The laugh track, which fell out of favor when hipper single-camera comedies such as The Office and Brooklyn Nine-Nine drew substantial audiences and buzz, may be experiencing a rebirth. Among the series using them are Frasier, which recently received a second-season renewal on Paramount Plus, and a pair of NBC offerings, reboot Night Court, in season two, and rookie sitcom Extended Family. Viewers don’t care how many cameras are involved, producers on those shows said, as long as the show is funny, and actors said they feed off the studio audience.
Night Court star John Larroquette addressed the topic of comedies shot with multiple cameras (more like a stage play) versus a single camera (like a movie) during a Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour session on the Warner Bros. lot. “If you look at the landscape of four-camera, I don’t watch a whole lot of television, but it seems to me that it’s having a bit of a renaissance,” he said.
