First of all, while BBT may sweeten the track, it is still filmed in front of an audience; people really do laugh at the jokes. I never really understood the i

First of all, while BBT may sweeten the track, it is still filmed in front of an audience; people really do laugh at the jokes. I never really understood the idea that this is meaningfully different from a canned laughter track. A live audience applauding because the applause light goes on isn't any more authentic than a editor mixing it in. It's just easier to make the end product sound like it flows realistically. And while there may not be a "laughter" light, the audience knows that they're expected to laugh at the punchlines. Just like they know to "ooh" and "aww" at all the right moments too. In fact the crowd warm-up often tells them to make sure they laugh and laugh loud enough for the microphones to pick it up. -- In either case, the reason people bounce off of laughter in the mix is because the jokes don't land. It's the fact people would find it funny that people complaining about the "laugh track" perceive as artificial. Not because the audio is stilted enough that someone can recognize it as edited in after the fact. Getting pedantic about the colloquial use of "laugh track" or "canned" is generally irrelevant.