For the better half of the last century, multi-cam sitcoms across television relied on the laugh track to make TV shows better. Thanks to the laff box by Charley Douglass, favorite shows from Friends to Seinfeld would use canned laughter to sweeten the comedy. But over the last 10 years, the laugh track has disappeared almost entirely.
A towering construction crane caught fire high above the west side of Manhattan on Wednesday morning, then lost its long arm, which smashed against a nearby building, dangled and then plummeted to the street as people ran for their lives on the sidewalk below.