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[Mothra]

I have never watched more than five minutes of the show, but all I've seen is things that might be kinda funny if left alone drowned out by wave after wave of deafening laugh-track. No jokes, just normal conversation and maybe a quip or two engulfed in soulless, unending laugh-track hell.

Well, I mean, are we going to just go off on the entire three-camera sitcom formula now?  Because I'm totally okay with that but it's a much bigger net than this show.

Scooby Doo had a fucking laugh track for fuck's sake.  How crazy is that?

It was nice when single-camera sitcoms without laugh tracks were the big thing for a few years there.  NBC was really pretty instrumental in that, with Scrubs, Office, 30 Rock, etc.  (And Fox had Malcolm in the Middle and Arrested Development.)

NBC's ratings look an awful lot like the Hindenburg lately.  Scrubs is long gone, 30 Rock just ended, Office...has a few episodes left?  I haven't been paying attention.  And shows like Parks and Recreation and Community are critically acclaimed cult hits -- that and a buck fifty will buy you a cup of coffee.

You can certainly make good money off a cult hit -- but that's really more of a business strategy for basic cable and CW.  The major networks want the easy money that comes with lowest-common-denominator pabulum.

I get that we're focusing on Big Bang Theory because it's something personal, it's misrepresenting a granfalloon that we're part of.

But as painful, unfunny, my-God-how-could-people-even-watch-this lowest-common-denominator sitcomming, it's not only not the worst thing on TV, it's not even the worst thing created by Chuck Lorre that airs on CBS on Thursday nights during the eight o'clock hour.

I think in the next few years we're going to see a lot fewer shows like Community and a lot more like Big Bang Theory or worse.  At least, on network TV -- Netflix has Arrested Development and I think we'll see the more weird, nichey, actually-good stuff try the online route.

And I think the pendulum will swing back in a few years and we'll get good sitcoms on network TV again.  At least for a little while.  TV itself is on the verge of the biggest shakeup it's ever had; in the coming decade things are going to be a lot different, and within two decades it's going to be unrecognizable.  Good riddance to the old guard.

Thad will you concede that BBT is a terrible slow

[Ziiro]

It seems if you remove the laugh track the Big Bang Theory becomes a harrowing drama about the trials and tribulations of living with Autism.

[Bal]

[Royal☭]

The Wire with a laugh track

Complaining about the laugh track is getting off the rails here, as Thad pointed out. It helps emphasize that just saying they're into nerd things is the joke, but it's no worse than any other sitcom. And, I can't jump on the "This is the worst thing ever" just because it takes low pot-shots at geek and nerd culture. Really that just makes it like Family Matters but now the cast is made up of Urkels.

[Mothra]

While not the worst thing, I think we can all agree it is terrible, and has no real redeeming qualities.

I vote this topic be hurled into a volcano.

[Beat Bandit]

The Big Bang Theory - Hilarious Physics Joke! [unedited footage]

[Mothra]

I raise you:

Big Bang Tidus

[Friday]

I find the show is pretty much offensive on all possible levels. Penny is a dumb slut obsessed with clothes and fashion and she's presented as "normal". That's pretty degrading and insulting to women.

But really, it's a sitcom. Sitcoms are (with the exception of Home Improvement) fucking terrible. The dumb and ugly husband/smart and hot wife dynamic is so fucking terrible that it deserves to be a registered crime against humanity or something. Even on BBT, where the guys are the smart ones, they are still presented as the dumb ones because they're just soooooooo weird omg!

I hate BBT, and sure, I hate it a bit more than most sitcoms because it happens to poke fun at shit I enjoy. But if you take that part out of it it's not any more or less trash than Everyone Loves Raymond or King of Queens or any other complete fucking pile of garbage Shitcom. They all make me want to invent time travel and murder the laugh track and also possibly Ray Romano.

[Büge]

I raise you:

Big Bang Tidus

Still waiting for the version where the laugh track is replaced with Tidus screaming.

[Friday]

Caught a Big Bang theory ad where the "joke" was "I've never played D&D with girls before!" "It's okay, sweetie, nobody has!"

Going back to the reason this thread exists, I'd just like to say as a girl who has been running her own campaigns for more than ten years, with frequent female players, this made me roll my eyes so hard I actually threw myself to the ground.

[Romosome]

I find that highly unlikely given a proper understanding of rotational interia!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[CACKLING MOB NOISES]

[A²]

Caught a Big Bang theory ad where the "joke" was "I've never played D&D with girls before!" "It's okay, sweetie, nobody has!"

Going back to the reason this thread exists, I'd just like to say as a girl who has been running her own campaigns for more than ten years, with frequent female players, this made me roll my eyes so hard I actually threw myself to the ground.

I ran a campaign for a year and a half where the females outnumbered the males. The whole "girls don't get D&D omg" is kind of really fucking stupid.

[Classic]

It's true to the experience of a lot of sexist boys though.

...
But actually, it might just be the experience of a lot of unattractive boys.
I mean, there were almost always women at my group's roleplaying games, but I think in that group I was the ugly one.

[Büge]

Last night I dreamed that during an episode, Leonard was having a nightmare about Penny becoming a butch lesbian because she'd joined a gym.

I was dismayed when I woke up as this was a plausible plot for an episode. Because lol gay jokes.

[Smiler]

Its terrifying that anyone would dream about big bang theory without even watching it.

[Zaratustra]

The latest season has pretty much set itself on rails to make the same jokes for the foreseeable future. Seriously, I don't think there has been a single original joke in the entire season.

Oh wait Amy did demonstrate a trait other than "gets no sex". Once.