The Death of Laugh Tracks 

the criteria for your comment getting pinned differs so much in every video that every comment is insane for like the first 2 minutes

Nerdy Character: *says something slightly nerdy or complicated* Cool Character: Uh, speak English! *Laugh track*

I want to see a sitcom that starts by saying: “This episode was filmed in front of Dave,” and the laugh tracks are just one guy laughing hysterically.

One thing I find interesting about Scrubs: The show didn't need forced laugh tracks but it didn't always silently continue after a joke was made either. Rather the show used instrumental auditory clues like a swing over a guitar. That doesn't seem forced at all yet also highlights a joke

Seeing Malcolm in the middle get the props it deserves is quite gratifying. It’s been my favourite comedy show since I first watched it as a child.

I didn’t find this funny, there was no laugh track.

“The boy who cried laugh” what a perfect way of putting the issue with laugh tracks

All I learned from this is that I wish someone had told Drew how much better Schitt's Creek gets after the first few episodes.

I agree that friends probably would've been better without a laugh track but them finishing the finale in front of a live studio audience was so heartwarming and you could see how rewarding it was for them.

Just my opinion but also fun fact: The best line in parks and rec was not scripted it was when leslie is sick and Andy goes " leslie I looked up your symptoms online and it says you have network connectivity issues"

"The laughing tells me that its funny" - Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia

Schitt's Creek is definitely a different beast. I grew to love the characters as (most of them) moved away from caricatures into actual people, but it was never LOL funny that often. Still one of my favorite sitcoms. (Though The I.T. Crowd is close to G.O.A.T.)

2:27 I no joke gave both Parks & Rec and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia a shot because of various GIFs that made them look good and god damn they didn't disappoint.

I want a sitcom that starts out normal but the characters begin hearing the laugh track and go insane trying to find it's source/make it stop

Laugh tracks are the tv equivalent of liking your own comments

I'll be the odd one out here and say that as a non English speaker, laugh tracks gave me contextual clues on what the English speaking world found funny and what jokes were supposed to be like in English. It also helps to have Friends on in the background when I'm anxious because the sound of people laughing always picks up my mood

I remember a time back in the early 70s when Saturday morning cartoons had laugh tracks. I was like "how the hell does this work?"

I don't like laugh tracks cuz I'm slow. I wanna start laughing when I got the joke, not out of peer pressure

How I Met Your Mother wasn't actually filmed in front of a live audience, but they showed the filmed episodes in front of an audience, and added the laughs from there. Therefore the laughs tracks don't pause everything going on, and just stay in the background

I think watching so many Disney Channel sitcoms as a kid made me sick of laugh tracks as an adult. I associate them with that style of squeakly clean family comedy.

I’m an extreme HIMYM fan so I was like “they just had better jokes!” But then I remembered the jokes and that’s not it. 😂

The "boy who cried laugh" analogy applies to every kids' sitcom ever tbh.

Person: my mother was just diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Everyone in the audience: *uncontrollable laughter*

Young man, you have officially earned my subscription, despite the fact that I'm probably older than your parents!! I grew up watching "Dukes of Hazzard," "Night Rider" and "the A-Team" and I haven't had cable TV since the early 2000s (by choice), aside from when my wife and I rented the 2nd floor of her brothers place which had cable TV and WiFi, when I was in my 30s, but considering the fact that we lived in Southern NC, by Carolina Beach, Cape Fear River and the Intracoastal Waterway, I spent most of my free time kayaking, fishing, flounder gigging (at night), clamming, crabbing and doing all sorts of outdoor stuff... I only really watched TV before bed, if my wife had the TV on, however, I am familiar with these early 2000s shows, as my ex used to watch them sometimes, so I remember Malcolm In the Middle, Big Bang, 3rd Rock, Frasier (which my Dad used to watch in the 90s/early 2000s, and even he met the old guy, who played Frasier's father, at a local restaurant/tavern in person, in the Chicago-area on a few occasions, but I digress). I really appreciate the time you spent breaking these shows down, joke by joke...minute my minute. I can tell you put a lot of time and effort into what you do, and I would certainly like to see more of this! Kudos to you, sir! I look forward to viewing more of your analytical content, which I find quite fascinating! Kind regards.

One show that never needed a laugh track was MASH. The tv execs at the time forced it into the show, however the show's producers were able to convince the executives to not have any laugh tracks while the characters were in the operating room. The UK version is better because the laugh track was removed completely.

Literally anyone: *walks in the door* “H- ” The audience: *WHEEZE*

laughter is like spaghetti: even though it's delicious, it just ain't the same canned.

I, for one, could not be happier those irritating laugh tracks are gone, as I always thought they killed the joke and made scenes extremely unfunny. It was kind of like the show telling us, “Laugh! That was funny, right?! SO LAUGH!!”

Schitts creek is a show that starts with little substance, but grows into one of the most enduring shows ever

Bing Bong theorem: "Penny" *Laughs* "Yes Sheldon" *Laughs* "Why are you seated in my spot?" *Laughs* "Oh sorry i didn't notice, i'll move" *Laughs* "That's ok, just pay closer attention next time" *Laughs* "Bazinga" *People dying from laughing so hard*

The laugh track probably gets in the way of the acting as well. The actors know they have to pause after a joke has been said to make room for the laugh track which probably takes them out of what they’re doing. Sort of putting a barrier between them and making their character feel real.

Yea this is why It’s Always Sunny was unique for it’s time. They didn’t rely on laugh tracks nor on music playing throughout. It’s to be expected now but the creators of the show explicitly said they detested those aspects of comedies and went out of their way to avoid using or relying on them

That episode of IT Crowd is also my favorite. It so damn awkward and amazing all at the same time and they just nail the perfect balance.

The fact that Steve Carell never won an Emmy for Micheal Scott yet Jim Parsons won multiple for saying “Bazinga” never fails to annoy me.

I wish he did this with Disney channel shows but that would make him go insane

Always sunny in Philadelphia is still forever in my heart. Since I was a kid, Always sunny didn't fail to make me laugh and even no laugh tracks you can laugh out because this show is really good.

I love that Drew acknowledges the existence of IT Crowd, my favorite comedy show of all time.

Most of The Big Bang Theory's "jokes" basically boiled down to "Ha, they're enthusiastic about a thing."

Big Bang theory character: ** breathes a little heavily** Audience: COMEDIC GENIUS... HOLY CRAP THESE PEOPLE ARE SO FUNNY

when i heard you say "Schitt's Creek" I screamed. Partially because of the random guy holding a knife sitting in my cat's cat tree but also because it is my FAVOURITE SHOW EVER. The show does start of very slow but it gets much better in the later seasons but it does focus quite a bit on emotion instead of comedy. It still has comedy but is much more subtle is the best way i can describe it. The emotion is much more prevalent contrasting to the comedy :)

I found that the enjoyment of a comedy show was really increased when watching it with people of a similar sense of humour. I watched Brooklyn 99 with a couple of friends and we had a great time. I wouldn’t watch it on my own because it was such a good shared experience.

drew’s about to write a whole thesis at this rate

I feel like what you described about real moments is a big part of why I go back to Scrubs so often. The humour is absurd and there's a lot of jokes in there. But you do genuinely care about the characters and what happen to them. Scrubs has brought me to tears so many times, through laughter, tragedy or simply because a moment was really touching and beautiful. I'll always love it.

I watched the first ep of shitts creek and didn't touch it for months. decided to go back to it and ended up binging all of it. it's such a well-crafted show that it made me cry a couple times. i loved every character in their own way. definitely one of my favs.

me, someone who doesn't care about sitcoms: finally, the much-anticipated sequel to drew gooden's sitcom laugh track analysis video!

I know 'Friends' has a lot of laughing track moments in it but I genuinely find most of the jokes funny with actual laughter rather than just a little chuckle.

12:00 a show that does this well is Ghosts (the uk version) its has an incredible balance of being incredibly sad and insanely funny and i think a way it does that well is often times in the more emotional moments the jokes are sort of between the characters or a character trying to help but failing, its funny but also heartwarming and keeps those emotions

Deez Nutz

Drew: serious Danny: Serious but also silly Kurtis: silly

I absolutely love the IT Crowd. No one talks about it very much

The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is where I really noticed this problem. The biggest laugh track thing I noticed is when Will’s father leaves again and they played a laugh track while they were discussing it and I hated it so much because that is the most emotional part of the show to me. It does this at other points but this is the worst

I used to dislike multi-cam sitcoms with laugh tracks, until I got sick. I ended up in terrible pain, isolated, lonely, and disabled. I put on Friends for noise, I watched it as a kid but had grown up and turned my nose up at it. I ended up loving it *because* of the laugh track. It makes me feel less alone. I especially like it when I'm trying to sleep, when my pain is worst. It helps to have constant noise, between the characters and audience sounds there are very few silent moments. I mean I only watch Friends and The I.T. Crowd but I'm sure there are other acceptable ones. So, I don't mind them existing. They have their place. It's exactly like you said, sometimes you want something dumb that doesn't require much from you emotionally. If there were no sitcoms with audience reactions, I'd be pretty bummed. That's my defense of sitcoms with laugh tracks. (I’m just editing to say thank you for all the well wishes, I didn’t expect that and it has warmed my heart. Since several asked, my disease is incurable so I won’t be getting better, but I can deal with it well now. You’re all the best. Thanks guy.)

You wanna know whats really weird? I don't hear laugh tracks anymore. My mind just tunes it out. Every now and then I'll realize there is a laugh track, but I just get so focused on the characters and dialogue that I just don't hear it!

Schitss creek is great but it also requires knowing the characters. It also has character development and emotional storylines, I also think that's where comedy is now and that's a good thing

Okay so why is Drew so incredibly good at videos like this? I could watch videos like this for hours on end and never ever get bored. Please keep it up you're awesome

It’s like watching a horror movie and each time there is a scare, the sound of someone getting scared is played.

Fun fact: it was twelve videos ago that Drew’s face wasn’t in a thumbnail. You know what else is the number 12? The number of months in a year. After extensive research, I can determine that Drew is 1 year old. Thank you for coming to my ted talk.

I actually love Schitts Creek…its so funny and increasingly sweet. Had to find a new show after both P&R and The Office were taken off Netflix and I don’t know if I would go back to those two if they came back

As a Brit I’m really glad to see the IT crowd up there. One of my favorites

"Hey guy" Crowd: *Laughs Violently*

fun fact: he didn’t do Community because it would have surpassed jokes-per-minute and statistically annihilated all of the other shows.

12:06 wow, I just realized that's why I like "How I met your mother" so much

i’ll always have a soft spot for tbbt. when i was a kid whenever i would go to my grandparents for supper we would always watch it after eating. it’s always great going back and watching it and actually understanding more of the jokes being made

“Bazinga” *dies of laughter*

I just realized I’ve never heard Drew Gooden actually laugh

old drew videos are so comforting. they’re like a bowl of warm soup

(Seemingly) controversial opinion here: Schitt’s Creek is arguably not only one of the greatest comedy series of all time, but also just one of the best shows ever…in general. I was one of those people who watched a couple episodes of S1 on the recommendation of a friend and kinda just stopped because I wasn’t feeling it. I decided to revisit the show while it was in its fourth or fifth season and totally kicked myself for not continuing to watch all those years ago. It’s a legit masterpiece and I can say with confidence that Catherine O’Hara’s Moira is my absolute favorite character in any comedy show I’ve ever seen. I think Schitt’s Creek is such a stand-out in the comedy series genre because it’s insanely funny in the most unique of ways, but also because the character development is flawless and there are genuinely touching and beautiful moments throughout the series that never feel forced, a tonal juxtaposition that I feel is extremely difficult to pull off. Schitt’s Creek makes it look effortless. The final season is literally the first television series to sweep all seven Emmy awards in its genre, and for damn good reason. It’s unfortunate that S2-S6 are far superior to S1. I think most people who don’t think it’s funny would absolutely love it if they made it through S1 into S2. I would highly recommend to anyone that they revisit the show and have a little patience. You’re truly missing out on one of the best shows ever made.

Remember, most laugh tracks are those of dead people

“CBS is the only TV network that still airs shows with laugh tracks.” Disney Channel: Am I a joke to you?

Shitts creek is one of my fav shows, I really enjoyed the development of each character and how they survived that part of their life. The characters are total freaks but I also found them often relatable.

Such an underrated sitcom is "Wings." I watched it growing up. I will say, it doesn't really catch its stride until about season 3, and it drops off around season 7. But those ones in the middle chug along like a well-oiled machine. I think it's in the same category as "I Love Lucy," another sitcom I love, in that each character has the same shticks that they make jokes about.

The only laugh tracks acceptable for me is Mr. Bean

It’s worse when the laugh tracks go on for too long, and that one person in the crowd is laughing like a maniac.

schitt's creek's average is thrown off because it has a different sense of humor than the usual sitcom, it's more subdued. i don't even remember the jokes in schitt's creek all that much tbh, i mostly remember the heartfelt moments.

If you have a super dysfunctional family, like I do, Schitt's Creek is incredibly relatable. My family, who I do not speak to anymore, especially my mother, who is almost exactly like Moira, these characters are toxic af and the subtlety is spot on. It made me laugh at my childhood and that's how I tend to cope. Lol?

Sorry Mr. Gooden but I'm still not convinced. I think the only way we can be sure of your hypothesis is for you to watch every single episode of these shows and report back with the data. I expect the video soon.

If you want "laughing at nothing" watch Fuller House. Constant laughing in the background even when nothing funny has been said or done.

10:33 Having grew up with lafftracks in the 70's and 80's my takeaway was that my sense of humor was radically different than was mainstream (indicated by the lafftrack) thought was funny. I'd laugh at what I found funny and the additional laughs and sense of humor alienated me from the material and content (read: TV show). It made me a free-thinker/humorist. "Boy Who Cried Laugh" excellent summation, thank you.

Himym having the lowest JPM average is probably because they had a lot of emotional storylines going on in that show, but the jokes are all pretty high quality.

"Can a depressed person do this?" Watches 7 straight hours of old sitcoms

Laugh tracks are like when your mom tells you to do something you were just about to do so now you don't want to do it

I personally think laughtracks can work in terms of giving the episode a live show feel, similarly to a live music album where you hear the audience sing along and cheer, so I never really found them that annoying unless it is something like Big Bang Theory where they overuse it constantly and is clearly canned Friends was actually recorded with a live audience, and they would also re-write stuff on the fly to try and make the audience laugh as hard as possible, so there I think it kinda works due to that symbiotic relationship between what you see on screen and the actual audience that was there when they were filming it

Succession perfected seriousness and comedy together. Its one of the best shows ever. If it is to be said, so it be, so it is.

The Big Bang theory is too cringy when it does the “nerd vs normal” humor and is only ever legitimately funny when you understand the obscure Star Wars references, then the show ruins it by over-explaining them

"Hi, I'm depressed" Hi depressed, I'm anxious. Is this a crossover episode?? **Audience implodes from too much laughter**

how i met your mother wasn’t filmed in front of a studio audience, they edited in the laugh track before airing allowing them to chose the right amount of laughter depending on the joke, many people believe that how i met your mother doesn’t even have a laugh track because of how subtle it is in the show. “foot in the door of both” as drew said is a perfect description of the show because it balanced the old and new format so well by taking what was hated by multi cam shows and breathing new life into it.

With Schitts Creek, I feel a lot of the comedy is tied to the characters' personalities, so watching 3 random episodes without knowing the characters, you may not understand why it's funny from that character.

Laugh tracks are like people in the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books when Rowley says “Zoo we mama!”

You forgot one type of sitcom that still has laugh tracks. DISNEY SITCOMS

schists creek is a god level show and deserve sacrifices for its humor.

Fun Trivia Fact IT Crowd actually had a live studio audience for the scenes when they are in their department.

I feel like Scrubs has become massively underrated in the world of sitcoms in the past 5 years it was an early adopter in ditching the laugh track and having that freedom allowed the creators to use very elaborate visual gags which made it better than any sitcom of the 2000's

He really forgot the Jimmy Fallon show, the show where the host creates the laugh track with his mouth.

THANK YOU for mentioning Succession. I knew the exact scene and could recite the words on screen from memory and knew immediately why it would get demonetized. Every time you mention Succession I get so excited

the death of laughtracks is because those netflix Originals kid sitcoms theres a laughtrack every 5 seconds

script of tbbt: sheldon: hello leonard *laugh track* leonard: hey sheldon *laugh track* sheldon: u sound like u took a pill of aluminium peroxide with dichromate... *intense laugh track for science thing*

What about Mr. BEAN?! he had NO lines all laugh tracks and it still was better than Friends

I used to get auditory hallucination, especially when tired. The worst one was when I was alone at home and all I could hear was a laugh track, going on. and on. and on.

Schitts Creek is one you definitely have to watch start to finish to see the immense character growth that takes place

I think an issue with including Schitt’s Creek in a video about efficiency in sitcoms is that it’s not trying to have that kind of efficiency with joke after joke. Dan Levy, the creator, has talked about discussions with his dad, Eugene Levy who’s also on the show, about joke frequency. Eugene wanted a much more sitcom-y approach with nonstop jokes, but Dan decided to let there be more jokeless moments and let the characters speak for themselves. It’s very much the kind of show that gets funnier and funnier as you continue watching because you’re getting to know the characters and each of their individual unique traits (which may not be clear to someone just watching a few episodes). Loved the video, but perhaps a different show would have fit into this experiment better.