i watched the first four episodes of ‘how i met your mother’ today and this show seemed to totally make me laugh out loud.. it has gotta be the best new sitcom this year.. i find the jokes clever and they always seem to catch me off guard.. unlike the predictable shit found in ‘my name is earl’ and ‘everybody hates chris’ which seem ohh so familiar… this show actually made me laugh…. however, i did notice the laugh track, and it kinda frightened me when i did and when i caught myself laughing along with it.. and then i got thinking.. maybe it’s so funny because of the laugh track.. maybe it is the laugh track that is inviting me to laugh and encouraging me to simply let go and enjoy the comic relief the show can provide..?.. both ‘my name is earl’ and ‘everybody hates chris’ exclude a laugh track.. but have jason lee and chris rock (respectively) narrating and coaching us through the plot and explaining why things are should be funny… either way.. we the viewers, audience, product, or whatever.. are being spoon-fed entertainment… and well, is that so bad?!… isn’t that what television is about… turning our brains off, somehow ‘connecting’ to stories/characters and getting lost in a vast wasteland…