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[Ted Belmont]

"nerd blackface."

nerd Uncle Tom

You serious?

[Mothra]

Ahah, I mean, I don't think they're saying it's comparable to actual blackface, but I'm pretty sure you know what they mean. It's just a funny way of saying "Laugh as they parade around ridiculous living caricature of nerds"

I'm pretty sure the show appeals, at least partially, to people who have worked alongside or interacted with autistic people before, but didn't really know what to make of it. The show is pretty much saying it's okay to plainly dislike and mock them.

[Ziiro]

Windows 7 according to Sheldon Cooper

He was just talking about his computer and the laugh track was going. Why was the laughtrack going. I don't understand.

Fuck laugh tracks.

[Zaratustra]

Well, you could argue that Sheldon deserves some scorn because of his gigantic ego and self-assuredness despite not being able to function in the most basic levels.

If you think that's also part of his disability, we're in position to assume -every- joke character in sitcoms has some sort of ingrained mental problem. Are Cosmo Kramer's antics a symptom of severe, untreated attention deficit disorder? Does every character by Zooey Deschanel suffer from terminal pixie-girl syndrome?

[Mothra]

Wh-! Zara don't you dare try to keep this farce of a discussion open!

Considering how all sitcom characters behave, verses how actual people behave, we can safely assume that literally every sitcom character suffers from a yawning cornucopia of rampant, untreated mental disabilities.

Let us never speak of The BBT again.

[Classic]

I'm pretty sure the show appeals, at least partially, to people who have worked alongside or interacted with autistic people before, but didn't really know what to make of it. The show is pretty much saying it's okay to plainly dislike and mock them.

Does the purported PoV character, (who I've had people tell me isn't meant to be the PoV character because she's comically dumb) Penny, plainly dislike and mock Sheldon? Or just the laugh track?

[Mothra]

Everyone hates everyone

I like to imagine we're actually seeing a personalized vision of hell for the guy who killed that other guy over a PS3, during PS3 launch day.

[Smiler]

Mothra Let's Play The Big Bang Theory.

[Royal☭]

Perhaps if The Big Bang Theory starred comedic-genius Tim Allen, then Mothra would be interested.

[Bal]

I've always thought this show was a nerd minstrel show, so the idea that it could get worse is not surprising.

[Mothra]

I actually tried to get Brentai on board for a Home Improvement a few moons back but the man was not into the notion

I dunno, Home Improvement has a sort of vague super-wholesome, strategically-inoffensive charm about it that makes it hard to outright loathe. It's awful on every level, but it's not really harmful or mean-spirited. It's a stretch to say that BBT is actually harmful in any meaningful way, but it is mean-spirited while also being soul-crushingly unfunny. It's a festering wasteland from which only the unfettered folly of man might grow.

I feel like doing an LP of an entire episode of BBT would utterly destroy my ability to feel love.

[Bongo Bill]

My sister watches this show. She says that Sheldon reminds her of me. And here I thought she liked me.

[Ted Belmont]

I've always thought this show was a nerd minstrel show

omg you're right

[Thad]

Yeah, the first time I heard "nerd blackface" I chuckled because it's a pretty great shorthand.

The sheer number of idiots who've repeated the phrase while apparently seriously believing it's JUST AS BAD AS WHAT BLACK PEOPLE GO THROUGH, MAAAAAAAN has taken some of the fun out of it.

Not accusing anyone here of that, of course.

[Bal]

Yeah, I didn't think I'd need to caveat that it's obviously not anywhere near as bad.

[Catloaf]

Windows 7 according to Sheldon Cooper

He was just talking about his computer and the laugh track was going. Why was the laughtrack going. I don't understand.

Fuck laugh tracks.

This.

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.

[Mongrel]

I like the women on the far left and right who are dressed not as any nerd woman I've ever seen or heard of, but rather like someone's frowsy aunt or grandma instead.

It's like someone confused "nerd woman" with "typical woman in a Far Side cartoon".

[Mothra]

Windows 7 according to Sheldon Cooper

He was just talking about his computer and the laugh track was going. Why was the laughtrack going. I don't understand.

Fuck laugh tracks.

This.

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.

Big Bang Theory - No Laugh Track

[Brentai]

I actually tried to get Brentai on board for a Home Improvement a few moons back but the man was not into the notion

I'll probably be more open to it after I graduate.

[Thad]

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.