ehalcomb: Laughing Without You - The Relevancy of Sitcoms in Modern TV and Fuller House || Editorial

This past week I started watching Netflix's Fuller House, a sequel to ABC's 90's sitcom of similar title, Full House. I got through the first three episodes with relative ease but I kept asking myself one question: is this even funny? The answer should be yes as Fuller House is a comedy and was made for the purpose to be one. It does have a couple really clever jokes that made me laugh at loud. Only a couple, though, as the majority of the jokes fell flat for me. This got me thinking if sitcoms are even relevant anymore.

The process of inserting laugh tracks to fill in silence in order to make the joke seem funny is, in my opinion, obsolete. Laugh tracks also, in many ways, take away from the sensation of getting the joke myself. In many instances I end up laughing not because the the characters are enjoyable or the joke was funny, but because I was pressured into laughing by the show. This doesn't make a show like Fuller House bad, however. It does have a lot of neat ideas that are being introduced, though a little too slow for my liking. For example, I really enjoy the relationship that DJ has with her sister Stephanie and their friend Kimmy Gibbler. The dynamic is just really fun and interesting, at least for me considering I have absolutely no nostalgia for the original ABC show. I remember certain scenes from it and sometimes episodes, but I was never really a fan because I was born after it concluded and therefore never got around to watching it. I understand that back then a laugh track was just a thing that studios did in order to make their shows more appealing but I like to believe that now we have grown to be smarter and don't need the show to tell us if a scene was enjoyable or not.

Compare the comedy from Fuller House to that of Modern Family. I know that the latter's comedy is much more mature but I think it is a fair argument. Modern Family's comedy can make me laugh hysterically with no laugh track needed. The former's comedy is much more simple and even immature at times and the laugh track just reminds me of how often the comedy doesn't land. I ask myself "Why are these people laughing at this" only to remember that the sound isn't of people laughing at the joke, but just in general. Though the definition of sitcom doesn't include the inclusion of laugh tracks, it is almost necessary for a show to be a 'true sitcom.' But why? Are we as a people that desperate for confirmation of whether a joke landed or are we just too ignorant to realize when it didn't. I don't think so.

There is a reason that Full House was so popular in the nineties. It was because that kind of comedy was attractive to the audience and the masses had just come out of an industry dominated by live studio audiences. These newer shows had to capitalize on that market while also providing new ideas. As a culture we have grown out of that and shows like Modern Family is a great example of this. This is why Fuller House just seems extremely dated. I've only seen the first three episodes but so far I feel like I'm watching the early nineties version. Maybe that's what the creators wanted in order to get the audience's nostalgia? This doesn't make the show bad, just lacking. laugh tracks to fill in silence in order to make the joke seem funny is, in my opinion, obsolete. Laugh tracks also, in many ways, take away from the sensation of getting the joke myself. In many instances I end up laughing not because the the characters are enjoyable or the joke was funny, but because I was pressured into laughing by the show. This doesn't make a show like