Laugh Tracks Defy Death in Era of Peak TV Realism

In an unexpected turn for television comedy, the much-maligned laugh track—long dismissed as a relic of a bygone entertainment era—is experiencing a quiet but persistent resurgence despite years of critical predictions of its demise, with multi-camera sitcoms now outnumbering their single-camera counterparts on broadcast networks.

This surprising longevity comes as the broader television landscape has shifted dramatically toward hyper-realistic programming, from the gritty restaurant drama of “The Bear” to the unrelenting authenticity of medical shows like “The Pitt,” creating a striking contrast where the intentionally artificial construct of laugh-accompanied sitcoms stands out as an increasingly distinctive art form.

Surprising Broadcast Dominance

“What if I were to tell you, there are currently more multi-cam comedies with background laughter airing on broadcast than single cam (seven vs. five), and that many perform quite well?” asks The Hollywood Reporter in a recently published analysis of the format’s unexpected durability.

The persistence of laugh tracks defies years of entertainment journalism that had written off the format. As recently as 2021, numerous publications declared the multi-camera sitcom officially deceased when not a single new entry debuted in the fall broadcast lineup. That same year, critically acclaimed series like Disney+’s “WandaVision” and AMC’s “Kevin Can F—k Himself” seemed to deliver the final blow by deconstructing the format’s conventions as part of their narrative.

Yet despite these apparent death knells, a new Chuck Lorre sitcom, “Georgie & Mandy’s First Marriage,” currently ranks in broadcast’s Nielsen Top 5, while streaming platforms dominated by single-camera comedies find themselves consistently outperformed in viewership by reruns of classics like “Friends” and “The Big Bang Theory.”

Psychological Appeal in a Hyper-Realistic Era

The endurance of laugh tracks may be partially explained by their psychological effect. Research has shown that background laughter makes viewers more likely to find jokes funny through a mirror response, similar to how seeing someone yawn can trigger the same reaction in observers—a phenomenon sometimes derided as “joke mind control.”

However, as TV dramas increasingly embrace brutal realism—with HBO’s breakout medical drama “The Pitt” focusing on hospital staffing shortages and even Disney’s “Star Wars” show “Andor” including attempted sexual assault—the stylized artificiality of laugh track sitcoms has, counterintuitively, begun to feel more distinctly artistic.

“Laugh track sitcoms, with their intentionally unrealistic and ever-affable characters, sporting perfect hair in shadowless living rooms with disembodied Greek choruses of laughter floating about… arguably the format feels more artistic than ever because it’s so stylized compared to the grueling authenticity everywhere else,” notes the Hollywood Reporter analysis. “These shows are inherently weird, and weird goes hand in hand with art.”

The Comfort of Collective Experience

Beyond their stylistic distinctiveness, laugh track sitcoms may fulfill a deeper psychological need in viewers, particularly in an era of increasingly isolated entertainment consumption. The presence of background laughter creates the illusion of a shared viewing experience, a communal aspect largely absent from more realistic single-camera comedies.

“Hearing laughter feels warm, its tone is a sunny glow; a soft yellow noise,” explains television critic Martin Kaplan. “You’re not watching Jerry and Elaine by yourself, it’s like you’re watching them with a group of people. The empty awkward silence of seeing Jim and Pam on The Office, hits different, more cool and cold. The laugh track makes us feel less alone.”

This sensation of companionship has particular resonance in a post-pandemic world where audiences are increasingly aware of isolation’s psychological toll. The social element of background laughter, even artificially generated, provides a comforting simulacrum of human connection.

The Uncanny History of Recorded Laughter

The persistence of laugh tracks has an unusual and somewhat macabre technical aspect—many of the laughs used in contemporary sitcoms were recorded decades ago, creating a literal ghost audience. The original “Laff Box,” invented in the 1950s to add canned laughter to TV shows, contained 320 different laughs that were taped during that era and reused for decades.

Even in modern productions, shows often utilize laughter recorded years or decades earlier. This creates the bizarre reality that viewers are hearing the reactions of people who may no longer be alive—a “partly dead audience,” in the words of sound engineer Thomas Lennon, who has worked on multiple network sitcoms.

The industry distinguishes between entirely canned laughter and using live studio audiences, with most contemporary shows employing a hybrid approach known as “sweetening.” While filming before an audience is generally considered superior for helping actors improve their timing and allowing producers to gauge joke effectiveness in real time, the end result for viewers remains sonically indistinguishable.

Cultural Significance in Television’s Evolution

The resilience of laugh track sitcoms may reflect deeper aspects of entertainment evolution. As prestige television increasingly defines itself through its “grounded” approach to storytelling—a trend visible in HBO’s zombie drama “The Last of Us,” which emphasizes emotional authenticity over genre tropes—the explicitly artificial nature of multi-camera comedies has become a distinct countercurrent.

Media historian Jennifer Ramos suggests this represents a natural pendulum swing in entertainment preferences. “Historical patterns show that periods of intense realism in entertainment are often followed by surges in more stylized, obviously constructed forms,” she explains. “The laugh track sitcom, which makes no pretense about its artifice, may be experiencing renewed appreciation precisely because it offers relief from the emotional exhaustion of ultra-realistic programming.”

Whatever explains their persistence, the continued presence of laugh track sitcoms in the television landscape challenges assumptions about evolving viewer preferences and demonstrates how seemingly outdated entertainment forms can find renewed relevance in unexpected ways.