A lot of live action comedy can be pretty tedious. With writing staff that can sometimes be out of touch with the changing scope of humor, and studio audiences whose voices were recorded in the 1950s and are now mostly deceased, leaving a choir of ghosts chiming in on every punchline or statement. That's why a lot of recent comedy shows have dropped the sound altogether. Nonetheless, that's not to say that television series with the laugh track is entirely bad or without merit.

A lot of more recent comedy series within the past 10-20 years have had a lot of focus on real situations that are made funny. You could say this started with Seinfeld or maybe something earlier, but it has never seen such massive popularity until shows like The Office, Trailer Park Boys and Parks and Recreations came around to create a form of comedic scripted documentary, where you could easily imagine real people getting caught up in all sorts of crazy situations. Other live action comedy series such as Always Sunny, Shameless, and Arrested Development go for a more expositional way of delivering jokes, as the best kinds of humor land while you're least expecting it, and some truly good jokes are so subversive you may miss it a first time. And then there's the dramedy part of the sitcom world, where we have shows like Silicon Valley and Atlanta which were absolutely written with humor in mind but with the intent of delivering a serious dramatic story.

What is your favorite live action comedy?

Mine is Always Sunny. A group of narcissists that are stuck as best friends running a bar who try to come up with some kind of insane scheme for success or vanity in each episode and always face the repercussions of their actions while never really learning their lesson, tricking each other and ruining lives along the way. It's one of the funniest shows I've ever seen, where situations go from bad to worse and always end up proving them wrong. It's gone through like 15 seasons and I can say there's only been like 2 episodes I thought weren't great.

My all-time favorite would be That 70's Show. It's the only live-action show up that I've ever went and watched all the episodes in order in as close to a single go as I could get. I loved everything bout it from the characters to the humor and the story was always entertaining because of how chaotic it would get.

Some of the others ones that I really love include Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, and Brooklyn Nine Nine. They're all amazing.

I've watched every episode of The Drew Carey Show....all nine seasons of it....all because I was on a Whose Line Kick (I've seen a good chunk of that too both the Drew era and the Aisha era and I'm actually sorry that they are taping their final episodes as we speak I want it to keep going but Colin and Ryan aren't getting any younger and to repeat what I said on twitter "They can cast a new group of people but they'll never be as funny" I actually did like the additions of Jonathan Magnum and Gary Anthony Williams, and Keegan Michael Key and Heather Anne Campbell (Nayima funk didn't stick around because of other commitments)

Honestly, none of them. I really have not seen a single live action comedy series that I enjoyed. I find that the type of humor that is deemed appropriate and marketable for TV shows just does not appeal to me. My friends love The Office, my dad and step-mom love Big Bang Theory, and I find both shows to be extremely uninteresting. Honestly, the only comedic TV show that I find at all entertaining is South Park (but, like, pre-2017). I think it's the satirical elements that really get to me. I'm a big satire guy.

tgags123 : Big Bang Theory, How I Met Your Mother, and stuff like Friends is the bane of my existence. If they were the only exposure I had to television comedy, I'd be on your side in this regard. My sense of humor is based heavily in absurdism and existentialist/nihilist dark comedy/satire. For me to find it funny, it needs to subvert expectations by pushing boundaries and doing wacky things that come from a place of consistency with the characters. South Park is a major example of my taste in satire.

I must make two very major recommendations to somebody that may have a similar taste in humor.

You should definitely give It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia a try. It's a show about five absolutely terrible people who run a bar together. In each episode one of the characters devises some kind of scheme to either solve a problem or boost their ego, and they always get hit with the consequences of their actions, but because they're such extreme narcissists living in a personal echo chamber, they never learn their lesson and there's no needed character development, which works perfectly for handling topical and risky situations. While there is continuity around the characters that surround the main characters and how they end up ruining the life of anybody around them for even a brief moment, I'd heavily recommmend giving a couple of very choice episodes a try before watching through the whole thing. The first season is great and super edgy, but it didn't really take off until the second season, where Danny DeVito comes in and plays the most disgusting character of them all, pretty much the Cartman of the group, except everybody's pretty much Cartman in this show. It has some of the grossest and most extreme storylines and jokes alongside a constant satirical reflection of the darkest representations of modern America.

The five characters each represent a distinct nastiness. Dennis is heavily implied to be a sex offender and sees himself as a god. Dee is bitter about her life and is insensitive, selfish, greedy, and prejudiced. Mac is focused solely on being a "mans man" and believes he is a master of martial arts and hides his insufferability behind heavy religiousness. Charlie is the wildcard who normally has an exceptionally poor understanding of most concepts and can't read, he also loves killing rats and huffing glue. Frank is a millionaire who thinks its the 1950s, and after getting comfortable with the others, he becomes the most horrible of them all, with constant psychological attacks on his friends and outlandishly horrible business ventures.

I made this list for Zanderlex a couple of weeks ago as he was starting it out and I wanted him to skip to some of the best moments to really get into it. Fear not though, across 15 seasons, the fan concensus is that there's only two bad episodes. Give one of these episodes a try, whichever sounds the most appealing:

The Gang Beats Boggs (they drink hundreds of beer on an airplane)
Chardee MacDennis (They make a really messed up board game / drinking game)
Charlie Work (a one-shot episode where Charlie tricks a health inspector)
The Gang Goes to a Water Park (they pretend they have aids to cut the line)
The DENNIS System (Dennis explains his system of "romance')
Frank Reynold's Little Beauties (Frank hosts a pre-teen beauty pagent)
The Gang Goes to the Jersey Shore (Jersey shore is disgusting and they do PCP)
The Gang Buys a Boat (Dennis thinks international waters will help with "romance")
Hero or Hate Crime? (Frank saves a life by using a slur)
Paddy's Has a Jumper (Somebody tries to commit suicide on their roof and they debate pushing him for press)
Mac and Charlie: White Trash (They move to the suburbs and can't handle normal life)
The Gang Wrestles for the Troops (They sell milk to wrestlers)
The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis (They siphon gas and sell it in a limousine dressed in tuxedos)
Mac Kills His Dad (Mac tries to save his father in prison)
The Gang Gets Extreme: Home Makeover Edition (they kidnap and terrorize a family while trying to renovate their home)
Charlie Kelly: King of Rats (They try to show appreciation for Charlie who is worn out from bashing rats)
The Gang Goes on Family Fight (Family Feud. What can go wrong?)

Another show I'd recommend is Nathan For You. It's a show about an awkward comedian who "tries to help" small businesses by coming up with extremely elaborate and ridiculously bad ideas, using psychological tricks and the aura of television cameras to keep them on board as things go off the rails. If you like Sacha Baron Cohen's work like Borat, this will be right up your alley.

Some pretty great episodes:

Electronic Store - He abuses Best Buy's price match policy by having a small electronics store sell televisions for $1 to be price matched. He implements several insane ideas to make sure nobody actually buys them while he tries to buy more from Best Buy for $1.

Clothing Store / Restaurant - A clothing store starts letting attractive people shoplift one item. He rebrands a restaurant with public washrooms to "Your Neighborhood Toilet"

Gas Station - He helps a gas station by offering heavy discounts on the gas through a mail in rebate that you can only reach at the top of a mountain.

Private Investigator - He has a PI hunt him down for a good Yelp review.

The Claw of Shame - He attempts a trick where he picks the lock on handcuffs before a robot arm pulls his pants down in front of a group of children, a police officer, and a judge.

Sporting Goods / Antique Shop - He helps a sporting goods shop by locking in a child as a lifetime sponsor. An antique shop closely located to a bar starts offering free pizza in the back, with a new, strict "You Break it, You Buy it" policy, luring drunk people to a heavy bill as merchandising shelves are pushed really close together.

Smokers Allowed - By hiring regular patrons of a bar as paid actors, he is able to allow smoking inside as it's a "performance"

The Hero - He commits identity fraud to turn an unaccomplished gamer into a local hero.

Chili Shop - He helps a chili shop by creating an elaborate suit that dispenses chili discreetly for a local hockey game.

The Anecdote - He learns everything to know about patterns in talk show guests in order to elaborately construct the perfect appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. He tells a surreal story on the show that he backed up by making the scenario actually happen. He used the majority of the season's budget on accomplishing this.

alexanyways : I appreciate the recommendations! I have a friend that really likes It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and we watched a few episodes together I think, but I it was primarily just there for background noise, rather than something I was actually focusing on. I'll have to give it a shot. My girlfriend is always looking for something new for us to watch together, so we can add that you our list.

Is Nathan For You the show with Dumb Starbucks (or something to that effect)? I have seen that episode, because I saw some news article about it online. If that is the same show, I did enjoy the premise behind it.

I'd say the office is probably my favorite overall, but there are a couple others that I like a good bit. I really love the characters and writing in the office, and the lack of a laugh track really makes it so much better (looking at you friends). I've seen every episode and, which the later seasons aren't as good, they're still an enjoyable watch. Those season 2-3 episodes though, those are incredible.

I also really liked the show Superstore, which was another NBC comedy where they worked in a Walmart type store. It is a very funny show, especially since they have random customer bits between scene cuts, and while they're made to be ridiculous, sometimes they feel all too real.

Brooklyn 99 is another show I loved watching and will still occasionally catch an episode of, but not all that often.

I consider both 911 series to be comedies (mostly because of the ridiculous situations that would cause 9-1-1 to be called)

I am an old school type person. These shows were right before my time as I'm from the 80's.

I was a fan of Hogan's Heroes but I don't know if that counts as live comedy.

I also liked the Carol Burnett Show. The sketches and skits were hilarious. Tim Conway, Lyle Wagner, Harvey Korman, Vicky Lawrence and Carol Burnett made that show. Thankfully, it comes on some of the old tv channels.

I also like Sanford and Son. That was another one of my favorites also. Especially Red Foxx (Fred Sandford) he would always crack me up.

A lot of my friend's liked the show Friends (popular in the 1990's). I saw one episode and I could not just get into it. I did not see what was so funny about it.