Chuck Klosterman is one of my favorite writers right now. He has a knack for taking a subject that seems irrelivant and creates an intriguing analysis that provides some deeper meaning. He gets me thinking.

His newest book, Eating the Dinosaur, is pretty good. A bit heavy on the sports talk, but he makes some interesting points so even though I don’t care about football or basketball, I still found some interesting nuggets in those chapters.

One chapter was about laugh tracks on sitcoms. I’m not a fan of them and I’ve heard many arguments against them, but Chucks take gave me a possible insight into myself.

I love cartoons. Most of the shows I watch are animated, The Simpsons, Family Guy, Spongebob, The Venture Bros. I’ve always been like that.

I was asked by a relative once why I haven’t outgrown cartoons and it kind of bothered me. I’ve never seen them as being for children only. Even shows that are marketed towards kids have gags that only adults would truly get.

Upon getting to Chuck’s take on laugh tracks, I was made consciously aware of the fact that most animated shows don’t feature “studio audience” laughter. Some of the older cartoons, like The Flintstones did, but you almost never hear them now.

Perhaps one of the reasons I love the shows I do is because they don’t have laugh tracks.

Canned laughter is a cue to the audience from the people making sitcoms who seem to feel that we need to be prompted to laugh because we’re too stupid to know where the gags are. It’s like getting elbowed in the side followed by “get it”.

Yes, I did get it. You don’t have to explain the joke to me. You shouldn’t have to tell adults where the jokes are.

Either the joke is funny or it isn’t. Even still, there are many instances where something can be funny but still not induce laughter. Ultimately, it’s up to the viewer to decide what the appropriate response is and they shouldn’t be socially pressured by people they don’t even know to laugh at something.

So, if my relative’s take is true, and cartoons are for kids, that means studios have more faith in a child’s ability to recognize humor and laugh on their own. They don’t need their hand held the entire time.

So, fine. I’m still a child, but at least children are treated like adults are supposed to be.