Laugh tracks

[Madame Adequate]

"Sheldon, what are you doing?"
Audience erupts into hysterics.
"I'm trying to cook the perfect waffle..."
Audience laughs uncontrollably, some suffering convulsions. Several audience members lose bladder and bowel control.
"... but these tools are far too imprecise. I'll need to use Wolowitz's lab."
Audience members are now beyond saving. Several choke to death. Many are rendered catatonic, whilst the remainder flail and spasm dangerously, causing serious injuries such as broken bones and torn muscles to themselves and others. By the time paramedics arrive over 40 people are dead; unfortunately one of the survivors has the presence of mind to relay the cause of the disaster to the EMTs, which ignites a new wave of dangerous hysterics. By the end of the day 73 people have died, with over 100 more suffering permanent disabilities due to their injuries.
---
I don't mind laugh tracks overly. But my god are they overboard sometimes. Discuss laugh tracks in this thread.

[Jessweeee♪]

Eh, they don't really bother me. If a show is funny enough for me to keep watching it I eventually tune it out and don't notice it until someone comments on how lame laugh tracks are. If it isn't funny enough, then well, I'm not watching it anyway so they can do what they want!

[Vermachtnis]

I tried watching some Disney show that came on after Phineas and Ferb and I just couldn't. First off all it was just stupid and secondly a laugh track after every line. After every stupid line HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Even the ones that had no humor at all.

[Raistlin]

After years of not watching anything that had a laugh track, they are kind of tough to bear now. If I was interested enough in a show I could probably learn to tolerate them again eventually, but they can be ridiculously abused.

[Roto13]

I shouldn't need to be told when to laugh.

[Miriel]

I feel like Big Bang Theory's laugh track is waaay overboard, more than a lot of other shows. And I don't know why they go overboard with it when the jokes are legitimately funny and the excessive laugh track just makes it sound desperate.

A lot of my favorite comedic shows don't have a laugh track. It's not really necessary.

[kotora]

it's not a laugh track when it's the audience doing the laughing

[charliepanayi]

This makes me think of the Simpsons episode with Mr Burns trying to get his teddy bear Bobo back and taking over Springfield's TV stations at one point:
'Smithers, I'm home!'
*laughter*
'What, already?
*laughter*
'Yes.'
*laughter*

It all depends, I love Frasier and Seinfeld for instance and both have laugh tracks or studio laughter, but then it's done moderately there and not to the OTT extent you get in (usually) medicore to poor comedies. A laugh track can make a poor show ten times more annoying. And more recent great comedies (Arrested Development, The Office UK and US etc) have dispensed with it.

[Marshall Banana]

YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW MUCH I HATE THEM.

[Rye]

I'm not going to lie, I kind of like laugh tracks. I just grew up with them in so many of my favorite shows of the 80s and 90s that they're a kind of warm familiarity to me.

[Bunny]

Shows with laugh tracks are typically terrible without laugh tracks. Big Bang Theory exudes this immensely.

[nik0tine]

Has there ever been a good show with a laugh track?

[Roto13]

Has there ever been a good show with a laugh track?

I'm not going to make a list, but pretty much every good sitcom before Scrubs had a laugh track.

[Marshall Banana]

Has there ever been a good show with a laugh track?

No, and I'll fight anyone who says otherwise!

Let's dance, Roto.

[Shoeberto]

After years of not watching anything that had a laugh track, they are kind of tough to bear now. If I was interested enough in a show I could probably learn to tolerate them again eventually, but they can be ridiculously abused.

Same. And as has been said, there's a lot of shows that just don't need them. After realizing how gaudy laugh tracks can be, it was painful to go back to Seinfeld - the show is legitimately funny, but I can't get my mind off of how cheesy the laugh track is.