The Slow Demise Of The Laugh Track

The laugh track, once a staple of comedy television, is increasingly seen by audiences as manipulative and not particularly trustworthy.

For years it existed for a simple reason: to make shows seem funnier than they were. In older times the practice was even called “sweetening,” which is a wonderfully honest name for what it actually does. Today the desire seems to increasingly be for shows that are actually funny in real time, recorded in front of a real laughing audience.

It is a small shift, but a telling one. Audiences have gotten better at sensing when they are being told how to feel, and they have started to resent it.