For decades, sitcoms ruled mainstream television. Situational comedies appealed to the masses, and using laugh tracks to signal when a punchline was delivered was the norm. In the last 25 years, ...

Over years of watching television, fans have almost tuned out the tracks of laughter that are played over the scenes. If they come to think about it, are laugh tracks really necessary for sitcoms? Or ...

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 ...

Tapes of 'The Red Skelton show' audience provided much of the laughter on sitcoms for years. Credit: Earl Leaf / Michael Ochs Archives / Getty Images Dearly beloved, we are gathered here to mark the ...

There's a lot of things that can ruin an otherwise decent sitcom. A cheesy script or underwritten characters is one. Cringey, outdated jokes or overused, tired tropes is another. But when it comes to ...

Movies are great, and Anime is fun, but sometimes you just want to relax with a good old-fashioned sitcom. As old as the television itself, the so-called “situation comedy” is one of the simplest ...

The laugh track. When used correctly, it can be effective, an element of the sitcom that adds to the experience, seen and heard on shows like Seinfeld or Mom. When it isn't used correctly, it's ...