In this video, editor Owen Cooper replaced The Big Bang Theory’s live studio audience with one man: Ricky Gervais. It is an improvement.
For comparison, this is what the scene sounds like normally. The Gervais version is livelier by far, and funnier, too.
BBT co-creator Chuck Lorre once told New York magazine, “I do not, and have never, sweetened my shows with fake laughs. I’ve always thought it was a pretty hateful and self-defeating practice.” And yet the show has long been subject to videos that poke fun at its reliance on its laugh track. Videos of the show without audience laughter have gone viral, and ClickHole mocked that trend by creating a video of the show with more laughter added in, to the point where it’s distracting.
Correction, March 10, 2017: This post originally misspelled Chuck Lorre’s surname.
