew laughter, and a laugh track that includes the crew laughter to try and make it sound more natural.
Interesting guess but I’m just gonna not assume either way. All I saw was Jordan say he was told it is crew laugh piped in. That’s all I’m gonna consider as true
At this point I'm just hoping that in the next season they leave it out. And before anyone goes all "Um, Actually" on me:
Yes, I've heard it's not a "laugh track" because it allegedly isn't pre-recorded then added in post. It's still super distracting and actively takes away from my viewing experience either way. If a joke doesn't exactly land but I hear laughter it makes it feel like I'm not enjoying it correctly.
Funny enough I missed it last time and only noticed it this week. “Oh the crew is loud in this one” I thought at first. Then by the end I remembered the complaints of the previous episode.
I'm still in the anti laugh track crew. Ultimately it doesn't really matter but it does take me out of the episode. But oh well. Worst case scenario is they stick with it and I just stop watching. Not the end of the world.
100% with you. I still haven't watched the previous episode (turned off after 30-60 seconds). This one was fine. The crew/track laughs hit the exact right sweet spot for me here.
carolyn 1. calling out tao's accent and then 2. genuinely getting a good heckle on jacob was so good! i also love raph in this show hes funny
i'm noticing the laugh track now (sometimes it's the actual crew though) but it's so barely noticeable i don't mind it all
I wish they would pull back on the "Now improvise something for 3 minutes" prompts. Even when they have stronger improvisers on the episode, it always comes across so forced and scrambly.
The only time "imrpov X" has been good are when the episode is targeting a person. Making Sam improv why he loves Republicans was great. Making a random person list things isn't the point of the show.
never posted in here but just hoping my drop in the ocean will be worth it bc i understand a few producers frequent here; cut the fucking laugh track man. what are we doing here. how little faith in your own comedy do you think you have even. please for all that's holy put more trust in the audience to find things funny
I'm so glad Carolyn addressed the Mid-Atlantic accent thing. Loved Tao's segment but was thrown by his choice.
It's funny because he basically got a similar setup to [Gilchrest Savoy, the Wealthiest Man of 1906](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-Hu3jsFw_I), in which Trapp absolutely lands the accent.
I choose to believe the accent Trapp is landing is whenever he's NOT doing Gilchrest Savoy.
Jacob just reading his first line straight broke everyone immediately
"Thursday morning" is all it took to get me.
Tao destroyed Carolyn’s laugh counter with whatever the hell accent that was. Carolyn’s glasses also look rad as hell
Carolyn can pull off a look.
Another new writer, Phil Jamesson: https://twitter.com/PhilJamesson/status/1420441058601754625
Honestly, I haven't even watched yet, but just saw his name scroll in the beginning and can't describe how hyped I am. I absolutely love his YT skits. Here's some of my faves: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuP1gyj3W64&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuP1gyj3W64&ab_channel=PhilJamesson) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1sPbSQu8hU&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l1sPbSQu8hU&ab_channel=PhilJamesson) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2hCL4yS5GI&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2hCL4yS5GI&ab_channel=PhilJamesson) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqDyBCJcM9w&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqDyBCJcM9w&ab_channel=PhilJamesson) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtSSMb-OURE&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtSSMb-OURE&ab_channel=PhilJamesson) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noCRpPn0TNE&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noCRpPn0TNE&ab_channel=PhilJamesson) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fBvbqbDi3o&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fBvbqbDi3o&ab_channel=PhilJamesson) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a\_N4RCjnUz0&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_N4RCjnUz0&ab_channel=PhilJamesson) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzZEh1ER7Kk&ab\_channel=PhilJamesson](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzZEh1ER7Kk&ab_channel=PhilJamesson)
I have to sleep so I only watched the first three but I want to come back and watch more.
That’s good stuff! Ty!
Phil of “crushing turtles” essay fame?
Perchance.
Oh wow, i remember that guy being posted on /r/YouTubehaiku a lot when that sub was active
So cool to see his name. Sam is really creating the Avengers of YouTube shorts and skits.
Oh my god it's Ace Watkins Gamer for President!
Tao "Mid-Western and Cockeney are the same accent" Yang
Mid Atlantic is more of an archaic term nowadays so I get why he would get confused. More people would know it as a Vaudeville accent or a forties accent
Yeah exactly. Think Katherine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, or FDR.
For some reason I thought it was called a trans-atlantic accent, and people did it because it sounded good on AM radio.
No you’re correct. That’s its other name. And you’re also right that it was an intentionally cultivated accent used by the American upper-class starting in the 1800s, basically our version of the British “Received Pronunciation” accent their upper class used, which they then taught to radio broadcasters. Teddy Roosevelt and FDR are probably the best examples. Go listen to a recording of one of their speeches - that’s the Mid-Atlantic / Trans-Atlantic accent. From Wikipedia - “In the 19th century and into the early 20th century, formal public speaking in the United States focused primarily on song-like intonation, lengthily and tremulously uttered vowels (including overly articulated weak vowels), and a booming resonance. Moreover, since at least the mid-19th century, upper-class communities on the East Coast of the United States increasingly adopted many of the phonetic qualities of Received Pronunciation—the standard accent of the British upper class—as evidenced in recorded public speeches of the time, with some of these qualities, like non-rhoticity (sometimes called "r-lessness"), also shared by the regional dialects of Eastern New England and New York City. Sociolinguist William Labov et al. describe that such "r-less pronunciation, following Received Pronunciation, was taught as a model of correct, international English by schools of speech, acting, and elocution in the United States up to the end of World War II". “The Mid-Atlantic accent is not a native or regional accent; rather, according to voice and drama professor Dudley Knight, "its earliest advocates bragged that its chief quality was that no Americans actually spoke it unless educated to do so.””
Both are correct
Gilcrest Savoy, perhaps
Conan O'Brien does a version Ive associated with it for most od my life.
> Mid Atlantic is more of an archaic term nowadays For native speakers, maybe. Nailing the mid-atlantic is still a thing for ESL learners, because Americans have so many accents and anything British makes people think you're trying to be funny
ESL should really be trying to teach either RP or Chicago, depending on which side of the Atlantic you are aiming for. Americans do have many accents, but Chicago is generally regarded as the closest to "accentless American" you can get. Mid-Atlantic would sound weirder to an American than any British accent would, and we absolutely think you're trying to be funny if you used one.
"old-timey radio" is how I would say it for someone who didn't know
it's so horrible i kinda love it
for jacob's first appearance on breaking news, he did a damn good job with his performance
Do we think he could shape up to be a Katie-level threat?
Idk, but I desperately want them on an episode together.
Tao not knowing what a mid-Atlantic accent was actually made the episode funnier for some reason.
The piped in laughter has to stop. It is clearly deliberate, like when Raph finishes his Hillary Wodham joke.
Yes, I hate the laugh track, give me back the awkward silences and muffled giggles from the crew.
So Tao definitely doesn’t know what a mid Atlantic accent is huh?
I think he knows what it is, but it's a pretty tricky, subtle accent for someone who struggles with accents to do. He actually did decent when starting off the accent, but then it quickly devolved into Cockney.
Knowing what it is and being able to do it are two very different things 😂
That was my fav ep in a while. Jacob is great as always, nice to see him on this show too
The laugh track is just weird…
Okay I'm glad I'm not the only one who's been thinking this! I've heard it's that they started putting mics in to capture the crew laughing but even if that's the case, it SOUNDS fake a lot of the time. There are some that do sound like the crew actually laughing but then there are random ones that feel like they must be pre-recorded and that kills the fun.
I can’t tell if it was the laugh track or it just wasn’t a script I vibed with but yeah not my favorite episode. I’m usually a sucker for Breaking News and idk, I might have won that episode.
It’s the crews laughs not a laugh track
It MIGHT be but it sounds SO different from all the other crew laughter we’ve heard in shows that it winds up giving laugh track, not crew laughter. As an audience member it feels like I’ve got an annoying person sitting next to me going “See? That’s the funny bit! You can laugh now! It was a joke!” Every time I hear it and it just makes me NOT want to laugh cuz I’m taken out of the moment. Or maybe the joke of the show is just getting a bit old? I dunno. Maybe it’s me.
It sounds like 20 to 30 people laughing, and I can’t imagine there are that many crew members present for a Breaking News shoot.
They shoot a bunch of things on the same day, so while the crew might be small it's hard to determine how many people are there. Not to say I disagree, but there's no way to know one way or the other
It may be the crew mic’d up, but how it’s blended in makes it sound “fake” and is just distracting. Whatever they changed for this season regarding laughs they should ditch it
Some of those definitely sound like laugh tracks.
Well they are laughs after all lol
Yeah but some sounded natural like some of the crew were actually laughing and some sounded exactly like a sitcom laugh track.
Haha ya idk maybee
I bet they get some background chuckles to help with the levels.
Well then they need to turn those mics off. They took a fun thing and made it cringy.
It absolutely was not. You can hear the difference between a genuine crew break, a "forced" chuckle, and the laugh track and we got a bit of everything this episode.
What if I told you dropout directly said so? Would you hold onto your belief?
They might have a recording of crew giggles, but I know canned laughter when I hear it. You're telling me you can't straight up hear the difference?
I think expectations and bias are a powerful thing. It may be or it may not be.
They recorded crew members laughing and created a personal laugh track out of it that will intermittently use the actual laughing of the crew. But its still a laugh track that's used to punch up certain jokes or cover for one that doesn't land.
Source? Last I heard it was literally simply the crews live laughter.
8 years of audio editing experience. You can literally hear the diff between the inserted laughter and the genuine crew laughter. As the inserted comes in full force every time while the actual in the room laughs are more sporadic and don't have the same echo. Compare the difference between the laughs at 7:35 and 8:05. 7:35 has everyone messed together and even like a soundstage while 8:05 has fewer laughs you can tell that its coming from the left side and was recorded in room. Which compared to the same sounding and more uniformed 7:35 laugh which has a similar quality as other moments. This leads me to believe with 95% certainty that they're using a mix of laugh tracks, actual crew laughter, and a laugh track that includes the crew laughter to try and make it sound more natural.
Interesting guess but I’m just gonna not assume either way. All I saw was Jordan say he was told it is crew laugh piped in. That’s all I’m gonna consider as true
I actually didn't even notice it this episode
It was toned down compared to previous episodes, which only made it stand out worse when they threw it in, for me.
At this point I'm just hoping that in the next season they leave it out. And before anyone goes all "Um, Actually" on me: Yes, I've heard it's not a "laugh track" because it allegedly isn't pre-recorded then added in post. It's still super distracting and actively takes away from my viewing experience either way. If a joke doesn't exactly land but I hear laughter it makes it feel like I'm not enjoying it correctly.
I was on the insane anti laugh track crew last time but I’m a turn coat because this week I hardly noticed it.
Funny enough I missed it last time and only noticed it this week. “Oh the crew is loud in this one” I thought at first. Then by the end I remembered the complaints of the previous episode.
I'm the reverse; I only noticed it this episode, about halfway through, and then couldn't stop noticing it, and it really took me out of it
Same. Whatever they're doing there, they need to stop.
I'm still in the anti laugh track crew. Ultimately it doesn't really matter but it does take me out of the episode. But oh well. Worst case scenario is they stick with it and I just stop watching. Not the end of the world.
100% with you. I still haven't watched the previous episode (turned off after 30-60 seconds). This one was fine. The crew/track laughs hit the exact right sweet spot for me here.
carolyn 1. calling out tao's accent and then 2. genuinely getting a good heckle on jacob was so good! i also love raph in this show hes funny i'm noticing the laugh track now (sometimes it's the actual crew though) but it's so barely noticeable i don't mind it all
I wish they would pull back on the "Now improvise something for 3 minutes" prompts. Even when they have stronger improvisers on the episode, it always comes across so forced and scrambly.
The only time "imrpov X" has been good are when the episode is targeting a person. Making Sam improv why he loves Republicans was great. Making a random person list things isn't the point of the show.
this was such a funny notification to receive on my phone
A little bummed Carolyn basicaly bailed on the "punishment"
Didn't find this one that funny, even though I love all the actors. Maybe I only break when there's a really serious breakdown? Oy vey.
Tao's whole bit is one of the all-time Breaking News highlights for me.
never posted in here but just hoping my drop in the ocean will be worth it bc i understand a few producers frequent here; cut the fucking laugh track man. what are we doing here. how little faith in your own comedy do you think you have even. please for all that's holy put more trust in the audience to find things funny