I forget exactly which podcast it was on, but I recently heard a piece about laughtracks and these CBS sitcoms. Maybe not all of them, but some (HIMYM was singled out) are actually filmed on a closed set, the complete show's put together, an audience then watches it, and their laughter is recorded. So while filming the actors are pausing for laughs that aren't even there yet. That's got to be a weird thing to do.


Jeez, that was terrible when they did that. I can accept a laugh track (sometimes), but not for a show that obviously doesn't have a studio audience. I'm looking at you, "Flintstones"!

I agree with you.

Couple that with the cheap look of the show (the lighting is terrible and the fake NYC sets are distracting) and the bland writing and the show is unbearable!

For shows like Two and a Half Men, if you they didn't lose a laugh track. No one would laugh.

Laugh tracks don't bother me one way or the other.

Eh, if the show is funny enough the laugh track is easy to ignore.

I have never noticed laugh tracks unless I am expressly thinking about them.

Canned Laughter > Yakety Sax

Actually, single-camera sitcoms pre-date live-audience filmed sitcoms. It's just that all the single-camera sitcoms had laugh tracks up through the '70s (when they were much more popular than most of them are now).

I hear more people who won't watch a show filmed in front of an audience, though I definitely don't understand it. Do they also refuse to watch stand-up comedy, or The Daily Show, or Saturday Night Live, or tonight's live episode of 30 Rock?

Some shows are done like movies, without an audience. And some shows are done like plays, with an audience. They're different formats and different kinds of comedy, requiring different kinds of jokes (jokes that can make 200+ people laugh) and timing.

I happen to think the live-audience format is more interesting -- first because it's unique and a mash-up of theatre, film and TV, second because the actors have more energy, and third because it asks us for a certain sophistication: we have to suspend our disbelief in fake-looking, theatre-style sets, while movie-style shows make everything look real and therefore don't ask us to use our imagination. But it's all personal taste obviously.

Still, I find it sad that hating on "laugh tracks" is so common now, particularly since networks gave up on laugh tracks years ago. Whereas M*A*S*H and Andy Griffith and Bewitched and all the rest were single-camera sitcoms with laugh tracks, there are no single-camera sitcoms with laugh tracks now. (How I Met Your Mother is filmed multi-camera without an audience, but even they show the episode to a real audience when it's done.) And yet instead of wanting variety, people want everything to be single-camera with no laughter. That would be really boring and low-energy.

If I enjoy a show, I'll watch it, laugh track or no. The presence of a laugh track isn't enough to ruin my enjoyment of a show (HIMYM), and the absence of a laugh track doesn't automatically make a show better (The Middle, Cougar Town). However, I apparently have some subconscious aversion to laugh tracks, as HIMYM is the only current show I watch that has one.

And there's a Wal-Mart with at least one half dressed baby in it at any given time in any given city. Coincidence? I think not. Welcome to America.

Totally agree. I would also love to see it minus Ted since he's the weakest character on the show even though he's the main one

Blasphemy!

Yakety Sax makes anything hilarious.

Shows that shoot in front of an audience, meaning all current "laughter" shows except HIYMYM would all be different (and worse) if the audience weren't there. The producers of NewsRadio felt very strongly that they needed the audience to enhance the comedy (the creator came from the laugh-track-free Larry Sanders and wanted to do a different kind of comedy).

I think the lack of an audience does make it easier to tolerate bad jokes: when there's no audience or laugh track, we can overlook or even chuckle at a so-so joke, while it makes us angry when we hear an audience laughing at it. That's why bad live-audience sitcoms seem worse than bad no-audience sitcoms, even though the writing is no worse on one than the other.

Newsradio, like BBT, is a show that absolutely benefits from having a studio audience. The things they did on that show they were sometimes crazy for doing in front of an audience, but the product was superb.

Without a doubt, it is a tragedy that Newsradio came along before FX. It is more than obvious that they had to do tons of looping work to take out profanity and other things objected to after the fact. If that cast in its prime had been able to work without network restriction, it could have been a thing of beauty.

In this day and age a canned (ie, fake, falsified, fraudulent) laugh track - unless it is being used sarcastically - has no place in entertainment. It cheapens the show and insults the audience. Does it make a show more enjoyable if while watching it you overhear your neighbors next door laughing at something their dog did? Why not? It is just as relevant.

But there are no more canned laugh tracks and haven't been for years. Not a single network sitcom uses a canned laugh track. How I Met Your Mother screens the finished episode to an audience and all the other CBS sitcoms shoot with live audiences.

What's happening now is people think there are canned laugh tracks when there aren't. Whereas when canned laugh tracks did exist (M*A*S*H) there were fewer complaints. It's weird.

Except that most cable networks don't do sitcoms with audiences. HBO tried with "Lucky Louie," but got so many complaints from foolish people who thought it used a "laugh track" that they've never tried one again. FX's president has specifically said he's not in the market for live-audience comedy. These networks will do comedy specials in front of an audience, but for some reason they share the mistaken idea that sitcoms without audiences are inherently more sophisticated.

So while it would be great if there could be live-audience sitcoms with the freedom of cable, it's not going to happen -- the only cable networks that aren't prejudiced against the form are ones like Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, which censor even more heavily than regular networks.

I think if somebody saw the cast of Newsradio and saw the materials for it, minds would have been changed. It is still boggling to my mind that the show didn't become a hit (thanks, NBC!).

Just for clarity I have no problem at all with that.

I don't remember people feeling like they had much choice since it was so prevalent and the norm for so many years. I remember noticing the difference when I realized that the most memorable comedic moments from All in the Family were "made" by the reaction of the live audience, the genuine and probably unexpectedly enthusiastic response to something they had seen. ("Oh, Archie.")

but even with the laugh track - I don't find the show funny in the least.

thanks benedict - you're my hero

Nothing wrong with not finding a show funny, but why not just say that, instead of criticizing it for having a laugh track (which it doesn't) or saying that shooting comedy in front of an audience is out of date (which it isn't)?

I remember going to several comedy pilot tapings with a live audience and because of multiple takes, the laughter just isn't as good the 3rd, 4th, 5th time around... so I can see where a laugh track may benefit the show. Whether it's needed or not is purely subjective.

Sometimes, I'm laughing too much to notice it. I don't think it was ever a cue for me to laugh.. because there have been times I cringed instead.

i really dont understand the praise for that show. i tried watching season 1 a few months ago and it was so damn cheesy and unfunny. to me it was on the same level as just shoot me.

oh and laugh tracks on US shows dont really bother me. although the laugh tracks on UK shows makes them unwatchable to me.

Season 1 was 7 episodes long. It's good stuff, but seasons 2, 3, and 4 are amazing.

Just Shoot Me was one of many NBC shows to use the same format (after Newsradio, to boot), but the difference in quality is pretty huge. JSM had its moments, but Newsradio was genius. Genius.

I recently posted in a shit my dad says thread that the laugh track was too much