Allow me, if you would, to get this off my chest.
I have a television comedy currently being broadcast on a large American cable network.
It's a pretty traditional comedy - what you might call a "classic-style sitcom", if that doesn't seem like an oxymoron to you. And what people often say to me is: "Rob, I love your show but I hate the laugh track."
Now, I'm not sure they're being truthful about the first part - they may just be polite, who knows? - but I know they're being honest about the second part.
The "laugh track" - the sound of the studio audience laughing along with a television show as it's filmed - rubs certain people the wrong way. To them, it sounds entirely false. What they imagine, I assume, is that we film an episode in an enormous soundstage in dreary silence, with no audience anywhere nearby.
And then we add pre-recorded laughter later - probably harvested and saved from radio and television shows from the past, when people getting paid to be funny really had to be funny - to make it seem as if our tired and bland material really and truly earned the uproarious reaction it didn't, truthfully, receive.
In other words, my friends think I cheat. And when they tell me that they "love" my show, it's only to soften me up for the blow that follows: "But it's not nearly as funny as the fake laughter you insist on adding to it, you dishonest and shameless cretin." And that's what my friends say. Imagine how my enemies would put it.
So, for the record: it isn't really a "laugh track" you're hearing on most traditional television comedies, at least those that are shot in front of an audience.
Oh, yes, technically it's a "track" - a separate track of recorded sound. When we film an episode, we have the most expensive recording devices available perched above the live audience recording their laughter.
So in that sense it's a "laugh track", but that doesn't mean we paid some clever sound engineer to come in later and add more laughter.
That's what used to be called "sweetening" the track - the way you might add a little extra sugar to a recipe to make it slightly more toothsome.
But we don't sweeten. We don't bother to add laughter to jokes that didn't work just because we were too lazy to write jokes that would.
Yes, we're lazy - we're writers after all - but our laziness manifests itself in different ways, mostly in our personal relationships.
Professionally, we're pretty strict: a joke has to make us really laugh, then has to make the studio audience laugh, or we resort to a very simple remedy: we cut it.
And we shoot each show about five or six minutes too long so we can make those trims later, in the editing process, when we need to. In general, sweetening is hard, and expensive. Cutting is easy. And I'll always take the easy way out.
Still, some people complain. Some don't like the noise of the audience, or the implication that they need to be cued when to laugh. I usually try to explain the way it works. Sometimes, my friends get it.
But sometimes my friends will say - and here I'm using the term "friend" loosely - "Well, see, I watched your show last night and it wasn't funny at all.
"I mean," they continue, "I don't like your show really. I find it stupid and demeaning. But I watched it because we're friends and I was just so put off by the laugh track.
"I mean," they keep going, "I wasn't laughing at all but the audience was. How am I supposed to believe that people really found your show funny? At all?"
Well, what can I say? We've all sat in movies with other people who were laughing uproariously when we weren't.
And vice versa. What makes you giggle makes me roar. What makes me laugh makes you want to change the channel.
There's no accounting for taste - in television comedy or friends, apparently.
Rob Long is a writer and producer based in Hollywood
On Twitter: @rcbl
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Ruwais timeline
1971 Abu Dhabi National Oil Company established
1980 Ruwais Housing Complex built, located 10 kilometres away from industrial plants
1982 120,000 bpd capacity Ruwais refinery complex officially inaugurated by the founder of the UAE Sheikh Zayed
1984 Second phase of Ruwais Housing Complex built. Today the 7,000-unit complex houses some 24,000 people.
1985 The refinery is expanded with the commissioning of a 27,000 b/d hydro cracker complex
2009 Plans announced to build $1.2 billion fertilizer plant in Ruwais, producing urea
2010 Adnoc awards $10bn contracts for expansion of Ruwais refinery, to double capacity from 415,000 bpd
2014 Ruwais 261-outlet shopping mall opens
2014 Production starts at newly expanded Ruwais refinery, providing jet fuel and diesel and allowing the UAE to be self-sufficient for petrol supplies
2014 Etihad Rail begins transportation of sulphur from Shah and Habshan to Ruwais for export
2017 Aldar Academies to operate Adnoc’s schools including in Ruwais from September. Eight schools operate in total within the housing complex.
2018 Adnoc announces plans to invest $3.1 billion on upgrading its Ruwais refinery
2018 NMC Healthcare selected to manage operations of Ruwais Hospital
2018 Adnoc announces new downstream strategy at event in Abu Dhabi on May 13
Source: The National
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
Starring: Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Jenny Ortega
Director: Tim Burton
Rating: 3/5
The five pillars of Islam
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The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
The specs: 2018 Nissan 370Z Nismo
Price, base / as tested: Dh182,178
Engine: 3.7-litre V6
Power: 350hp @ 7,400rpm
Torque: 374Nm @ 5,200rpm
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Fuel consumption, combined: 10.5L / 100km
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10pm: Al Ain Cup – Prestige (PA) Dh100,000 (D) 2,000m; Winner: Harrab, Bernardo Pinheiro, Majed Al Jahouri
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