Does anyone else think that Sitcom characters are way too dumb, and that laugh-tracks are stupid, irritating, and need to be taken out of sitcoms.
All they do is remind you that there is supposed to be a joke there. So if you're not laughing, you know what that means? .... It means the joke isn't funny. And if the jokes aren't funny, then the show isn't funny. And if a "Situation Comedy" isn't funny, then its a failure.
I guess they leave them in because joke tracks are a staple of American sitcoms, it simulates the feel of having a live audience, and maybe the networks hope that if the real audience hears laughing (even if they know it is fake laughint), then they'll go along and laugh too.
But that could so easily backfire. I'm actually surprised that network executives haven't pulled the laugh tracks out of network sitcoms years ago. If the audience can hear the laugh track, then they know whatever just happened or was said is supposed to have been a joke. And if it wasn't funny (i.e. they are not laughing), then it exposes bad joke writing. I would think it would make more sense from the netwrok's perspective to remove the laugh tracks so that if the audience doesn't laugh at something that was supposed to be a joke, then maybe they won't catch on to the fact that it was supposed to be a joke. The laugh track ruins that. It blatantly exposes every incident of bad writing that goes into the sitcom. Maybe that's why so many sitcoms don't last very long...
For the record, The Big Bang Theory is the only live-action sitcom that I watch. The laugh tracks do irritate me in that show, and I wish they would stop.