The Long, Slow Death of Television's Laugh Track

If you're ever watching a terrible sitcom with a laugh track, even a great sitcom, you will notice that anything remotely humorous gets a laugh. There's a distinct rythym to the laugh track. Polite chuckles crescendo into hysterical, contagious guffaws. Is the studio audience completely drunk? To add to the artifice, most sitcoms are done in multiple takes, as a result of cast or crew mistakes. Do these television shows grab busfuls of short-term-memory-afflicted people and pump nitrous oxide into the air ducts during filming?

The mockumentary-style sitcom is now widely accepted, based on the critical and commercial success of The Office and 30 Rock. Although certainly not novel (The Larry Sanders Show, Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office UK, Malcolm in the Middle, Arrested Development), the mockumentary sitcom is the new norm. The newer mockumentary shows include It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Flight of the Conchords, East Bound and Down, Extras, Parks and Recreation, and Community. The list goes on.

Gone are the days where the laugh track sitcom rules the television universe. In the 1980s, NBC Thursday was exclusively hit laugh track sitcoms. The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, Night Court. Even in the transition to the 1990s, NBC's reign featured Seinfeld and Friends. All of these TV shows are regarded as classics, even by today's audiences.

Nowadays, the laugh track sitcoms are huddled together in quick little blocks. The last of the buffalo, CBS is the only major network to feature a full two-hour block worth of laugh track, with How I Met Your Mother, Accidentally on Purpose, Two and a Half Men, and The Big Bang Theory. CBS has an additional one-hour block on Wednesdays leading into two hours of procedurals. Fox is barely hanging onto a hour's worth of sitcoms on Friday nights. ABC has a half-laugh track/half-mockumentary Wednesday night of comedy. NBC has zero laugh track sitcoms.

Could this be the next evolutionary step in the sitcom? Audiences today no longer feel the need to have the jokes telegraphed to them. Additionally, the one-camera setup allows the actors to improvise their lines. There's often so much going on in a mockumentary sitcom that second viewings uncover small details, such as interesting things going on in the background or a secondary character's reaction.

The mockumentary sitcom also allows for more of a serialized storyline with sprinklings of drama. The early years of Jim and Pam on The Office, for example, had quiet, reflective scenes you would not see on a laugh track sitcom. Whenever a typical laugh track sitcom would go serious or melodramatic for one episode, such as the case of Jesse's Saved By The Bell pep pill intervention, the result would always be strained and weird, shifting from Much Ado About Nothing to Hamlet in 6 seconds. When the constant laugh track is suddenly removed for more than 10 seconds, it's very noticeable.

M*A*S*H was the first successful TV series to straddle the line between comedy and drama. The producers of the show actually wanted the entire show to be sans laugh track, but the network bullied them into providing one. The show famously dropped its laugh track during the life-and-death operation room scenes. As the show progressed, it transitioned from slapstick comedy into political allegory, finally ending with a television movie.

It's not to say the laugh track is a terrible convention. Some classic television sitcoms owe their success to the laugh track, and you can't help but laugh along with the audience. Think the Cosby Kids dancing to Ray Charles' "Night Time is the Right Time." Or George Costanza pulling a golf ball out of his coat pocket. "As God as my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." Your ear can single in on a certain gitty giggle you hear in the audience.

Married...With Children had a distinct live studio audience. Less of a television show taping and more of a pep rally, the studio audience would interupt the first appearance of Al Bundy with raucous applause and yelps, and catcalls and whistles for the show's sexual humor... Ed O'Neill and the other actors would literally have to wait for the applause to die down to deliver their lines. Although completely chaotic, at least the laughter felt lively and organic.

However, throughout television history, canned laughter has simply been a safety blanket for network executives who lack faith in the product. CBS wanted to insert a laugh track into 1965's A Charlie Brown Christmas, believing it would be a failure without a laugh track; they were wrong. Television executives today are no longer going by the playbook.

Audiences are smart enough to pay attention to these clever new sitcoms. If we can text-message and drive at the same time, we can certainly find humor without needing audio cues. Just as television dramas are becoming more and more like movies, so are sitcoms. Office Space needs no laugh track. Why should The Office need one?

Audiences don't need an artificial sweetener. If your show is funny, they will laugh.