Chelsea Van Baalen
It’s been a decade since the sitcom’s funeral was set. Critics wrote eulogies, fans sent in pleas and actors updated their résumé.
Yet the rush of new sitcoms like New Girl, 2 Broke Girls, Up All Night, Mike & Molly, and more, have helped the TV medium breathe again.
Except for one major failure: The laugh track.
A sound worse than nails on the chalkboard, the grating fakery of the laugh track is still a parasite latched onto the decent writing and great performances in today’s sitcoms.
It was while watching the Jan. 2 episode of How I Met Your Mother, one of the best sitcoms since Friends, that
I began to wonder how the laugh track came to be.
In the early days of radio (remember that contraption?), producers used laugh tracks to recreate the atmosphere of theater, when shows were for the benefit of a live audience. The name “Theater of the Mind” stuck, but so did the recreated atmosphere.
In fact, it was used for shows that weren’t entirely funny. During the 1950s, Charles Douglass created the “Laff Box” to supplement the audience’s real response.
Which is probably why you’re sitting at home wondering why anyone would laugh at the corny jokes you’re hearing. Good news: they probably aren’t.
I know I’m not the first to ask for the death of the laugh track, nor will I be the last. But I think it’s a great New Year’s resolution for a struggling sitcom.
Laugh tracks are unrealistic, add age lines to the best of shows and make for a mediocre series in the primetime lineup.
I know it might seem difficult; after all, can we picture a show without it? But worse yet, without a prompt, would we laugh anyway?
The show Modern Family has swept ratings and viewership without using the white noise of laughter. So have The Office and Community. TV executives are regularly penciling in cancellation dates, firing writers and replacing actors while asking themselves, “What went wrong?”
Why not make us laugh with great writing rather than forcing a response? The first step to breaking the habit is admitting its failures. Come on, you can do it.
