Re: Whatever happened to sitcom Laugh Tracks
 

"The Larry Sanders Show" was laugh-track-free 9 years before "The Office" premiered. I'm sure there are numerous examples of others but "Sanders" is one of Gervais's acknowledged influences.

"Curb Your Enthusiasm" had also already aired it's debut special and it's first 10-episode season before "The Office" first aired.

Re: Whatever happened to sitcom Laugh Tracks
 

There were several years before Sanders like Doogie Howser, Wonder Years, and a few others. The 80's ones without the laugh tracks seem to be memorable sitcoms from that era because people recall then=m fondly today and they won many awards in their day.

Re: Whatever happened to sitcom Laugh Tracks
 

Of course they are. If the audience isn't laughing loud enough or not at the right times it's added in post. That's the way it's done on all sitcoms with a live audience.

Re: Whatever happened to sitcom Laugh Tracks
 

The first shows (that I'm aware of, anyway) that tried going without the laugh track are Get Smart and The Monkees back in the 60's. They were still funny. And don't forget M*A*S*H. They were fighting for that show to be laugh-track-free forever.

Re: Whatever happened to sitcom Laugh Tracks
 

Something that annoys me about live audience tracks is the audience applauding and cheering when a character makes an entrance.

Re: Whatever happened to sitcom Laugh Tracks
 

There's really no such thing as a show that doesn't tell you what's funny, but a show like "Cheers" or "Seinfeld," where the jokes are tested in front of an audience, tell you when to laugh much less than "30 Rock" or "The Office," where music and/or reaction shots are the cues for when the producers think we should laugh.

This is why M*A*S*H rarely had music, by the way -- it had a laugh track (with no audience) so it didn't need music. Shows like "Scrubs" came along in the '00s and basically used music as the laugh track; all in all, the laugh track on M*A*S*H isn't any more of a crutch than the narration and music on "Arrested Development"; both use devices to let us know that what we heard was a joke, and that's fine.

As for audience laughter, many people don't like the rhythm it creates but I think it's just that there haven't been many good shows in that form lately. Also the format cruelly exposes bad writing -- like the producer of "Sex and the City" wrote the same terrible jokes for his new show "2 Broke Girls," but the format makes it clearer what cheap jokes these are. It's harder to make a good audience sitcom, but eventually one will come along again.

Re: Whatever happened to sitcom Laugh Tracks
 

The problem isn't necessarily the laugh-track itself (be it from an audience or otherwise), but how it affects the writing and performances, having to work around it. It just makes everything unnatural, stiff and awkward, killing timing, which is murder for good comedy.

Re: Whatever happened to sitcom Laugh Tracks
 

I hate that too. And it looks weird when the show has been taped out of sequence. I've been noticing in Seinfeld for examaple, there are quite a few episodes where the audience goes nuts when Kramer shows up, even though he's already appeared in a scene or two, but this later scene was the first one filmed.

Re: Whatever happened to sitcom Laugh Tracks
 

Pausing for audience laughter is part of stand-up comedy, theatre comedy, and even movies (where they test the film and change the timing based on the laughter), though. Sometimes, in fact, often, the timing on a good audience sitcom is better and more natural than on no-audience shows, where the timing is mostly created in the editing.

I think what it comes down to is that if we don't find the joke funny, the pause seems awkward (and we get mad because the studio audience is laughing at a joke that isn't good). But if the joke is good, then the audience reaction improves the timing and the performances.

Re: Whatever happened to sitcom Laugh Tracks
 

The title of this thread is like asking "whatever happened to the Plague" or "whatever happened to the marauding Huns?". Shouldn't we just be glad they're gone?

Always hated laugh tracks, even when I was little. I remember being patently annoyed every time Michelle said something, anything, and the audience acted like it was the funniest thing ever.

Re: Whatever happened to sitcom Laugh Tracks
 

Laugh tracks on cartoons like The Flintstones confused the hell out of me- I thought somehow they got the cartoons to actually be really up there on a stage with the audience watching them.

And THIS just blew my mind:
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