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Carl Kleinschmitt, the sitcom writer who worked on The Dick Van Dyke Show and M*A*S*H and created two series starring Sandy Duncan and the football comedy 1st and Ten, has died. He was 85.

Kleinschmitt died Thursday night of complications from Mds cancer (a blood disorder) at his Atwater Village home in Los Angeles, a family spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.

Kleinschmitt, who wrote often with the late Dale McRaven, penned episodes of such other series as Hey Landlord, Good Morning World, The Doris Day Show, That Girl, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Love, American Style, My World and Welcome to It, Karen, Welcome Back, Kotter and The Love Boat.

He also wrote two features: Middle Age Crazy (1980), starring Bruce Dern and Ann-Margret, and Kiss Shot (1989), starring Whoopi Goldberg.

In 1971, Kleinschmitt created the CBS sitcom Funny Face,...

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Dale McRaven, the Emmy-nominated comedy writer and producer who created Mork & Mindy with Garry Marshall and then the long-running Perfect Strangers on his own, has died. He was 83.

McRaven died Sept. 5 of complications from lung cancer at his home in Porter Ranch, California, his son, David McRaven, told The Hollywood Reporter.

McRaven also served as a writer on the fifth and final season of CBS’ The Dick Van Dyke Show and as a writer-producer on ABC’s The Partridge Family during that musical comedy’s 1970-74 run. Plus, he and Marshall created the 1979-80 ABC sitcom Angie, starring Donna Pescow and Robert Hays.

Perfect Strangers, from Miller-Boyett Productions and Lorimar Television, debuted in March 1986 and starred Mark Linn-Baker and Bronson Pinchot as mismatched cousins — one an American, the other from the fictional island of Mypos — who live together in a Chicago apartment.

As the Emmys approach on Monday, there is an impressive roster of comedy series nominees like “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Abbott Elementary,” “Ted Lasso,” “Hacks,” “Barry,” “Only Murders in the Building.” What do they have in common, besides wit and delightful (or delightfully cranky or murderous) characters? As with virtually every top TV comedy of this millennium, the laughter you hear is your own!

It was not always that way. For decades beginning in the 1950s, TV comedies boosted their punchlines with the use of recorded laughter. In a a time when TV shows were primarily filmed in front of a studio audience (think “I Love Lucy”), CBS sound engineer named Charley Douglass thought that the audience’s organic reactions weren’t good enough. So, he started manipulating the audio levels in postproduction, developing a machine nicknamed the Laff Box.

Even when shows became more sophisticated, most used some form of laugh track for “sweetening.