A laugh track (or laughter track) is an audio recording consisting of laughter (and other audience reactions) usually used as a separate soundtrack for comedy productions. The laugh track may contain live audience reactions or artificial laughter (canned laughter or fake laughter) made to be inserted into the show, or a combination of the two. The use of canned laughter to "sweeten" the laugh track was pioneered by American sound engineer Charles Douglass.
The Douglass laugh track became a standard in mainstream television in the U.S., dominating most prime-time sitcoms and sketch comedies from the late 1950s to the late 1970s. Use of the Douglass laughter decreased by the 1980s upon the development of stereophonic laughter. In addition, single-camera sitcoms eliminated audiences altogether. Canned laughter is used to encourage the viewer to laugh.
History in the United States
Radio Before radio and television, audiences experienced live comedy performances in the presence of other audience members. Radio and early television producers used recordings of live shows and later studio-only shows attempted to recreate this atmosphere by introducing the sound of laughter or other crowd reactions into the soundtrack.
Jack Dadswell, former owner of WWJB in Florida, created the first "laughing record".
In 1946, U.S. Army Signal Corps Major Jack Mullin brought back two Magnetophon recorders and 50 reels of magnetic tape from a German radio station at the end of World War II. The high-fidelity recorders had been built by German companies BASF and AEG and could record 20 minutes per reel of high-quality audio. Alexander M. Poniatoff had his Ampex company manufacture a version of the Magnetophon for use in radio production. Popular vocalist Bing Crosby later adopted the technology to pre-record his weekly radio show.
The new recording method allowed sounds to be added during post-production. Jack Mullin explained how the laugh track was invented on Crosby's show:
Early live U.S. television, film; "sweetening" In early television, many shows used the single-camera filmmaking technique, filming each scene several times from different camera angles. Live audiences could not be relied upon to laugh at the "correct" moments, or might laugh too loudly or too long.
CBS sound engineer Charley Douglass noticed these inconsistencies, and took sweetening audience reactions. If a joke did not get the desired chuckle, Douglass inserted additional recorded laughter; if the live audience chuckled too long, Douglass gradually muted the guffaws. The process could also be used to "desweeten" audience reactions by toning down unwanted loud laughter to conform with the producer's conception.
Douglass built a prototype laugh machine using a reel of tape containing recordings of mild laughs glued to the edge of a 28 inch wooden wheel. The machine was operated by a key that played until it hit another detent on the wheel, playing a complete laugh. CBS demanded possession of the machine when Douglass left the company and the prototype machine fell apart within months of use. Douglass expanded his technique in 1953 by extracting laughter and applause from recorded pantomime segments of The Red Skelton Show and other sources. The recorded sounds were placed into a huge tape machine.
The first American television show to incorporate a laugh track was the sitcom The Hank McCune Show in 1950. Other single-camera filmed shows soon followed suit though several, like The Trouble with Father (ABC, 1950–1955), The Beulah Show (ABC, 1950–1952) and The Goldbergs (1949–1956), did not feature an audience or laugh-track. The anthology series Four Star Playhouse did not utilize a laugh-track or audience on its occasional comedic episodes, with co-producer David Niven calling the laugh track "wild indiscriminate mirth" and stating, "We shall carry on without mechanical tricks".
Multi-camera shows Soon after the introduction of the laugh track, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz began filming their sitcom I Love Lucy with a live studio audience using a setup of multiple film cameras. The show had no laugh track and used audience reactions. Some multi-camera shows with live audiences would use recorded laughs to supplement responses. For variety shows, the migration to videotape from live broadcast allowed editing before the show aired, but editing a taped audience would caused bumps and gaps on the soundtrack. Charley Douglass was called on to bridge the gaps.
Both performers and producers began to realize the power behind prerecorded laughter. While witnessing an early post-production editing session, comedian Milton Berle once pointed out a particular joke and said, "as long as we're here doing this, that joke didn't get the response we wanted". After Douglass inserted a hearty laugh following the failed joke, Berle reportedly commented, "See? I told you it was funny". The comedian Bob Hope, while working on one of his television specials, took Douglass's hands in his own and began rubbing them to create the effect of limbering up Douglass's fingers, saying "OK, now, give me some good laughs."
1960s As the medium evolved, production costs associated with broadcasting live television escalated. Filming with a studio audience, such as I Love Lucy or The Ed Sullivan Show also had limitations: half the audience could not see the show from their seats. Douglass would be brought in to simulate reactions for the duration of the show. Producers soon realized it was simpler to film a show without an audience and tailor the reactions during post-production. Directors initially did not allow space for inserting reactions, making sweetening difficult and causing dialogue to be drowned out. Audience response cards repeatedly came back saying that laughter seemed forced or contrived. Writers began timing scripts to allow space for the laugh track. Directors left pauses for as-yet-unheard audience reactions and producers budgeted for post-production so Douglass could edit with greater ease.
Most television sitcoms produced during the 1950s and 1960s used the single-camera technique, with a laugh track simulating the absent audience. Producers became disenchanted with the multi-camera format; consensus at the time was that live audiences were tense, nervous and rarely laughed on cue.
Hogan's Heroes
Network research indicated that the inclusion of a laugh track was considered essential for categorizing a single-camera show as a comedy. This hypothesis was tested in 1965 when CBS conducted an experiment involving its new single-camera sitcom Hogan's Heroes (1965–1971), presenting two versions of the pilot episode to test audiences: one with a laugh track and one without. The version without the laugh track, due in part to the show's more cerebral humor, performed poorly, while the version with the laugh track garnered a more favorable reception. Consequently, Hogan's Heroes was broadcast with the laugh track, and CBS subsequently incorporated laugh tracks into all of its comedic programming.
Sitcom laugh tracks differed, depending on the style of the show. The more outlandish the show, the more invasive the laugh track. Shows like Bewitched, The Munsters, I Dream of Jeannie and The Beverly Hillbillies relied heavily on laugh tracks, while more subdued programs, like The Andy Griffith Show, The Brady Bunch and My Three Sons, had more modulated laughter. Certain shows, like Get Smart, featured a laugh track that became more invasive as the series progressed, while shows like M*A*S*H toned down the laughter as the series became more dramatic; it was entirely absent during operating room scenes.
By the mid-1960s, nearly every U.S. sitcom was shot using the single camera and was fitted with a laughter track. Only a handful of programs, such as The Joey Bishop Show, The Dick Van Dyke Show, and The Lucy Show used studio audiences but augmented the real laughter via "sweetening."
Charley Douglass and the mysterious "laff box" From the late 1950s to the early 1970s, Douglass had a monopoly on the expensive and painstaking laugh business. By 1960, nearly every prime time show in the U.S. was sweetened by Douglass. When it came time to "lay in the laughs", the producer directed Douglass where and when to insert the type of laugh requested. Inevitably, disagreements arose between Douglass and the producer, but the producer had final say. After taking his directive, Douglass went to work at creating the audience, out of sight from the producer or anyone else present at the studio.
Critic Dick Hobson commented in a July 1966 TV Guide article that the Douglass family were "the only laugh game in town." Very few in the industry ever witnessed Douglass using his invention, as he was notoriously secretive about his work, and was one of the most talked-about men in the television industry.
Douglass formed Northridge Electronics in August 1960, named after the Los Angeles suburb in the San Fernando Valley where the Douglass family resided and operated their business in a padlocked garage. When their services were needed, they wheeled the device into the editing room, plugged it in, and went to work. Production studios became accustomed to seeing Douglass shuttling from studio to studio to mix in his manufactured laughs during post-production.
The technological advancements pioneered by Douglass closely resembled those found in musical instruments such as the Chamberlain Music Master and Mellotron. His sophisticated one-of-a-kind device – affectionately known in the industry as the "laff box" – was tightly secured with padlocks, stood more than two feet tall, and operated like an organ. Douglass used a keyboard similar to that of a typewriter to select the corresponding style, gender and age of the laugh as well as a pedal to time the length of the reaction. Inside the machine was a wide array of recorded chuckles, yocks and belly laughs: 320 laughs on 32 tape loops, ten to a loop. Each loop contained up to ten individual audience laughs spliced end-to-end, whirling around simultaneously waiting to be cued up. Since the tapes were looped, laughs were played in the same order repeatedly. Sound engineers could watch sitcoms and knew exactly which recurrent guffaws were next, even if they were viewing an episode for the first time. Douglass frequently combined different laughs, either long or short in length. Attentive viewers could spot when he decided to mix chuckles together to give the effect of a more diverse audience. Rather than being simple recordings of a laughing audience, Douglass's laughs were carefully generated and mixed, giving some laughs detailed identities such as "the guy who gets the joke early" and "housewife giggles" and "the one who didn't get the joke but is laughing anyway" all blended and layered to create the illusion of a real audience responding to the show in question. A man's deep laugh would be switched for a new woman's laugh, or a high-pitched woman's giggle would be replaced with a man's snicker. One producer noticed a recurrent laugh of a woman whom he called "the jungle lady" because of her high-pitched shriek. After regularly complaining to Douglass, the laugh was retired from the regular lineup.