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  • Hey guys, today's video is sponsored by Dollar Shave Club. Head to dollarshaveclub.com/drew to get your daily essential starter set for just 5 bucks.

  • *clears throat*

  • I hate laugh tracks.

  • [ Laugh track starts ]

  • I think they're annoying -

  • - unnecessary, and honestly I find them to be kind of an insult to the viewer's intelligence.

  • It's like the show doesn't trust you to know when to laugh so they have to basically hold up a big sign after every joke

  • And say "look that was joke it time to laugh now",

  • but then at the same time it also kind of feels like a lack of confidence in their own jokes.

  • Like the writers know that these lines aren't that funny

  • So they have to like peer pressure you into laughing

  • Because listen to how much these other people are laughing you should be laughing - most of all though

  • I hate laugh tracks because as a viewer when I hear the sound of canned laughter

  • I am completely taken out of what in my opinion

  • Should be an immersive experience

  • I want to watch a show and feel like a fly on the wall during a realistic human

  • Interaction and yet a laugh track serves as a constant reminder that these characters whose lives

  • You're trying to get invested in are not actually characters

  • They're just actors acting on a stage in front of a live audience

  • That reacts to every joke like they just woke up from a long coma and this is the first joke they've heard in 20 years

  • Joey: "Closeness schmoseness, there was 3 of us for cryin' out loud!"

  • [ audience laughs like they just woke up from a come and is this the first joke they've heard in 20 years ]

  • In addition to being an auditory distraction laugh tracks also mess up the flow of

  • Every scene even if you remove the actual sound of the laughter it's still evident that these conversations

  • Have a very unnatural rhythm

  • Pink Shirt Lady: "Get one yourself!"

  • [ awkward silence ]

  • Beer Nerd: "Oooh Somebody's been taking bitchy pill!"

  • [ even more awkward silence ]

  • Pink Shirt: "God, he's an ass when he drinks"

  • Outfit Matching Nerd: "Well, he's an ass when he doesn't, you just don't hear it."

  • [ silence ]

  • Line! Long pause. Line! Long pause. I've never in my life had a conversation with that cadence

  • It's just not how people talk, probably the worst thing about these laugh tracks

  • Is that they don't always

  • Correlate with the quality of the joke every response seems to indicate the same level of hilarity when here's the thing

  • Some jokes are just better than others

  • I don't expect every line to elicit this room wide eruption of laughs and cheers

  • And I don't hold it against a show if a joke doesn't make me audibly laugh

  • but when a throwaway line is followed up by several wasted seconds where I'm just waiting for the next joke and

  • Then it happens again

  • And again and again I get impatient

  • And I don't want to watch the show anymore these episodes are about twenty two minutes long

  • And it feels like I'm only getting maybe ten minutes of actual comedy, and that's when my brain hatched an idea

  • Exactly how much of an average episode of Friends is just laughter?

  • What percentage of each episode's 22 minute runtime is wasted by a glorified sound effect?

  • And then to take it one step further how many jokes are there in an episode of Friends,

  • Compared to an episode of, let's say, The Office?

  • Obviously quantity and quality aren't the same thing and one good joke is better than a hundred bad ones

  • But in this case I do think quantity is a pretty good indicator of overall writing quality.

  • So I had to know I had to get to the bottom of this

  • 00:03:01,450 --> 00:03:02,540 But how?

  • And then I remembered I have a youtube channel I can do stuff like this

  • [ Elevator Music ]

  • Now keep in mind about 90% of this video is simply gonna be opinion based

  • I may present a lot of what I'm saying as if it were fact

  • But what most of it comes down to is simply personal preference

  • So let's start with The Office. The Office is my favorite show of all time

  • I'm a bit of a basic bitch, so no I'm not talking about the British version nor the Japanese version for that matter

  • I'm talking about the American office because here in the USA

  • We may not be the first to do and stuff

  • But I'll be damned if we aren't the best.

  • The office combines everything I want in a comedy show

  • Again, personal preference.

  • It's hilarious, it's quick,

  • But there's also a lot of depth to it.

  • Characters develop deep meaningful relationships that have ebbs and flows and give each episode more of a purpose.

  • Particularly in the first three seasons with the back-and-forth between Jim and Pam.

  • More than anything though

  • I love the way The Office is directed.

  • You can tell there's so much deliberation involved in setting up the perfect shots.

  • Which is something that may seem small

  • But I think the movement and position of the camera can contribute so much to the tone of a scene..

  • As well as even serving as a joke in its own right.

  • For example in the season 2 episode entitled "The Carpet",

  • After it's been established that someone took a dump in Michaels office

  • And no one can go in there because it smells so bad,

  • Michael has a talking head bit where he kind of rambles about how this is like his fear factor audition

  • Eventually he can't stand it anymore and starts to rush out of the room.

  • But it's at that moment that the camera zooms out to reveal that even the cameraman didn't want to be in that room.

  • It's a small detail, but it was enough to make me chuckle and feel smart for noticing it.

  • But I'm rambling..

  • I love the show. I could talk about it for hours,

  • But the title of this video isn't why I like The Office,

  • It's The Office vs. Friends

  • So I will try and get to the point.

  • How many jokes are in one episode of The Office?

  • Now, no scientific endeavor would be complete without taking an educated guess beforehand,

  • so here's my hypothesis

  • I'm gonna say that an episode of The Office averages 140 jokes

  • Which is roughly 1 joke every 9 seconds.

  • On the other hand, I'm gonna guess that an average episode of Friends contains about half that.

  • Let's say 80 jokes or one joke every 15 seconds.

  • In addition, I'm gonna guess at approximately three and a half minutes of every Friends episode is just laughter,

  • And I'm also gonna guess that roughly 7% of you just clicked off the video when I started rambling about math

  • So let's speed this up a bit for the office. I chose season 5 episode 14

  • "Stress Relief Part 1" this episode is near and dear to my heart

  • The opening scene alone is an absolute work of art Dwight for awareness reasons

  • Intentionally starts a fire in the office to see how prepared everyone would be in that situation which is funny enough on its own

  • But then he has this

  • self-righteous attitude throughout the scene while everything

  • Deteriorates into chaos led by Michael who immediately puts his safety before everyone else's there are so many hilarious

  • Details like Kevin going back to break into the vending machine..

  • Angela hurling her cat into the ceiling..

  • Stanley ultimately having a heart attack as Dwight explains that this was all a test.

  • From start to finish, it's beautiful, and there are 41 jokes in it.

  • After the opening theme,

  • The next scene is a meeting between Michael Dwight and 2 corporate higher-ups.

  • Halfway through the scene michael casually gets up and sort of waltzes over to the other side of the table

  • Trying to subtly switch his role in the situation and then starts lecturing Dwight.

  • There are 16 jokes in the scene,

  • 3 during their car ride back to the office,

  • and 11 in the next scene

  • Where Stanley comes back to the office and Michael offers him a wheelchair.

  • Quote: "Until he's back on his feet."

  • Stanley: I'm going to die.

  • After a commercial break comes one of the greatest scenes in television history..

  • The CPR training scene.

  • If someone asked me

  • "Hey, Drew! I want to get into comedy writing. Where do I start?"

  • I would say...

  • "I don't know... I just make Youtube videos."

  • But I would tell them to study this scene.

  • I don't even know where to start with this, so I'll let Steve Carrell set it up.

  • Michael: "We found ourselves on the...

  • less prepared side of things.

  • When Stanley had his...

  • When his heart went berserk...

  • I knew exactly what to do,

  • But in a much more real sense

  • I had no idea what to do.

  • so I thought we should have a CPR training class."

  • So this woman has been hired by corporate to teach the office CPR.

  • Michael instinctively volunteers Stanley,

  • You know, the guy who just had a heart attack 3 days ago?

  • But then after the rest of the office starts to express concern,

  • He decides that the boss should go ahead and everyone how it's done.

  • Instructor: "Okay, too fast."

  • The instructor has to try repeatedly to get things back on track...

  • Inst: "No, it's [singing] 'uh, uh, uh, uh, stayin' alive, stay-' "

  • Michael: "Okay, that's it."

  • Creed: "You were in the parking lot earlier, that's how I know you!"

  • Oh! And Creed...

  • Fucking Creed!

  • He has two lines in this entire episode

  • And they're both hysterical!

  • Dwight: "Check for an organ donor card. If he has one, we only have minutes to harvest."

  • Creed: "He has no wallet, I checked."

  • This scene is so well written the way everything slowly gets more and more heightened the way each

  • character progressively gets more involved

  • it's

  • fantastic

  • And there are 37 jokes in it so after Dwight destroys the very expensive

  • CPR dummy he and Michael are once again forced to go meet with David Wallace in New York

  • This is a short scene with only five jokes we then cut back to the office where Jim, Pam, and Andy are watching a movie

  • He downloaded illegally

  • Which doesn't exist outside of the show.

  • So props to the producers for actually shooting clips from a fake movie where Jack Black falls in love with Cloris Leachman

  • I counted nine jokes in this scene, eight in the next scene where Dwight issues his statement of regret

  • Dwight: "I state my regret."

  • And another eight when Jim Pam and Andy finished the Jack Black movie

  • The episode ends with Michael leading a relaxation exercise

  • Which you guessed it is not very relaxing. There are 28 jokes in the scene and the episode is over

  • In total, I counted 166 jokes in 21 minutes