Does anyone actually like having laugh tracks? I mean, in some cases it's not even a studio audience laughing at a prompt, canned laughter immediately makes something seem like a corny plastic imitation of comedy in my opinion, a stand up comedian using fake laughter would be a laughing stock, well, a non-laughing stock.

It's annoying but tolerable when used for punchlines that are actually funny, but some shows seem to just add it randomly, and when a joke falls flat a laugh track just makes it seem so much more terrible *cough* BBT *cough*.

Why do television shows persist in doing this? Do they think that hearing laughter will make people think that something which svcks is funny?