this post was submitted on 14 Mar 2026
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This is the show where simply acknowledging a character owns/owned a NES was the entire punchline of a joke.
Yeah if you turn off the laugh track this show is terrible, for so many reasons.
Like how Ross from "Friends" is crazy without the laugh track.
Also, Friends just isn't funny. Every character except Phoebie is bland and unlikable.
Phoebe is just annoying and unlikable
They're all unlikable.
I would hang out with Joey.
Hang out, maybe. Wouldn't want him as a roommate, though.
I wonder if the big issue is tying their twin to the show Mad About You.
Yeah my burning hatred of Friends made me blind to Lisa Kudrow's talent until pretty recently
I'll add that the laugh track is doing a lot of heavy lifting for Seinfeld as well. Some of the writing is good but it might as well be called the Jason alexander show.
Joey seemed alright, until he moved to LA.
Reminds me of “Kevin can f**k himself” https://youtu.be/q2qGIsOkA64
It's terrible with the laugh track as well.
There's your problem. Just keep the laugh track on and it stays funny.
Same deal with Friends and also a fair amount of standup.
If your jokes aren’t funny without putting fake forced laughter behind them then they shouldn’t be said.
That’s the entire premise of ‘Kevin can f**k himself’ essentially spitting in the face of these feckless sitcoms covering shit writing with laughtracks.
This show had a character that physically could not speak to women without being intoxicated. I think they eventually created a pharmaceutical drug to resolve this.
EDIT: As for Friends, there was a lot of fat phobia and gay panic.
If I recall, they literally just dropped it one episode and acknowledged it with an "oh well."
He eventually got over it, but yeah it was forced and uncomfortable.
Friends I never understood. I didn't have a problem with most of it. It just... Sucked. It wasn't good. I had more of a problem with Seinfeld but accepted that it was superior.
I’d rethink any opinions you have of Jerry Seinfeld. He thinks the phrase “Free Palestine” is worse than the Holocaust.
Don't get me wrong, he sucks. But his show was better than friends.
Hard disagree. People still laughing cuz he wore a poofy shirt and it’s not even a cohesive joke. He just wore a shirt. Woopdeefuckindoo.
“Airline food. What is the deal with that?” Why are people laughing?
I’ve read 5 yr olds put together more cohesive story with crayons. Dude was just lazy.
Do you think Larry David is funny?
Not op but nope. Same with office as well.
There are just some people that enjoy watching others be uncomfortable and I think it’s correlated with having less empathy.
When I watched the office, I just felt bad for Michael.
A lot of those shows just focus on punching down.
Yeah I don't like the office either, or parks and rec, arrested development, or any show that relies on being painfully uncomfortable.
Yeah the shows that punch down are just terrible. I also didn’t like the office. Seinfeld has to be one of the worst shows ever made, same for everybody loves Raymond. They’re just shows meant to make you mad and have you laugh at the less well off.
Everybody loves raymond had its moments. There is definitely a lot of relatable humor in your in-laws living across the street. The brother was always pretty fantastic as well. What was weird in the show's setup was that raymond was often the straight man.
I liked the office overall, but the first season and a half was almost physically painful at times. They really toned down the schadenfreude at that point and pivoted Michael to being inept but lovable. The last season or so was all over the place.
Hell no.
They're not funny with the laugh track either
Well BBT, and every other that has a laugh track, is scripted and edited around it. Removing that will make even the best comedy suck.
The show sucks but removing the canned laughter doesn't prove anything.
The one exception to this is probably MASH. If I recall correctly they didn't want the laugh track at all, and when it aired in Europe it didn't have the laugh track and was better for it.
Oh damn, maybe I need to seek out the European versions of MASH episodes then.
I loved the movie, but then couldn't get past the first couple episodes of the show because of the goddamn laugh track
You don’t have to. As I’m aware (don’t own these) the DVD and/or the Blu-ray release have an optional laugh track for audio.
Oh, I wasn't going to pay for them
Not really. When the laughs are removed you just realize it’s racism, sexism, and juvenile jokes all in one.
Sure, but also it becomes very unfunny even without that facet due to the awkward pauses. The pacing just gets mutilated as they 'pause for laughter'.
A common trope is that some scene is just 'funny' with the laugh track, but without it, people just seem psycho, because they sit there, noiselessly after so many sentences.
It did seem like the writers’ only concept of “geek/nerd” was superficially gleaned from only watching other shows and movies about geeks/nerds. Which created basically a show about some of the dumbest “smart” people I’ve ever seen.
I find it a lot more palatable if you assume it's viewed from penny, as an unreliable narrator. There's actually a lot more geeky stuff going on under the obvious, but she doesn't notice it.
laughtrack