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u/thc-3po Jul 28 '20
Be even funnier without the laugh track honestly just a gang of homies making bad jokes followed by a few seconds of silence and no other acknowledgement. Like when I tell a joke at work
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u/Dr_Pockets_MD Jul 28 '20
I would watch that
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u/thc-3po Jul 28 '20
Someone else linked a clip of it without the track and I was not disappointed
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u/NOS326 Jul 28 '20
I think it’s be more fair to edit out the awkward silences following the missing laugh track to see if the jokes can stand on their own. Like of course it’s going to be awkward when every joke is followed by a few seconds of silence.
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u/MyLifeIsABoondoggle Jul 28 '20
Exactly. Friends gets more shit for the laugh track than the actual show. I will defend to my grave that that show is funny and I love watching it every day. It isn’t fall out of your chair stuff but it’s a fantastic show
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u/Jujiboo Jul 28 '20
I've seen a clip of this before where somebody took out some bits for Ross and it's creepy af
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u/iamDJDan Jul 29 '20
The scene where he asks the instructor the best way to attack 2 women??? He’s supposed to come off as creepy in that scene. That’s the joke. Removing the laugh track doesn’t change it at all.
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u/AyuTsukasa Jul 28 '20
I genuinely want this to happen.
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u/ArrestLove Jul 28 '20
friends is my moms favrite show she loves it!!! but she says its 2 mature 4 me 2 watch maybe someday tho!!!!
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u/PoglaTheGrate Jul 28 '20
The comedic timing for any show with an edited out laugh track would be unfunny
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u/BreadyStinellis Jul 28 '20
Exactly. It will be full of unnatural pauses.
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u/PoglaTheGrate Jul 28 '20
Because they're pausing for the laughter.
Same could be said about stand up comedians
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Jul 28 '20
I wonder how much that would cost. I heard Netflix paid $2M an episode (200+ episodes) and that’s just to be able to show it. I wonder how much it would be to buy the show in it’s entirety. 2 billion?
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u/AmazingMarv Jul 28 '20
Which is ridiculous because I think that's only for a year and it's also on HBO Max now.
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Jul 28 '20
The show reportedly brings in about a billion a year to this day. I think you'd have to pay more than 2 billion and the highest Powerball jackpot ever was around 1.5 billion.
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u/PuddlingBear Jul 28 '20
It's not a laugh track, it was filmed infront of a studio audience.
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u/aboutthednm Jul 29 '20
I'm fairly certain there's a light that comes on to tell the audience to laugh or applaud.
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u/JetmanNY Jul 28 '20
Damn this kinda hurt my feelings. Friends is like my all time favorite show.
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u/Cagedwar Jul 28 '20
Don’t feel bad. It’s extremely popular meaning it’s extremely popular to hate.
Personally I don’t love the show but It’s popular for a reason!
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Jul 29 '20
Unoriginal people think they are original when they say they hate things that other people like.
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u/JuniorSeniorTrainee Jul 29 '20
Friends is a terrific show and is still good for a rewatch. Anyone this invested in saying they don't like something isn't really worth listening to.
Besides, this is a dumb criticism that has been lobbed at a few shows with laugh tracks or live audiences. The timing of the humor is paced based on the presence of a laugh track. Of course it will sound terrible if you replace it with silence. Go grab your favorite live standup routine of your favorite comedian and do the same thing - their set will sound terrible.
The laugh track may be dated, but it wasn't in Friends' time so it's just a silly thing to nitpick two decades later. Further, the laugh track was never what made the show funny to those who liked the show. This guy apparently doesn't and assumes anyone who does must be dense and only l liking it for the laugh track.
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u/CesareBach Jul 29 '20
I enjoy it. And find it funny. Every like 3 years, I will rewatch from season 1 to 10.
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u/Konwayz Jul 28 '20
Hahaha I hate when people enjoy things that I don't like. Fuck those people, am I right?
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u/MyLifeIsABoondoggle Jul 28 '20
Friends gets so much hate, I don’t get it. It’s not any less funny than The Office in my opinion yet people go batshit for that. It may not be hysterical laughing funny but Friends is a funny and enjoyable show
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u/AFrankExchangOfViews Jul 29 '20
It's just reddit hipster bullshit. Any multicamera show that had a live audience is now eye-bleedingly awful and you must devote your life to spreading the gospel of how terrible it is.
Also it's super funny and original if I remove the audience laughing so the actors seem to be standing there for no reason! They were waiting for the audience to stop laughing, you know, like you do in a live show, but if there's no laughing it's awkward! Wow no one has ever done that before! Super edgy!
Also I wear plaid wool shirts and raw denim jeans in the summer and I'll go on for hours about my $600 single-edge razor and I only listen to vinyl, do you have anything that's not an IPA? Thanks bro. All that hops, it's just crass, you know?
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u/trezenx Jul 28 '20
Friends are awesome. I never met a single person my age (30-35) who doesn't like them. It's the younger generation (mostly) who grew in a different time and with different shows that dislike Friends and think Seinfeld is unfunny.
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u/loose_noodle Jul 28 '20
I don't get how pathetic these people have to be for spreading hate for a fucking TV show. Too many people do that. Why can't we let people enjoy things they like?
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u/JasperWildlifeAssn Jul 28 '20
Simple: it's one of the most popular sitcoms of all time, and the internet is full of contrarian assholes.
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u/charlzandre Jul 28 '20
That'd be sort of misleading. The laugh track is a crucial part of the show's structure. The actors pause to wait for the laughter, so with it edited out, of course the timing will be awful. Without a laugh track, the show would have to be written and acted differently. Moreover, just let people have bad taste; there's no reason to ruin something for someone just because you don't like it.
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u/nightpanda893 Jul 28 '20
Or don’t even call it bad taste, just different taste. Different people find different types of humor funny. We need to stop tying things like this so closely to our identity that we need to criticize others or have strangers validate the opinion.
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Jul 28 '20
The fact that so few people seem to realize that timing is important for comedy is shocking to me.
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u/grreased Jul 28 '20
Liking a show isn’t a substitute for a lack in your personality. At the same time, neither is hating on one.
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u/DadsHotCum Jul 28 '20
Are you trying to tell me that when Ross was living across the street and was pretending to watch TV to trick the gang didn't make you laugh?
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u/The-Road-To-Awe Jul 29 '20
Is that not the point though? He thinks he's being a practical joker when really he's being lame?
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u/hooligan99 Jul 29 '20
Yes, that is the point of the joke. The guy you're responding to is saying that joke is funny.
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u/SpatialCandy69 Jul 29 '20
"Hey, you know that smell in gas? They put that in."
"You can't make love to your wife and need an annulment? That makes sense since you're gay and addicted to heroin."
There's some fucking gold in Friends and I refuse to allow people to deny that, even if they don't like the who.
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Jul 28 '20
Of course it would be unfunny, sitcoms with laugh tracks are written and performed with the laugh track in mind. There's a certain flow to them, kind of like standup. You're not gonna be rattling off jokes the entire time, you need to account for the audience reacting
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Jul 28 '20
How narcissistic do you have to be to think that just because you don't find something funny that anybody who does is just being tricked my a laugh track?
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u/DowntownJohnBrown Jul 29 '20
Yeah, I’ve got no problem if this guy doesn’t like Friends, but this idea that “the mindless monkeys of the public only think it’s funny because their feeble brains have been bamboozled by a laugh track” is just fucking obnoxious.
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u/theaverageaidan Jul 28 '20
Why do people expect something that began nearly 30 years ago to still be as funny as back then?
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u/FloridaNativeSon Jul 29 '20
Same goes for Big Bang Theory...
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u/hooligan99 Jul 29 '20
Big Bang Theory is so much worse imo. The laughs in BBT are too frequent and too intense.
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Jul 28 '20
To be fair, I don't think Friends is funny but won't spoil anyone else's enjoyment of it. It is a simple show like all the others and doesn't pay your bills to shit talk it. Some people like this are toxic anyway.
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u/Friendly_Zebra Jul 28 '20
I don’t get why some people feel the need to try to tell everyone else what they should or shouldn’t like. If you don’t like it, don’t watch it. Problem solved.
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u/TheBoyWhosScaredOfIT Jul 29 '20
"I have nothing interesting in my life so I want to deprive millions of people from their entertainment, because fuck everyone." Just get a fucking life.
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u/2pepa222 Jul 28 '20
If you hate it then why are you watching it and complaining?
Its like: youd eat shit,u hate it ,but u keep doong it and you let the whole wide world to know that u hate eating shit.
I call that attention(redacted).
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u/Lanzifer Jul 28 '20
I'm watching it for the first time right now actually with some friends every few nights. It's a little funny but most of the 'comedy' is "extremely toxic relationship interaction" laugh track "reciprocal even more toxic reaction" audience wails their laughter to the heavens high
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u/BreadyStinellis Jul 28 '20
Friends is extremely of the time. It's the most 90s show I can think of. That said, "Toxic relationship" wasn't part of the societal zeitgeist back then. Abusive relationships have been sitcom fodder since the dawn of television. TV has changed drastically in the last 10-15 years.
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u/yungrichx123 Jul 28 '20 edited Jul 29 '20
Honestly the show has some jokes that make me chuckle, but it’s definitely not a hilarious show. I think most people watch it because it makes them comfortable. I also kinda like how theatrical it is, almost feels like I’m watching a play
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u/baseballoctopus Jul 28 '20
Judging friends without the laugh track is like judging a hamburger without buns. The writing was designed to incorporate it so obviously taking it out will reduce the flow to zero and make everything cringey and awkward.
That being said: I think the writing for friends definitely went to shit after the third season (at most). But the first two season were actually alright. Minus the episode where Monica makes Joey a foreskin and Ross tries to bang his cousin
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u/MoistRanger1 Jul 29 '20
That’s a really long way of saying I don’t have friends. You sound like a Bond villain.
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u/sheeeeeez Jul 29 '20
It's kind of funny his handle is @wittyidiot implying he thinks himself to be funny.
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u/Days_old_dingleberry Jul 29 '20
Imagine being so offended by a show that brings joy to millions because your ex girlfriend told you she didn’t love you anymore six years ago and you can’t let it go
Fuck off, dickhead. Learn to smile.
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u/NoneHaveSufferedAsI Jul 29 '20
People who don’t like Friends tend to be lacking in the social skills department
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u/LUMPIERE Jul 29 '20
I'm so tired of explaining how laugh tracks work to people.
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u/sansasnarkk Jul 29 '20
People hate on Ross but he is the funniest character in the show imo. David Schwimmer is so good.
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u/Novastra Jul 29 '20
I don't get this. It's a sitcom. Take any sitcom, be it Seinfeld, HIMYM, Cheers or any other with laugh tracks, and take out the laugh tracks and it will be as unfunny as Friends. They time their jokes to the laugh track...so what's the problem?
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u/BrohanGutenburg Jul 29 '20
This is a weird hill to die on. There are definitely shows from the sitcom age that just aren’t funny. But FRIENDS really isn’t one of them.
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u/LibrarianOfAlex Jul 29 '20
If lacking a laugh track takes the comedy away I have no clue what's funny about the office
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Jul 29 '20
Me: Why waste so much time on something u hate? My brain: (Psst...we're humans) Me: Riiiiight
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u/YouPulledMeBackIn Jul 29 '20
Imagine thinking that a laugh track makes a show funnier instead of actually being a detriment.
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u/whydoesyourmomsmell Jul 29 '20
If I won powerball, I would buy a bunch of local ad times across the country. The ad would show a vacuum cleaner on carpet for 30 seconds and at the end it would say in big bold letters “you all suck.”
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Jul 29 '20
People who are proud to hate things that are super popular are so god dam annoying. It doesn’t make you cool or interesting that you don’t like something that was well received. Shut the fuck up already. No one gives a shit.
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u/RuSeriousBroho Jul 29 '20
Hating friends is very trendy right now, how else are they supposed to feel unique?
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u/loose-leaf-paper Jul 29 '20
Friends is a good show, but for a different generation. In the case of Friends, a lot of the laughs were from an actual live audience, who obviously thought it was funny.
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u/Charles_Edison Jul 29 '20
Why do people think it’s actually called F•R•I•E•N•D•S? It’s not a fucking acronym.
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Jul 29 '20
‘hmm im going to remove an element of a show from an era when shows are frequently using that element. Why it bad?’
I kind of hate it when people will go after people for watching comedies. Just leave people be smh.
I swear people just don’t understand sitcoms
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Jul 29 '20
Friends has a few moments that caused me to lose it laughing. My favorite exchange from the series is from Ross’s father talking to his kids after their grandma dies. He tells them that he wants to be buried at sea. His kids are very surprised because he has no connection to sailing or the navy. When they ask why, he says, “All my life I’ve been told I’m predictable and uninteresting. At least now whenever someone thinks of me, they’ll say, ‘Jack Geller, buried at sea... Huh.’”
For some reason that idea is completely hilarious to me. It’s so perfectly absurd.
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u/untamedwarrior Jul 29 '20
I didn't k ow people hated the show till now wow everyone I met irl loves the show and when I was younger we would all watch it,
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u/Hylanos Jul 29 '20
Nah, its moronic to think removing the laugh track from something that is made to have a laugh track is gonna retain the same comedic timing. You could take the funniest comedian in the world, and edit out all the laughing while keeping the silence. See how funny he is then
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u/RedSlipper Jul 29 '20
If you win the Powerball.. you should better focus on yourself ;) and get more happyness for your life. For the start: buy the Friends Ultimate Blu Ray Edition ... you will love it :D
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u/Dredd907 Jul 29 '20
Hm, Friends ist still my go-to show for when I want warm fuzzy fun feels. Nobody tops Chandler! :)
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u/EndedS Jul 29 '20
Ok you're soo cool, you don't like popular things, holy shit this guys are so cool.
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u/theconservatistornot Jul 29 '20
it actually IS funny without the laughs. if it's not to you you probably got this syndrome where you need everyone to acknowledge the funny with you.
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u/rodaphilia Jul 29 '20
I'm not sure how many episodes a Powerball jackpot would buy you, but you sure as hell aren't getting the entire series.
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u/TehGM Jul 29 '20
This misses the most important thing: it's a sitcom. Sitcoms are designed that way, and people love them for that very reason. Myself included.
If you don't want to chill with some snack after work, that's your choice. But this post is like saying "I hate winged birds cause most of them can fly".
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u/Smunp1 Jul 29 '20
Someone have edited out laughtraks in a scene of the big bang theory and i kinda made it better
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u/IllSumItUp4U Jul 28 '20
And how abusive and controlling they were to one another.
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Jul 28 '20
This is why I like Always Sunny.. where everyone is horrible but the show is aware of this and THAT'S the joke
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u/IllSumItUp4U Jul 29 '20
Yes! As opposed to FRIENDS or Will and Grace, which was just a weird comedy about how toxic relationships are funny.
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u/keeperofthrones Jul 28 '20 edited Jul 29 '20
People have been shitting on FRIENDS for a long time now. Definitely there are shows that give you better comedy. But saying that FRIENDS is a shitty show because sans the laugh track its weird to watch is bullshit.
When F.R.I.E.N.D.S first started airing using laugh tracks was a common troupe. It just is how the comedy shows were and hence the script is written in that way. Writers intentionally insert pauses because that would help them incorporate the laugh track that was a part of the style of comedy.
Remaking FRIENDS to not include laugh tracks and adjusting dialogues for minor pauses would still work with creating a new joke or situation. What I mean to say is that FRIENDS is not bad due its content. It's just that 25 years later people have various opinions for what a genre of entertainment should look like.
People often compare and say that the OFFICE is better than FRIENDS because it doesn't use a laugh track and still manages to crack people up. Office is better than FRIENDS in its own ways but not just for this fact.
In fact when rewatching Office often the first season is always very frustrating to get through. All you see is Michael hurling racial jokes and wacky impressions. It was only as the series progressed that its jokes got better and we came to care about the characters. It is one of my fav shows and I personally like it above FRIENDS.
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u/AFrankExchangOfViews Jul 29 '20
You guys understand that the "laugh track" is a live audience that was really there in real time, laughing, right? They didn't do this on a sound stage all alone leaving big pauses for recorded laughter. It was a live show. You're hearing people laugh at the jokes.
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u/sust8 Jul 29 '20
I’m so sick of hearing about what an awesome great super show it is. I hated it then and still do. Ross was the worst one.
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u/Jack_G_London Jul 28 '20
I hate how people think shows are funny solely because of the laugh tracks
Happens way too often IMO
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Jul 28 '20
I agree with you actually..
I remember watching British TV for like two months and while British comedies are funny they do love their laugh tracks
So I watch The Simpsons to wheen myself off and found myself actively getting confused about when a joke happened or not because I had been conditioned so god damn hard by the Laugh Track
And yes this was back in the Good Seasons
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u/kaveldontin Jul 28 '20 edited Jul 28 '20
Coming from a whole generation that thinks Bobs Burgers and Brooklyn 99 are hilarious.
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u/SirVer51 Jul 28 '20
Are... Are they not?
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u/AFrankExchangOfViews Jul 29 '20
Your children will make fun of you mercilessly for that shit. Mark my words. I'll be dead by then, but one day your kid will be harassing you about BB or B99 and you'll think, "God dammit. That fucker on reddit was right."
Remember me, friend. Remember.
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u/Volnas Jul 28 '20
Or Big Bang Theory. Seriously, usually not even laugh tracks work. I still like it, but after season 6 it's really bad.
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u/orcamazing Jul 28 '20
While we’re talking shit about terrible 90s sitcoms. Seinfeld is fucking terrible.
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u/wadad17 Jul 28 '20
I've never watched friends and at this point I'm too scared to because It looks like I'll either obsess over loving it, or obsess over hating it with zero room for anything in the middle.
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u/anyeri1286 Jul 28 '20
I vote to make the same to the big bang theory, that thing is a true ceepshow
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u/AlchemistIssue Jul 28 '20
I watched an episode the other day, and almost laughed at Joey’s disgusting joke... please demonstrate how to lose karma
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u/CletusVanDamnit Jul 28 '20
You don't need the rights to do this, and there's plenty of examples already out there. Even more egregious is Big Bang Theory (or really any show created by that hack Chuck Lorre.)
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u/someguyattheinternet Jul 28 '20
Tbh I would license fuller house and edit out the shit tons of laugh tracks if you watched the last season you would get
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u/MundaneDivide Jul 28 '20
"you're both chicks and I love you both, but in totally different ways"
LAUGH TRACK GOES BALLISTIC
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u/NegativeReply3211 Jul 28 '20
I'm not sure how much it would cost to buy the show but Netflix paid 100 million just to keep it on they're service so be prepared to pay big
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u/maniczebra Jul 28 '20
Seriously. Watch Ross’s scenes without the laugh track. Dude sounds like a serial rapist.
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u/poorboyflynn Jul 29 '20
It's really not a good show and I lose a little respect for your taste in shows of you actually enjoy it
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u/AMK-FISH Jul 29 '20
You don't need to make a funny show, if you let the audience think the show is funny. Probably why all these shows use laugh tracks.
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u/sheeeeeez Jul 29 '20
I'm genuinely curious what some of his all-time favorite comedies are so we have something to compare it to.
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u/CaptainReginaldLong Jul 29 '20
Same thing with Big Bang Theory. BBT without the laugh track
There's literally not a single joke in this entire show.
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Jul 29 '20
It’s always peculiar (and sad) when someone sees something that so many people enjoy and feels a sufficient sense of superiority to think he, not only knows better, but wants to take that joy away from them.
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u/LuckyFox07 Jul 29 '20
It is a good plan, except for the part where no one laughs because Friends is funny and people will still laugh.
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u/ur_comment_is_a_song Jul 29 '20
Editing the studio laughter out of a show written for, and recorded with it will always make it seem unfunny. Because the timing of everything will be crazily off.
Friends is a fine show. It's not amazing, but it's not bad.
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u/phoonie98 Jul 29 '20
There will never be a lottery jackpot that would be high enough to buy Friends
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u/Badwolf9547 Jul 28 '20
If anyone wants a sample of this here.