The laugh track was once a standard feature of every TV comedy, but it may now be on its final chuckle — the last major show that used one was "The Big Bang Theory," and that finished in 2019. The Atlantic's Jacob Stern writes about the half-century history of the audio irritant, which actor David Niven once called “the single greatest affront to public intelligence I know of,” and whether we'll miss it when it's gone. "For all the ire it incurred, for all the bad jokes it disguised, the laugh track was fundamentally about reproducing the experience of being part of an audience, and its decline is also the decline of communal viewership," says Stern. What's your take on the track? [Story is paywalled]

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