TJ Walker explains why laugh tracks persist in sitcoms: they signal to viewers that something is funny, triggering communal laughter the way a live audience does. He contrasts multi-camera shows like Friends with single-camera comedies like The Office, and uses his stand-up experience at Comedy Cellar to show how laughter spreads socially.
According to a new Hollywood Reporter article, the laugh track sitcom is not dead, despite critics calling it cheesy, outdated and culturally extinct. In fact, there are more multi camera sitcoms with laugh tracks on network TV right now than single camera ones. And they're still crushing it in the ratings. So what's the difference? A single camera sitcom, think of something like the Office or Ted. Lasso is shot like a movie or with no laugh track and a more realistic vibe. A multi camera sitcom like Friends or the Big Bang Theory is shot on set, often with a live audience and laugh cues. Here's why that matters. Multicam sitcoms feel communal. The laugh track makes you feel like you're watching with people, not alone on your couch. In an era of hyperreal, emotionally grueling tv, these shows feel warm, feel familiar, and ironically, more artistic for being so stylized in today's grounded TV landscape, fake laughs may be the most honest thing on screen. Here's the thing about laugh tracks, all of us. I'm guilty of this too. We all like to think, well, I'm special, I'm not manipulated like other people. Things like ads, they don't work on me. Well, don't fool yourself. Advertising does work on you. A trillion dollars worth of ads is spent every year to get in front of you and me because it works. It's not because executives at major companies like to throw away money. So what the laugh track does is it's signaling to you and me, hey, everybody else is laughing. If you want to be a part of the world and be in on it and be hip and cool, you should be laughing now. No, we don't like to think of it that way. We don't like to think of ourselves as being manipulated so easily. But it really drives home to me when I go to a stand up comedy show. I love live stand up comedy. I've been going to the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village in New York City since 1985, so literally for 40 years and I've never gone had a bad show. Typically I'm in pain. I'm laughing so hard sometimes I'll see the very same performer on TV shot at the club where I was. So I'm seeing the same jokes and I might find it amusing watching at home, but I'm not laughing out loud. I'm certainly not in pain from laughing. It's a different experience. We are social animals. When we are surrounded by people laughing, that's the most intense. That's why stand up comedy clubs are so powerful and the best ones specifically seat you very close and tight to other people. So you see other people, you hear other people laughing. The ceilings are low because you hear the laughter bouncing up and bouncing back. They don't have high ceilings. Great stand up comedy club. So it really supercharges that communal aspect of it and it intensifies the comedic experience. It just makes it more enjoyable. So I felt it. If you've ever been to a comedy club, you have too. It just means you're a human being. We humans are craving to be part of community and that is a part of it. Now, if you're home alone, there's no community, obviously, but when there's a laugh track, it's signaling to you, this is funny. Everyone else thinks it's funny. You could say it's cheesy, you could say it's trite. You can say it's canned. It's obviously canned. It's done in advance. But it does have an impact on us. You are more likely to laugh. And look, I mentioned the office. I love the office. The office doesn't have a laugh track. I'm not saying if you want to do comedy, you have to have laugh tracks. But what I am saying is don't fool yourself, don't lie to yourself. It's a form of communication. As humans, we crave communication. We need communication, we want communication, and we like signals in various forms. When a producer puts in a laugh track, it is signaling to us. Now, I've certainly seen comedy shows where there's a laugh track and I thought, this is horrible. This is the least funny show I've ever seen. I click off, didn't work for me. Nothing works for everyone. You can see your favorite comedian in the whole world face to face in a live comedy club. You may go with a friend who doesn't find the comedian funny at all. Comedy can be subjective. It's not one size fits all. What doesn't work is saying, well, you know, anything with a laugh track is beneath me and I refuse to listen to it. You're fooling yourself. That's like saying advertisements never work on you. Wrong. They do.
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