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Laugh Tracks ...


Having grown up with the early days of television (I am 73 as of this post), all sitcoms had a laugh track. Sometimes they were handled well, but most times I found them an insult to the intelligence of the audience.
Contrary to what the producers of sitcoms thought (or think now), their audiences were able to tell what was funny without having a laugh track telling us when to laugh.
Or maybe, the producers are afraid that we WON'T laugh at the comedy and the show will go away faster.
Having a live studio audience is better than a laugh track.
Just a small gripe.

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It was probably a way to fool us that every joke they wrote was funny. I don't mind laugh tracks in general, but don't overuse it every damn line.

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Agreed

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I tend to agree.
I’m not a watcher of major Network TV, it just all seems like dung to me, except for certain sports events and weather reports on the news.

The ‘cable/app’ shows are way funnier and clever. NO laugh track needed.

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I laugh harder at some independent film producers on Youtube (And I don't mean kitty videos) than some of the sitcoms airing now.
Some of the dreck that they are trying to pass off as "comedy" is terrible (Granted, there were some klunkers back when I was young, but it feels like most sitcoms back then did not try to insult your intelligence)

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who is this independent film producers on Youtube?, i wanna know please.. been searching for it for a while

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Just search for "comedy short films" and you should get a good sampling of small independent film makers showing off their projects. There are also a LOT of short horror films on Youtube, of varying degrees of quality.

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I find it funnier when something ridiculous happens in a video game or a movie that makes people annoyed, and someone edits the scenes with laugh tracks on youtube to fit the situation far better than even the game's writers or the movie's writers intended.

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Holy shit AmeriGirl, you play video games? What are some that you had in mind there?

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Of course ;) I loved playing BioWare games...until they got bad a few years ago. The Dragon Age games were a lot of fun, and for a time, after the "Inquisition" one, I was as eager to see the next game in the series as anyone else. It took them so long (I mean, it came out in 2014 for crying out loud), that I lost interest.

Then just last year, I hear they finally came out with the sequel we'd all been asking for, and then I was horrified at what I heard. It was so messed up that even those who originally supported the subject being brought up were having issues with the plotline surrounding one of the characters in the game. Someone actually edited a cutscene this character had with their parents about how they identified, and it actually was better with a laugh track. Kinda offset the horror and outrage some people felt with how they wrote the story. However, it made me not want to play it at all. I'll play the older games, thanks.

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Awesome! Bioware made some of my favorites, from Knights of the Old Republic and Mass Effect to Dragon Age.

I know about the reputation of that Dragon Age game but never played it. It seems to be universally disliked though, and I doubt I'll go back to it after hearing complaints like yours as well as the map being a randomly generated slog.

As far as old games, some that I replay through every few years are:

Fallout 1 and 2
Baldurs Gate (the 2nd is great but its a massive commitment)
Black and White
Resident Evil 1-4
Company of Heroes
Morrowind
Grand Theft Auto Vice City and San Andreas
Vampire Bloodlines
Mirror's Edge
Final Fantasy Tactics

And many others. But again that's cool to you learn you're a gamer. I reference them every so often and not many others here seem to be into them.

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It seems to be something only Americans do, or at least I've never seen a TV show from elsewhere in the world that had a laugh track.
The very first one where I noticed it and found it really annoying was "Married with Children".
I mean the show was hilariously funny by itself, there really was no need for a laugh track.

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"It seems to be something only Americans do, or at least I've never seen a TV show from elsewhere in the world that had a laugh track."

Absolute nonsense.

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I hate laugh tracks. Young Sheldon didn't have any and it was great.

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Yes, a live audience is definitely better. Shows like How I met your Mother has a laugh track, but it's a sort of subdued laughter, and those are the worst.

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That show's laugh track doesn't even sound like laughter, but scrambled noise.

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You mean "canned laughter" (which is horrible). Live studio audience is still a laugh track. As long as it's natural-sounding laughter, I've always preferred multi-cam sitcoms over single-cam sitcoms. But both are two different concepts that shouldn't even be compared.

Modern sitcoms are actually worse offenders when it comes to canned or sweetened laughter.

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I'm probably in the minority here but laugh tracks do not bother me.

I tried to watch MASH without the laugh track and it wasn't the same.

Probably nostalgia being that I remember watching MASH when it was a new show.

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