On Sitcoms

So, I don't know about what sitcoms do to create humor.
I've never found them very funny. If anything I feel like Three and A Half Men and things of that ilk are grating and painful to watch-- like nails on a chalkboard, but for your eyes as well as your ears.

Anyway, there are definately some recurring motifs in sticom's I noticed.
1) The laugh track/audience, always laughs uproriously at the slightest provocation to inform the viewer that "YOUR SUPPOSED TO LAUGH NOW!"
2) People converse in witty and often stilted banter instead of normal conversation. This banter is often vaguley suggestive, is always very simple and accessible, even though characters who partake of it do not always understand the jokes.
3) For whatever reason the funny characters in the show tell jokes, but no one ever laughs at them except the audience. This is particularly true for the Chandler character on friends who is supposed to be the funny one yet his friends apparantly cannot even hear his sarcastic remarks and certainly dont laugh at him.
4) Sitcoms love pregnant pauses during which time characters look meaningfully or askance at eachother. This is another way they inform the viewer that something funny is happening.