Critically reviled. Hopelessly dated. Forever near extinction. Yet in a TV landscape full of brutally realistic hits, sitcoms with background laughter are not only still popular, but have become ...

Jennie Richardson is a TV Features and Lists Writer for Collider, and a graduate student pursuing an MFA in Fiction Writing. In other words, she really loves stories. There's nothing quite like ...

Once a staple of the American sitcom, the canned laughs of yesteryear have all but died out. Laugh tracks — or pre-recorded and sometimes even live audience laughter that once cued at-home viewers ...

In the 75 years since it was introduced, the laugh track has conditioned viewers to know when and how much to laugh Some audiences love it, and some audiences hate it, but the laugh track—which ...

When was the last time you spared a thought about sitcom laugh tracks? Probably years. Maybe decades? Sitcoms with background laughter have seemed almost dead, definitely and firmly dying, for a very ...