anti-social musings

Sitting on my bed, and I can hear my roommates watching tv in the other room. It's a sitcom, so lots of fake audience laughter.

A thought occurs to me.

Did sitcoms change humor?

The laughter is there to point out the jokes to us, right?

What did we do without sitcoms before? How did we know when to laugh? Did anyone have a sense of humor? Did people think different things were funny? When sitcoms appeared in all their fake audience laughter glory, did people understand the jokes? Did people glance nervously at each other, and then manage to chuckle, simply because of the audience on the tv?

Or have the same jokes been funny for quite a while now, and the audience is just to make the show seem real?

When was the first sitcom? Why the fake laughter in the first place?

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hahahahaha hahaha ha ahahaha hahahahahaha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hahahahahahaha! LOL!

p.s. it worries me that my car is buried in snow.