The Office. The Big Bang Theory. 30 Rock. How I Met Your Mother.

Despite loving Friends and Seinfeld, I’m generally not a fan of a studio audience. There are 2 awesome shows like The Office and 30 Rock which rely on excellent writing and acting for laughter, they don’t need the support of a studio audience or laugh track. Don’t get me wrong, How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory have some great writing as well, it just bothers me when the studio audience or laugh track laugh at things that aren’t funny. Like every line is a joke. I wish the producers or whomever would give the audience some credit…that we’re not all blithering idiots who laugh at anything.

I guess it’s unfair, everybody has a different sense of humor or level of intelligence…I guess they need to cater to everyone.

IMO If you want a truly funny show…I would go with 30 Rock.

The Office is hilarious as well but sometimes it’s a bit…unrealistic for a realistic show. Like, sometimes I can’t believe Michael Scott is THAT stupid…sometimes the show is just about me nodding my head no out of disappointment, anger and frustration.

How I Met Your Mother has got some of the most creative writing I’ve seen, they use their “I’m telling a story, as I remember it” VERY well. The show has some over the top sillyness and fun from Barney Stinson…but Lily is flat. Her character is weak, her acting is weak. Having such a significant portion of weakness from the main cast really hurts the show, despite how awesome Barney Stinson is. No amount of awesome Barney Stinson can carry Lily.

Big Bang Theory is…well, it’s catered specifically to people like me. The jokes are nerdy, scientific, mathematical, psychological, intelligent. I’m their target audience. But the jokes in there are simply…too intelligent or specifically nerdy for the average person. Which is why I can’t stand the laugh track for their show…as if the general audience could get all that stuff. Frankly, they can’t. I can think of so many examples where a lot of people laugh but I can only think of maybe 1/20 people IRL who would get said joke. If that. I mean, I get that a show like that NEEDS a laugh track…without one, it’d be pretty quiet…but I think they overuse their laugh track a bit too much.

The 2 clips below were stolen directly from this Geekologie page

Big Bang Theory w/o Laugh Track

Big Bang Theory w/ Laugh Track