Oddly, though, you can’t just cut it out from shows that have it, especially if they actually film in front of a live audience, though even those with canned laughter are playing in the same sandbox. The pacing and the vibe gets completely thrown off because the writers and actors have to account for the laughs, and it becomes eerie without them. It’s a different style of making TV that’s seeking a different type of reaction from the TV audience, and has different limitations. Understanding that can let you enjoy the best examples of the form (admittedly almost all 20 years old or more). Stock characters slinging zingers and potentially doing pratfalls can be amusing (though the form has a direct lineage to radio shows so it tends to be light but verbal – the physicality is a huge part of what made I Love Lucy groundbreaking), but it doesn’t shine when trying to do cringe, nuance, dramedy, or densely packed humor.
This is not to say that you should watch The Big Bang Theory. You should not. It’s awful. The easy tropes and low cost of production (other than stars’ salaries if a show takes off) means that so much garbage has been done in this format, I daresay higher than single-camera “movie style” shows. It’s just that it’s not quite so simple as “write more funnier.”
IMO, it’s almost like telling a musical theater writing team that their play would be better if the characters weren’t constantly breaking into song. For the record, my instincts and tastes leave me sympathetic to that last point, so I just don’t watch many musicals, live or recorded. It’s not that they’re bad; the appeal is just lost on me. Same with multi-cam sitcoms with laugh-tracks.
The laugh track.
It ruins so. Many. Shows.
I mean … maybe I’m wrong here. But if you wrote actual funny things, I’d laugh. Idk. I’m probably wrong.
Oddly, though, you can’t just cut it out from shows that have it, especially if they actually film in front of a live audience, though even those with canned laughter are playing in the same sandbox. The pacing and the vibe gets completely thrown off because the writers and actors have to account for the laughs, and it becomes eerie without them. It’s a different style of making TV that’s seeking a different type of reaction from the TV audience, and has different limitations. Understanding that can let you enjoy the best examples of the form (admittedly almost all 20 years old or more). Stock characters slinging zingers and potentially doing pratfalls can be amusing (though the form has a direct lineage to radio shows so it tends to be light but verbal – the physicality is a huge part of what made I Love Lucy groundbreaking), but it doesn’t shine when trying to do cringe, nuance, dramedy, or densely packed humor.
This is not to say that you should watch The Big Bang Theory. You should not. It’s awful. The easy tropes and low cost of production (other than stars’ salaries if a show takes off) means that so much garbage has been done in this format, I daresay higher than single-camera “movie style” shows. It’s just that it’s not quite so simple as “write more funnier.”
IMO, it’s almost like telling a musical theater writing team that their play would be better if the characters weren’t constantly breaking into song. For the record, my instincts and tastes leave me sympathetic to that last point, so I just don’t watch many musicals, live or recorded. It’s not that they’re bad; the appeal is just lost on me. Same with multi-cam sitcoms with laugh-tracks.