Phoebe is just annoying and unlikable

Yeah my burning hatred of Friends made me blind to Lisa Kudrow's talent until pretty recently

I'll add that the laugh track is doing a lot of heavy lifting for Seinfeld as well. Some of the writing is good but it might as well be called the Jason alexander show.

Joey seemed alright, until he moved to LA.

That’s the entire premise of ‘Kevin can f**k himself’ essentially spitting in the face of these feckless sitcoms covering shit writing with laughtracks.

If I recall, they literally just dropped it one episode and acknowledged it with an "oh well."

He eventually got over it, but yeah it was forced and uncomfortable.

Friends I never understood. I didn't have a problem with most of it. It just... Sucked. It wasn't good. I had more of a problem with Seinfeld but accepted that it was superior.

Oh damn, maybe I need to seek out the European versions of MASH episodes then.

I loved the movie, but then couldn't get past the first couple episodes of the show because of the goddamn laugh track

Sure, but also it becomes very unfunny even without that facet due to the awkward pauses. The pacing just gets mutilated as they 'pause for laughter'.

A common trope is that some scene is just 'funny' with the laugh track, but without it, people just seem psycho, because they sit there, noiselessly after so many sentences.