Oh, how we laughed
In the first of a regular review column, there’s gold to mine in the ‘ lol’ franchise
Just as the title instructed, we all laughed at TV2 when they announced a new show called Cats Make You Laugh Out Loud. Screening a bunch of old cat videos from YouTube on television? In prime time? What was the world coming to! A sad state of affairs, an embarrassing new low, more desperate scraping of the bottom of the barrel.
The joke got funnier when the ratings came out. In its 7.30pm Friday night timeslot, Cats
Make You Laugh Out Loud outrated TV3’ s Jono and Ben as well as every other show on New Zealand television that night.
At the end of the year the joke turned kind of surreal. Nielsen figures revealed this hour of
recycled YouTube videos screened on a Friday night in June was somehow the most- watched television show of the year for audiences 25- 54, outrating the likes of the Cricket World Cup final, Shortland Street and My Kitchen Rules.
Cats Make You Laugh Out Loud was also a ratings monster in Australia and the United Kingdom, the land from whence it came. The show’s inexplicable success prompted more of the same. A lot more. Few who laughed at Cats Make You Laugh Out Loud — cynically or in earnest — could have foretold just how many things the franchise has instructed viewers to Laugh Out Loud at in the year- anda- half since. There’s been Dogs Make You Laugh Out
Loud and Pets Make You Laugh Out Loud, Budgies Make You Laugh Out Loud and Cats Make You Laugh Out Loud 2. By the end of last year the format moved beyond animals to also include human ( Dumb Delinquents Make You Laugh Out Loud) and seasonal ( Christmas Makes You Laugh Out Loud) subjects. This week 2017’ s first opportunity to Laugh Out Loud arrived in the form of Wednesday night’s Grannies Make You Laugh Out Loud — a fast- paced, low resolution dredge through a series amateur videos of “goofy grannies, grumpy grannies, and grannies going hell for leather!” This edition checked in with Nonna Paola, an Italian- Australian granny who went viral for shouting at her grandson about tattoos — sparking the catchphrase “no tattoos for you!” — and Bruce and Ester, the elderly couple who went viral when they accidentally filmed themselves trying to use Skype. The tone isn’t especially malicious or exploitative, just tasteless — the show is certainly better with animal subjects than with humans. While the law of diminishing returns must be in heavy effect, the cost- to- ratings ratio offered by the Make You Laugh Out Loud franchise will still be irresistible. With no shortage of source material, it looks like it be around for a while.