

Paskin explains how the laugh track helped audiences of early television shows understand what they were seeing and feel like they were a part of a larger communal experience.

In this episode, we hear from a variety of television historians, enthusiasts, and writers, who dive into the history of the laugh track. But sometime in the early 2000s, the laugh track disappeared from sitcoms, a shift brought about by clever, fast-paced comedies like Arrested Development and The Office. On Decoder Ring, host Willa Paskin investigates cultural artifacts and phenomena in order to “figure out where it comes from, what it means, and why it matters.” This episode asks, what happened to the laugh track? If you’ve ever watched Seinfeld, Friends, or any classic sitcom, you’re familiar with the laugh track, probably to the point that you don’t even really think much about it–the sounds of a live studio audience can feel like punctuation. It’s a healing experience for Becky and Jo, who’ve spent decades wondering what they did wrong to drive her away and finally realize the answer was always, nothing. Leticia explains what happened to her that day and what was going on in her life at the time. Twenty years later, Goldstein gets to the bottom of what happened to their favorite babysitter, whom he tracks down from scraps of information about Leticia found in the girls’ childhood diaries. Her disappearance shattered their sense of safety, leaving them with abandonment issues that affected their relationships with subsequent babysitters and romantic partners. One babysitter, Leticia, who the sisters deeply loved, didn’t show up to pick them up from school one day.
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Becky and Jo, two sisters with Hollywood producer parents, grew up with a series of babysitters who came and went over the years. Often, as is the case in this episode, the show deals with moments that may appear small but left someone wrestling with lasting hurt and questions that haven’t been answered. On Heavyweight, host Jonathan Goldstein helps people work through unresolved interpersonal experiences. But it proves to be enough to track down the owner and origins of the belt buckle, involving decades-old newspaper articles, a message board, an art teacher, several chefs, and other surprises along the way. Carson has always wanted to find a way to return this special object to its original owner, so he enlists the help of Kine, who sets out to answer the following questions: who did the belt buckle belong to? How was it lost? How will the person react to getting it back? Her only lead is the two names engraved on it, a very small clue. It’s an intricate and unique art object, featuring a breakfast scene of miniature eggs and a toaster that actually pops out tiny pieces of toast when you press a button on the buckle. This episode centers around Carson, who wants to solve a mystery about an object he has carted around since childhood: a belt buckle a friend of his once found in the street.

Starlee Kine, the host of Mystery Show, takes on cases from people with nagging questions in their lives that can’t be solved using the Internet. None of these episodes will leave you in frustration, wondering, “But, what happened?” By the end, the question each episode poses will be answered. The following investigative podcast episodes are self-contained stories that stray from conventional true crime but are gripping nonetheless.
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There is something really charming about podcast teams treating, say, M&M McFlurries with the level of sincerity they would any other major story, wielding the full resources of their journalists and fact checkers to get to the bottom of when and why McDonalds stopped blending the toppings into this frozen dessert. Perhaps you’re also seeking a mystery with lower stakes than murder. But, sometimes, you just want to know the answer. Many podcasts that fit this description are acclaimed and beloved.

The words “long, meandering mystery podcasts” likely bring specific shows to mind, shows that present a mystery and spend hours on it, only to admit in the end that, even after tremendous amounts of research, interviews, and experiments, some things are just unknowable.
