I saw some clips of Friends in which the laugh track had been edited out. Let me just say that this meme is well-justified.
I’ve mentioned this before and faced fierce pushback from friends fans. The laugh track causes such pacing issues it’s so distracting.
I hate laugh tracks - but most of the show (as far as I can tell) is in front of a studio audience
Ah yeah, I believe they have a light that goes on that tells them when to laugh since the material isn’t funny enough on its own 😂
That’s brutal. Not having known about the ‘applause’ light, I can see that because some of Phoebe’s jokes were so bad and the audience just cracks up…
That said, it’s still way better than ‘big bang theory’ with pre-recorded laugh that they drop whenever… like nails down a chalkboard
I’m not convinced that’s the case for Friends. I’ll again refer to the DVD special features, there’s one where they show how the studio audience helps rewrite the final cut of the show.
The example given is, they’re in Vegas, Chandler and Monica are thinking about getting married, to the point Monica is wearing a “borrowed” blue sweatshirt, when Ross and Rachel barge in, faces covered in marker, having just gotten spur of the moment drunk Vegas married.
In the script, Chandler’s line is “I think they’re drunk.” This got a cool reaction from the audience; in this moment Monica would deliver a straight line and Chandler would quip off of it. So they did another take where Matthew Perry improvised the line “I think they’re two bottles of vodka in human form.” which got a larger audience reaction, and that’s the take that was broadcast.
It’s a live audience, not a laugh track.
It’s a live audience and a laugh track.
Yes, The majority of Friends was filmed in front of a live audience, with the exception of a few shots filmed on location here and there. I saw a recent interview with Lisa Kudrow where she talks about being frustrated on stage because of all the pauses for audience laughter, where the actors would have to pause and do some idle animation. That a television show taped before a live audience is expected to be different than a stage play.
I’ve also seen a “behind the scenes” video, I think as a special feature of the DVD releases, where they would swap out audience reactions. Because, for example, the take where Monica pops out from under the sheets with Chandler, revealing the two were sleeping together, the live audience went nuts for several solid minutes. For the broadcast version, they inserted an uproarious but brief cheer to keep the pacing up.
Compared to MASH or the Flintstones (!!?!), Friends’ laugh track is a lot more genuine but it was at least somewhat engineered.
It’s still a laugh track. The laughing is captured live, but presumably with a different microphone. They then mix the laugh track with the character’s voices to get the levels they want.
They also record the same scene multiple times, so the laughs may even be from a different take.
…and not necessarily even from the same joke or scene. All you can say with a „live studio audience“ is that the laugh you hear will have been recorded that night. Maybe even from the warm-up act.
that night
That’s also a high sell. Some sound engineer somewhere definitely has a favourite laughtrack they like to use. There’s bound to be inside jokes as well.
What you can say is that it’s more genuine than a single overused laugh track. In fact, it’s probably the simplest way to get variety - just use the actual laughs when they’re okay, and swap those “not okay” with ones from older takes/scenes/episodes.
Idk it’s pretty funny quit crushing my childhood
Watching sitcoms from decades past through a modern lens is difficult.
Most 90s sitcoms haven’t aged well at all. Multi-cam 3-wall sitcom in general don’t. Single-cam higher quality production that aren’t trying to replicate the old variety show live-theatre format have come around.
Sanford and Sons, Full House, and Cheers were really popular, but have aged poorly.
But things like MASH (especiallythe seasons after they dropped the laugh track), Arrested Development, and Scrubs have done really well because they didn’t have an identity crisis between theatre and film.
MASH never had a laugh track. It was added in syndication and I believe the episodes, like Seinfeld, were sped up by small percentage to make them a couple minutes shorter.
I fully disagree with you though that there is no place left for classic sitcoms and that they haven’t aged well. While a little old still (but newer than Scrubs) I will refer to The IT Crowd as an example.
That’s British TV. They make it work by averaging like 3 hours a year of programming to focus on quality. A single season of an American-style 3-wall sitcom has a longer runtime than most British sitcoms have in their entire run.
I don’t feel like the origin makes the argument that classic style sitcoms aren’t past their prime any less relevant. But okay; The Conners is a US show that was recorded in front of a live audience and got 7 seasons that ended just this past April.
Last Man Standing ran for 10 years and was shit.
averaging like 3 hours a year of programming to focus on quality
I’d like to know more about this. Is there a name for this technique? A Wikipedia or blog page about the phenomenon? Some example shows that follow that rule?
Most British comedies that I’ve seen have 6 or 7 episodes per series.
Some of my favorites that follow the rule …
- The Black Adder
- Red Dwarf
- Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace
- The Mighty Boosh (9 episodes in series 1)
- A Bit of Fry and Laurie
- Peep Show
- That Mitchell and Webb Look
- The Cleaner
- Upstart Crow
- Black Books
- The IT Crowd
- Fawlty Towers
Even Monty Python’s Flying Circus only had 13 episodes per series. The Carol Burnett Show, which ran in the US at the same time, had 24 to 30 episodes each season.
“Cheers” mostly aged well. Some misogyny and anti gay and trans jokes, but it is largely a show about people being kind to one another and building community.
Full House
My housemates played a practical joke on me back then where they were all watching Full House when I came home and rolling around on the floor laughing hysterically at everything. It was a scene where one of the Olsen twins had planted an M&M and was trying to grown an M&M tree. I was mystified at what was so funny until I grabbed the bong.
This but The Office
Good god that show sucks so much. Glad somebody finally said it. I thought the whole world had gone crazy. Their other show, Parks and Rec, was considerably more entertaining.
I love parks and rec, because every character is interesting. The office has like 3 and a half good characters
Every single character in The Office is unique and interesting and has a great development arc. I don’t get your take.
I like how Steve Carell plays out Michael, and I enjoy Dwight as well. But the rest really is nothing special. The whole Jim and Pam story arc was more annoying than anything.
It is crazy how good Parcs & Rec is compared to the office.
Especially after they get married and they have to keep inventing Jim and Pam conflict to keep their arc “interesting”
What did you think of Brooklyn 99 then?
I like Terry Crews, but Andy Samberg’s mere appearance in the show ruins it for me, so I can’t enjoy it. I don’t know why people think he’s funny.
Friends isn’t funny, the office is like
Just dumb levels of cringe. Like so cringey no one would actually do that kind of thing, and I’m autistic. So it’s so cringe I wouldn’t do it. It’s not even shitpost funny it’s just
Humans being stupid?
Humans being stupid?
Yes, that’s part of the point, like with Michael Scott being grossly underqualified for his job but landing it by accident and thus doing some unethical shit all the time. That’s where this meme comes from.
Just like Seinfeld pivots on narcissistic and selfish people living in a terrible world who don’t seem to grow from their experiences.
The cringe is the original point of the show. It’s even very toned down in the US version compared to the UK one.
The original The Office is a very niche thing, definitely not for everyone, and i was always a bit surprised that the US remake got the success it got.
If you want to be deeply infuriated you should watch “Extras” which is the show Gervais and Merchant did after the Office. It’s like a horror movie that’s so terrifying you have to hit pause - except with cringe.
Don’t watch Curb Your Enthusiasm. It’s purely cringe comedy with very little in the way of other humor. I personally like that style, and even I have to stick to a single episode in a sitting. There’s something wrong with Larry David because he’s said many episodes were based on things he really did.
OMGF you would have hated Laverne and Shirley. When I was a small child mom had a diary entry of me saying it was hard to watch because I felt embarrassed for them. Stay far away from 70s TV my friend.
The Season 2 Christmas episode where Michael makes everyone play Yankee Swap and then gets them hammered to smooth things over is a classic. I’d say seasons 2-4 were good. Then it nosedived.
I’d also include season 1 in there. It was rough around the edges, but it was memorable for me.
Watch the UK version instead of season 1. It’s the same script.
I know, they mentioned it a few times in interviews.
To me season 1 was fascinating. They tried to do a straight-over transfer of the UK show, and it was wrong, but they still made a go of it. Ricky Gervais is simply way too mean a character for an American audience to get invested in, and they tried a straight port of that character, but it wasn’t that good. By the time they reached season 2, they had worked out how to reinvent a more or less totally separate show that was suited for an American audience, and it turned really good (and then yes they kept it going too long instead of wrapping up the party while everyone was still having fun, and made several unnecessary and kinda painful extra seasons.)
It’s kind of interesting to contrast it with the American IT Crowd, where they simply put people who had no idea what was comedy in charge of a comedy sitcom and then expected it to work. IDK why that happens sometimes with UK->US translations but that’s what they did. But for The Office they seemed like they had good people who were able to eventually make something happen with it.
Huh, I enjoy both US and UK humor quite a bit. It didn’t even register that that was something some audiences would find off-putting. 😅
It’s way too uncanny to feel fun to me. I didn’t like Carrell for a long time but it turns out he’s a good actor, just got paired with a lot of unfunny material.
There’s some merit in both simply by encapsulating a snapshot in technology.
Things like corded phones and answering machines or the lack of internet are interesting in how they impacted situations and culture.
Why do people think it’s so edgy to not like stuff. You don’t like it, dope? I guess. I don’t like brussel sprouts do we want to hammer on about how fuckin cool and unique that makes me?
Bro, chill out, people are just discussing what they like and don’t like. It’s like a point of social media.
Yeah I don’t like people that brag about not liking mainstream shit, it’s hack.
Though I do find it funny you said that with a straight face. I’m not entitled to my dislikes but they are, dope. Real coherent consistent objection there bud.
You are entitled to your dislikes. It’s just that your comment comes off a little bit aggressive. I don’t see anyone here bragging or feeling smug about their preferences. Just a normal discussion.
The meme pictures a fictional genocidal magical dictator who tried to murder basically anyone who wasn’t his literal slave. The captioned comments imply derision to both fans of friends and the cast and crew in both a braggadocios and disdainful way.
What part of my comment is more “aggressive” or “abnormal” then that?
Ed: the comment I responded to for comparison
Friends isn’t funny, the office is like
Just dumb levels of cringe. Like so cringey no one would actually do that kind of thing, and I’m autistic. So it’s so cringe I wouldn’t do it. It’s not even shitpost funny it’s just
Humans being stupid?
All the people that don’t know the original reference don’t have that background info. We just see a guy who doesn’t seem amused. I had no idea who the guy was (I still don’t know, I just know what you wrote), so count me in that population.
We’re in a memes community, not a specific fandom with shared esoteric knowledge. I could be wrong, but I imagine a lot of the people who upvoted/shared this meme probably thought “stone-faced guy didn’t laugh.” Which was all they needed to know in order to enjoy it.
Not looking to argue, just providing context for how others are looking at this meme. It doesn’t seem “aggressive” to those who don’t know where the image is from.
So how does my disagreement make me “aggressive” or “abnormal”, that’s the question.
To be clear my original comment was in response to:
Friends isn’t funny, the office is like
Just dumb levels of cringe. Like so cringey no one would actually do that kind of thing, and I’m autistic. So it’s so cringe I wouldn’t do it. It’s not even shitpost funny it’s just
Humans being stupid?
Tbf no one likes Brussels sprouts /s
Tbf I was lying and I do actually like brussel sprouts it’s just a sun thing to brag about so I used it as an example.
Brussels sprout hate is a funny take for us olds because they used to be bitter when I was a kid. Got sweeter and sweeter and we bred them along. They’re a totally new vegetable now! (I got the joke BTW.)
You can’t just watch friends for the first time in 2025, it’s a bad show. You can maybe rewatch for the nostalgia but the show was clever at its time and paved a lot of way for another sitcoms.
It’s similar to breaking bad, if you are just watching for the first time you may not find it appealing, but it was great in 2008 and new shows took inspiration from Gillian’s direction
So it was great in 2008 and now it’s bad.
Because?
I’ve seen friends back then. It’s a simple show, it’s funny if you like the humor, and it’s altogether very well done. That rang true in 2008, and it still does because the show doesn’t change, society has. You may mag about certain jokes now being oh so offensive, bit it’s all pretty tame.
So it was great in 2008 and now it’s bad. Because?
because novelty is a significant factor for enjoyment of media, and influential projects lose that novelty when the formula gets dissected, cloned, and repeatedly beaten to death
Not what was being said at all but ok
If you’re really into fast cars, and you’ve gone to like Speedways and driven state-of-the-art race cars and muscle cars and all that stuff, then you go and drive a Model T it ain’t going to hit the same. You’re not going to appreciate it because it’s not really the thing you’re into it’s the thing what you’re into evolved from. You can like it from a historical perspective, but it isn’t going to give you the same thrill driving it as a car that can go 250 mph.
It’s the same thing with a lot of visual mediums like television. Things that were groundbreaking and amazing in their day can still be enjoyed from historical context but don’t always work for people who are fans of the modern product. Not I Love Lucy though that still works fine.
I saw it back then and didn’t think it was funny. The laugh track felt forced and I found the characters obnoxious. Watching Friends felt like being around someone who thinks purposely misunderstanding things is funny, so they keep doing it, and people keep giving them pity laughs. Meanwhile, you have to just stand there and tolerate it, even though you’re getting more and more irritated every time it happens.
It made me cringe in the 90s, and I’m not touching it with a 10-foot pole today.
Want a show that holds up? Watch M*A*S*H without the American laugh track. My god it hits hard, totally different show. Guess you Brits and Aussies already knew, but damn, what a fucking masterpiece of drama, every season. I didn’t know it wasn’t a comedy!
You can get it without the laugh track? I’ve actually been thinking about MASH lately, so this would be a good way to watch it. How do you search for that? Do you search for a specific language/region or what?
Why aren’t you laughing? The laugh track specifically requested this time to laugh.
Sorry ill always love it, the writing is clever and hilarious.
Not sure why its polarizing. Its just a feel good show. Letterkenny is probably more polarizing but I also enjoy that.
I think it’s polarizing, just like Seinfeld and other generational TV shows, for reasons that are very intrinsic to the sitcom genre.
First, every sitcom is an acquired taste. Because its humor is based on saturation (with tropes, characters, situations), you have to let it percolate a bit before it starts hitting. It is extremely rare for a show like that to be funny right from the start of episode 1 (even when they frontload a lot of the humor in the pilot to sell the pitch). It’s a known issue when you’re writing fiction of any kind : if you want to hit deep, you need to take some time to expose your characters, motivations, situations etc… But you run the risk of losing the reader before the payoff. If you skip that and hit early, then your payoffs will be more vague and shallow because they’re not backed by a solid foundation. It’s a balancing act, but with this genre in particular, which can get to large season counts, you have to have at least a bit of expo.
Traditionally you often hear that you need 1 season to get into a sitcom (also because that’s a reasonable timeframe for the writers to hit their stride), but a lot of people aren’t ready to sink that kind of time into a show they’re not certain about so they’ll watch a couple episodes, miss the entirety of the whole point of it, and ditch it.
Secondly, Friends in particular is in a sub-genre of sitcom : the “group of young people having mundane adventures in the big city”. The appeal of that sub-genre is kind of like a para-social relationship, where over time it feels like those people are part of your friends group and that makes everything deeper, more significant, and funnier. Obviously this only works if you are tightly packed with the characters group, in terms of age, culture, life experiences etc…
When somebody under 30 watches Friends they’ll feel that gap and, unless they develop a personal affinity to the setting, it will all fall flat. On average each given generation cringes at the previous generation’s foundational sitcom.
True, I found Seinfeld way more interesting.
Throw in The Office as well…
I rather watch The Expanse
Friends was one of the dumbest shows my ex has ever made me watch. When she tried to make me watch Seinfeld, I knew it wasn’t going to work out.
I genuinly enjoyed Seinfeld, although I don’t think that it would be at my top three funniest TV shows. Friends however, I couldn’t get into it.
As a kid, I didnt really understand the jokes or plot but parents would watch it all the time, and it had me thinking it was some sort of high brow humor I was too young to understand.
Then I watched it as an adult and realize there’s some kids shows more witty and funny (e.g. The Weekenders) then the vapidity and fake-intensity reactions each episode has.
I could not deal with either of those shows either. People finally stopped asking me if I had “seen last nights episode”.
“Did last night’s episode have Jerry’s hair? Jerry’s teeth? A bunch of stupid fucking slap bass? Then no, I didn’t watch that shit.”
I always found it immersion breaking that they lived in the massive place they did, and that was before I released it was set in New York of all cities. Like all sitcoms tended to gloss over money but Friends was just a step to far for me.
It’s been addressed in the show. Ross and Chandler have good jobs. Joey eventually gets a stable acting job but is usually short on cash. Monica’s apartment is illegally occupied and rent controlled from when her grandmother lived there.
That does not explain it at all, a “good” job?! It was like a 3000 sq feet apartment in new York, where they astronaut stripper day trading porn stars?!
Also many of the plot directions don’t work if they have access to money (hell you did not even touch on Phoebe). I get that it was TV and they needed good shots but at least Fraser made some sense with it.
you clearly didn’t watch the show. they riff on this all the time. there are multiple episodes on this topic.
The apartments were like 1500sqft. It’s not really that difficult especially at that time.
Phoebe was a masseuse but also constantly had money issues.
My partner has been rewatching the show and from that parts I’ve seen it hasn’t really aged well.
That was a nice serie, in the 1990s…
HA HA HA HA Ross!!!
It’s aged not so well.
It’s acceptable background noise, not painful garbage that hurts my soul to hear like big bang theory
TBBT normalises autistic people being assholes and thinking they are exempt from choosing to try to better themselves.
Never noticed before that even the abbreviation for the show is like a raspberry fart noise
Is this Stargate??
The Mummy
This is a crossover I didn’t know I wanted until now.
