That 90s Show. Oy this is bad! The laughtrack doesn't help.
I think it would've been more interesting watching Eric and Donna as parents of a teenager than watching Red and Kitty do the same old schtick.
I am unsurprised Eric named his daughter Leia.
It’s funny how laugh tracks on older shows don’t bother me at all (I suppose because at the time I first saw those shows it was just considered “normal”) but when I see a current show with canned laugh track, even shows based on or continuing older shows, if seems a bit weird.
I ran into that feeling a bit with this week’s first two episodes of the new “Night Court” series. Part of the problem, I think, is that they oftentimes way overuse the canned laughter, seemingly playing it after every line or other line spoken. When they play it after a not-funny line, it actually sort of makes the writing (or line delivery) seem weaker.
I don’t mind it on shows as recent as “Friends”, but those shows were still shot in front of a studio audience. Sure, they were manufactured laughs (shooting and reshooting scenes way into the night, I hear) and probably “sweetened”, but generally speaking the laughs at least came at the right time.
When my girls were kids, I’d sometimes watch the Disney Channel and Nickelodeon tweens shows with them (“Victorious”, “iCarly”, “Shake It Up”, “Good Luck, Charlie”, “Jessie”, etc.). It always struck me that these shows were/are shot like the sitcoms of the 1980s and 1990s, complete with laugh tracks, while more and more of the prime time network comedies were moving back to shooting with one camera (no studio audience) and away from using laugh tracks. (The tweens shows were a combination of the two, obviously shot with one camera and with no live audience but with the later-in-production-added canned laughs. I’m assuming the new “Night Court” and “That ‘90s Show” do it the same way.)
I find it interesting what you said about rather having had the new “That 90s Show” be featuring on Eric and Donna in the parent roles instead of Red and Kitty. I find that a bit funny because, for me, the only reason I’m even a bit curious to watch it is for more of Eric’s parents, my favorite characters on the original. (Okay, yes, I am also curious to see the original gang, especially Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher playing adult versions of Jackie and Michael.)
—David Young
