The history of ‘the laugh track’ says much about what the makers of television thought of their audiences, writes Jennifer Keishin Armstrong. Charley Douglass didn’t like the laughter he was hearing.

What do you call a sleeping dinosaur? A dino‐SNORE. That is not a funny joke. But you might have found it funnier if you heard laughter after listening to it. ‘Laugh tracks’ are commonly used in ...

Don’t scoff at laugh tracks: they work. According to a report published Monday in the journal Current Biology, having recorded laughter play while corny “dad jokes” are told makes people find them ...

Nothing can match the energy of watching a funny movie with an theater full of laughing strangers. And it’s not just your imagination: As scientists have found, we actually think jokes are funnier ...

Charlie Watts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond ...

A quick scan of the channels might give the impression these are somber days for the laugh track. Those blasts of guffaws from our TVs seem less widespread than they once did.For one thing, there are ...

When the cameras stopped grinding recently on an installment of I Love Lucy, Co-Star Desi Arnaz turned to thank the studio audience for its laughter during the filming of the show. Slipping up from ...

Watford boss Nigel Pearson has admitted that he 'can't stand' fake crowd noise, which he has compared to "American comedy shows with canned laughter". The Premier League returned behind closed doors ...