Laugh tracks became a staple of American multi-camera sitcoms from the 1950s onward, when studio audiences were recorded or sweetened to cue viewers at home to laugh along with each joke. As those shows were rerun and clipped online, the sound became shorthand for old-school television comedy itself. Creators now reuse it far beyond sitcoms, dropping it into YouTube videos, TikTok edits and streams to signal irony, celebrate a deliberately cheesy joke or soften an awkward pause. Its familiarity is the point: almost everyone recognises it instantly, even without seeing the original show.
Über diesen Sound
A classic sitcom laugh track with a studio audience laughing on cue, perfect for comedy edits, reaction videos and memes that need a chuckle after a joke.
This is the familiar canned laughter heard on classic television sitcoms, a warm wave of studio audience chuckles that builds, peaks and fades over a few seconds. It sounds cheerful, slightly old-fashioned and instantly recognisable, like the applause and laughter that used to follow every punchline on a multi-camera comedy show. Dropped after a joke, an awkward moment or a deliberately bad pun, it tells the viewer exactly when to laugh and turns a flat line into something that feels like a shared joke. The effect is light, nostalgic and immediately comic, even when the joke itself is not particularly funny.
