Laugh track

"Canned laughter" redirects here. For the Rowan Atkinson sitcom, see Canned Laughter (sitcom).

A laugh track (a.k.a. canned laughter, laughter soundtrack, laughter track, LFN [laughter from nowhere], laugh in a can, laughing audience, fake laughter) is a separate soundtrack invented by Charles "Charley" Douglass, with the artificial sound of audience laughter, made to be inserted into TV comedy shows and sitcoms. The term does not apply to the genuine audience laughter on shows that shoot in front of audiences.

History

Radio

Before television, audiences often experienced comedy, whether performed live on stage, on radio, or in a movie, in the presence of other audience members. Later radio and early television producers attempted to recreate this atmosphere by introducing the sound of laughter or other crowd reactions into the soundtrack.

In 1946, Jack Mullin had brought back a Magnetophon magnetic tape recorder from Radio Frankfurt, along with 50 reels of tape. It was one of the magnetic tape recorders that BASF and AEG had built in Germany starting in 1935. The 6.5mm ferric-oxide-coated tape could record 20 minutes per reel of high-quality sound, and Alexander M. Poniatoff then ordered his Ampex company, which he founded in 1944, to manufacture an improved version of the Magnetophon for use in radio production

A year later, Bing Crosby, now known as much for having the use of magnetic recording equipment popularized in American radio, film and television as he is for his singing and acting, invested the then-astronomical sum of US$50,000 in Ampex tape recorders with an eye towards producing more machines, all of which in those days had to be purchased through Bing Crosby Enterprises as a result.

In 1948, the second season of the Philco Radio Time show was then recorded with the new Ampex Model 200 tape recorder using the new Scotch 111 tape from the Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3M) company. Mullin explained how the laugh track was invented on the Crosby show with these machines:

"The hillbilly comic Bob Burns was on the show one time, and threw a few of his then-extremely racy and off-color folksy farm stories into the show. We recorded it live, and they all got enormous laughs, which just went on and on, but we couldn't use the jokes. Today those stories would seem tame by comparison, but things were different in radio then, so scriptwriter Bill Morrow asked us to save the laughs. A couple of weeks later he had a show that wasn't very funny, and he insisted that we put in the salvaged laughs. Thus the laugh-track was born."

The first American television show to incorporate a laugh track was the American sitcom The Hank McCune Show in 1950.

Early Live Television, Film and Kinescope

The biggest reason the laugh track caught on was simply because historically, live audiences could not be relied upon to laugh at the correct moment. Other times, the audiences could laugh too long or too loud, sounding unnatural and forced or throwing off the performers' rhythms.

CBS sound engineer Charley Douglass noticed these, as he put it, "God-awful" responses, and took it upon himself to remedy the situation. If a joke did not get the desired chuckle, Douglass inserted additional laughter and if the live audience chuckled for too long, Douglass gradually muted the guffaws. This editing technique became known as "sweetening", in which pre-recorded laughter is used to augment the response of the real studio audience if they did not react as strongly as desired.

Douglass eventually spent countless hours extracting laughter, applause, and other reactions (right down to people moving around in their seats) from live soundtracks he had recorded (mainly from the dialogue-less The Red Skelton Show) and then placed the recorded sounds into a huge tape machine, dubbed the "laff box," the basic concept of which would later be reworked as the Chamberlin Music Master and succeeded by the more widely-known Mellotron.

At first, proprietors of such live shows as The Jack Benny Program insisted the canned "audience reactions" be "softer" and "lower") and as a result, its insertion went by largely unnoticed.

Trying to work post-production magic on a broadcast which had been performed before a live audience and recorded on film was troublesome, leaving gaps and other types of drop-outs in the audio portion of the program. As a result, the practice rarely resulted in the high-quality type of finished show desired by the producers or host who were always looking for improvements.

The Switch to Videotape

By the end of the 1950s, live comedy had transitioned from film to videotape, which allowed for greater ease in editing during post-production. Since editing a prerecorded live show caused bumps and gaps on the soundtrack, Douglass was then called upon to "bridge or fill" these gaps, and eventually, both performers and producers began to realize the power behind these prerecorded chuckles.

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 guffaw after the failed joke, Berle reportedly commented, "See? I told you it was funny."

After a live show was filmed however, producers were then faced with the onerous task of not only adding in laughter where it was needed, but also the more arduous task of removing all overdone or annoying live audience reaction as well. In addition, Douglass would then be recruited during post-production to "desweeten" the episode in question as well in order to create a tighter performance for broadcast.

Filming Without an Audience

By the early 1960s, live television became too cost prohibitive to use on a daily or weekly basis. Filming in a studio had its limitations as well, as half the audience could hardly see or hear the show from where they were sitting, which created additional problems. People could not laugh at what they could not see or hear, and as the consensus at the time was that live audiences were tense, nervous and rarely laughed on cue anyway, Douglass was then brought in to simulate the reactions from an entire live studio audience from scratch for the duration of the entire show.

As a result, producers began to realize how much simpler it was to just film a show without any live audience at all and then create and tailor the whole audience reaction themselves in post-production. But originally, writers, producers and directors failed to allow space for the laugh track, making sweetening difficult. Because there was not enough space in which to insert enough laughter in order for the show to retain its live feel, audience response cards repeatedly came back saying that the audience reactions on the shows seemed "forced" or "contrived".

After a few years of this, writers became more conscious of the space required for the laugh track and began writing and timing their scripts around it. As a result, on-set directors then began leaving room for as-yet-unheard audience reactions and producers began allocating more budget money for post-production so that Douglass could later edit with greater ease.

The Hogan's Heroes Test

However, Charley Douglass’ famous invention endured a proper test early in 1965 when producers were trying to launch Hogan's Heroes . CBS screened two versions of the same episode to test audiences to gauge audience reactions; one with the laugh track, one without. CBS was trying to elevate the expectations of the American public by attempting to sell Hogan's Heroes as a cerebral comedy, but the audience viewing the silent version were left confused, and the episode failed miserably. While the version with the canned laughter succeeded and CBS gave the show a green light, several members of the original creative staff, annoyed with the supposed need to lead the audience along, left over these and other creative differences. But after the show became a big hit with the laugh track, no sitcom ever went on the air without at least a touch-up from Charley Douglass’s laff box.

Shows like The Beverly Hillbillies featured an invasive audience response, with the laugh track virtually humming through an entire episode.

Types and Degrees of the Laugh Track

Shows like Bewitched, The Munsters and The Beverly Hillbillies are virtual showcases of Douglass’ editing skill. The more outlandish the show, the more invasive the laugh track. Conversely, low-key shows, like The Andy Griffith Show, The Brady Bunch, and My Three Sons, resulted in the laugh track chuckling along barely above a whimper. Certain shows, like Get Smart, featured a laugh track that became more invasive as the series progressed, while a shows like M*A*S*H toned down the chuckles as the series became more dramatic.

By the mid-1960s, nearly every sitcom or variety show had canned laughter dubbed onto their soundtrack. Even the few remaining live sitcoms like The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Lucy Show were sweetened with canned laughter.

It should be noted however that, even as far back as the 1950s, there were a number of comedy shows such as The Beulah Show, The Goldbergs and The Trouble with Father (except the last season), which were produced without a studio audience or laugh track and became big hits in spite of it.

Charley Douglass and the mysterious "laff box"

From the late 1950s to the early 1970s, Charley Douglass had a monopoly on the expensive and painstaking "laff" business. By 1960, nearly every prime time show in America was "sweetened" by Douglass’ laff box. As TV Guide critic Dick Hobson put it in 1966, the Douglass family were "the only laugh game in town."

The Douglass family was quite eccentric, with Charley himself being one of the most talked about men in television history. Production studios became accustomed to seeing Douglass shuttling from studio to studio to mix in his manufactured laughs during post-production. When it came time to "lay in the laughs", the producer would direct Douglass where and when to insert the type of laugh requested. Inevitably, arguments arose between Douglass and the producer, but in the end, the producer always won.

After taking his directive, Douglass would then go to work at creating the audience, out of sight from the producer or anyone else present at the studio. Very few in the industry ever witnessed Douglass using his mysterious "laff box", and he was notoriously secretive about his work.

The one-of-a-kind device was tightly secured with padlocks, stood more than two feet tall, and operated like an organ. Douglass used a keyboard to select the style, gender and age of the laugh as well as a foot pedal to time the length of the reaction. The concept would explode onto the music scene a few years later as the Chamberlin Music Master and be improved upon to create the more widely known Mellotron and the MacKenzie Repeater.

Inside the padlocked concoction was an array of recorded chuckles, yocks, and belly laughs; exactly 320 laughs on 32 tape loops, 10 to a loop. Each loop contained 10 individual audience laughs spliced end-to-end, whirling around simultaneously waiting to be cued up. Astute listeners will notice that the bulk of the chuckles always laugh repeatedly in the same order. Experts began listening to sitcoms more closely and began to know exactly which recurrent guffaws would play next, even if they were watching an episode for the first time. Frequently, Douglass would combine different laughs, either long or short in length, but attentive viewers could spot when he decided to mix chuckles together to give the effect of a more diverse audience.

The laugh track was played on a seasonal basis. Before every season, Douglass would record new laughs, drop ones of the current season, and even recycle laughs from older seasons. On occasion, especially after 1965, Douglass would re-record his laughs in mid-season, meaning he would play the updated laugh track beginning in January of the new year. The following shows featured updated laugh tracks mid-season:

• Petticoat Junction
• The Munsters
• The Beverly Hillbillies
• Green Acres
• The Flintstones
• Get Smart
• That Girl
• The Andy Griffith Show
• Bewitched
• My Three Sons

Controversy and bucking the trend in America

The practice of simulating an audience reaction was controversial from the very beginning. A silent minority of producers despised the idea of a prerecorded audience reaction. Inventor Douglass was aware that his "laff box" was maligned by critics and actors, but also knew that the utilization of a laugh track became standard practice and as a result, a necessity in the industry. Leading industry experts reasoned that laugh tracks were a necessary evil in prime time television: without the canned laughter, a show was doomed to fail. It was believed that the absence of guffaws meant American viewers could not tell if the particular show was indeed a comedy. That did not stop several from forgoing the laugh track entirely:

• Former child star Jackie Cooper believed that the laugh track was false. Cooper's comedy/drama Hennesey (CBS, 1959–62) was cancelled in 1962 after a three-season run. For its first two seasons, the show used only a mild laugh track (known as a "titter" track); by the third and final season, the chuckles were eliminated completely and, soon thereafter, so was Hennesey. Cooper later commented that "we're manufacturing a reaction to our own creation, yet we'll never know if people out there are really laughing." Cooper concluded by saying, "It's a put-on all the time."
• In September 1964, the comedy/drama Kentucky Jones (NBC, 1964–65), starring Dennis Weaver, tried to eliminate laughs, simulated or live. After only five episodes and slumping ratings, Douglass was recruited to add the laugh track, but the damage had been done. Kentucky Jones was cancelled the following April.
• Ross Bagdasarian, Sr., creator of the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise, outright refused to utilize a laugh track when production began on The Alvin Show (CBS, 1961–62) in 1961. Bagdasarian's reasoning was if the show was funny, the viewers would laugh without being prompted. The Alvin Show was cancelled after a single season.
• Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz refused to employ a laugh track during the production of the holiday favorite A Charlie Brown Christmas (CBS, 1965). Like Bagdasarian, Schulz maintained that the audience should be able to enjoy the show at their own pace, without being cued when to laugh. When CBS executives saw the final product, they were horrified and believed the special would be a flop (CBS did create a version of the show with the laugh track added, just in case Schulz changed his mind. This version remains unavailable). When the show first aired on December 9, 1965, it was a surprise critical and commercial hit.
• The musical sitcom The Monkees (NBC, 1966–68) featured a laugh track throughout its first season and several episodes of the second. Midway through Season 2, the Monkees themselves insisted the show eliminate the laugh track, believing their viewers were intelligent enough to know where the jokes were. NBC, already annoyed by the manufactured rock group wanting too much control over their show, cancelled The Monkees after Season 2 concluded, citing the non-existent laugh track as a major factor.
• Bill Cosby's first sitcom, The Bill Cosby Show (NBC, 1969–71) was also produced without a laugh track at the insistence of Cosby. He stated that his opposition to NBC's desire to add a laugh track led to the show's cancellation after only two seasons.
• The series Sledge Hammer! (ABC, 1986–88) began with laugh tracks in the soundtrack, much to creator Alan Spencer's disapproval. After months of fighting with ABC, Spencer had his wish granted when the laugh tracks were removed from the series starting with episode 14, "State of Sledge".
• Larry Gelbart, creator of M*A*S*H (CBS, 1972–83), initially wanted the show to air entirely without a laugh track ("Just like the actual Korean War", he remarked dryly). However, CBS rejected the idea. Eventually a compromise was reached, and the producers of the series were allowed to omit the laugh track during operating room scenes if they wished. As a result, few scenes in the operating room contain canned laughter. Seasons 1-5 utilized a more invasive laugh track; however, as the series progressed, and shifted from a sitcom with dramatic undertones to a drama with comedic undertones, Douglass began to utilize a more subtle laugh track containing quieter chuckles. Several episodes ("O.R.", "The Bus", ""Quo Vadis, Captain Chandler?", "The Interview", "Point of View", "Dreams") omitted the laugh track altogether. The series' 135-minute finale—"Goodbye, Farewell and Amen"—also did not include a laugh track. The laugh track is also omitted from some international and syndicated airings of the show; on one occasion during an airing in the UK, the laugh track was accidentally left on, and viewers expressed their displeasure, an apology from the network for the "technical difficulty" was later released. The DVD releases, meanwhile, give the viewer a choice of laughing or non-laughing soundtracks.
• Sports Night (ABC, 1998–2000) premiered with a laugh track, against the wishes of show creator Aaron Sorkin, but the laugh track became more subtle as the season progressed and was completely removed at the start of the second season. In some cases, a laugh track was needed to maintain continuity, as portions of each episode were filmed in front of a live audience, while the remainder were filmed without an audience present.

Live TV makes a comeback

Though the use of canned laughter reached its peak in the 1960s, the trend began to reverse in 1968 when The Good Guys (NBC, 1968–1970) (starring Bob Denver from Gilligan's Island) attempted to tape the show in front of a live audience, with a laugh track sweetened in post-production. The first few episodes of the first season were taped in front of a live audience. Production changes in location, however, caused the rest of the first season to utilize just a laugh track, and it continued through the second season until low ratings caused the show to go off-the-air in 1970. With the 1971 debut of All in the Family (CBS, 1971–79), however, the trend shifted and live TV made a huge comeback. As proclaimed over the closing credits each week ("All in the Family was recorded on tape before a live audience" or "All in the Family was played to a studio audience for live responses.") the sitcom relied upon live, unprompted audience responses.

The resurgence of live audiences began to take hold with the success of All in the Family and The Odd Couple. Other sitcoms to utilize the live format with sweetening performed during post-production were The Mary Tyler Moore Show (CBS, 1970–77), The Bob Newhart Show (CBS, 1972–78) and Maude (CBS, 1972–78).

Jack Klugman and Tony Randall expressed displeasure during the first season of The Odd Couple (ABC, 1970–75), which utilized a laugh track without a live audience. Theatre veteran Randall, in particular, resented the usage of the laugh track, and wanted to perform in front of a live audience. ABC relented and by the second season, The Odd Couple was filmed with three cameras (vs. a single camera the previous season) and performed like a stage play in front of a studio audience. Douglass’ "laff box", however, was used in post-production to sweeten and smooth out the live reactions.

The sitcom Happy Days (ABC, 1974–84) mirrored The Odd Couple scenario. Its first two seasons utilized only a laugh track, and by third season, shifted over to a live audience with sweetening done in post-production.

Several hour-long comedy-dramas, however, retained the usage of a laugh track only, such as The Love Boat and Eight is Enough.

In the intervening years beginning with live film, progressing through videotape and onto studio-filmed productions with no live audience back to live-on-tape, Douglass had gone from merely enhancing or tweaking a soundtrack, to literally customizing entire audience reactions to each performance and back again to enhancing and tweaking performances recorded with live audiences.

Usage in America, post-1990

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Sitcoms produced using the single camera style like NBC's The Office have won praise for not including a laugh track.

Laugh-track-free production has been gaining ground in the U.S. since the early 1990s. The Larry Sanders Show won critical praise for not including a laugh track. Such shows are often produced in the more expensive single-camera style usually reserved for one-hour drama, using on-location shooting and high production values, as opposed to the standard multi-camera sitcom sound stage. Recent live action North American sitcoms that adopted this style include the following:

• Malcolm in the Middle
• Strangers With Candy
• Community
• Linc's
• Arrested Development
• Curb Your Enthusiasm
• My Name Is Earl
• The Bernie Mac Show
• Modern Family
• Ugly Betty
• Glee
• The Office
• Trailer Park Boys
• Scrubs
• 30 Rock
• Samantha Who?
• Parks and Recreation
• Flight of the Conchords
• It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
• Bakersfield P.D.
• Cougar Town
• Better Off Ted.
• Everybody Hates Chris
• The Middle

Since the 2000s, shows with laugh tracks have become rarities in contending for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series. In 2000, of the five nominated shows, only Sex and the City did not use a laugh track or a live studio audience. Of the seven shows nominated in 2009, only How I Met Your Mother used a laugh track (provided by an audience viewing the completed episode).

Some shows, like Hot in Cleveland, Mike and Molly and Rules of Engagement, still retain the practice of taping before a live audience with sweetening performed during post-production:

Sweetening is a common practice in live awards shows such as the Emmy Awards, the Academy Awards, and the MTV Video Music Awards as the microphones on-stage often do not fully pick up the audience's laughter and reaction to the monologues. In addition, unlike in a sitcom, audiences are not recorded in live awards shows due to the amount of conversation that takes place during production. Laughter and applause are often sweetened and edited prior to public viewing, or if aired live, are done on the spot via a 7-second delay. (The same sweetening crew is also used to mute curse words and controversial statements from award winners). The Kids Choice Awards heavily uses laugh tracks that feature adults despite the fact that the audience is composed of mostly pre-teens.

Cartoons and children's shows

The Pink Panther Show was one of many Saturday morning cartoon shows that utilized a laugh track.

Prime time live-action shows were not the only genre to employ a laugh track, as the canned chuckles were eventually used in some prime time animated television series that would not employ a live audience. The Flintstones and The Jetsons incorporated laugh tracks.

Afternoon cartoon shows employed the laugh track on occasion as well. The first episodes of Rocky and His Friends utilized one, as did The Banana Splits Adventure Hour. Eventually, the laugh track entered the world of Saturday morning cartoons, beginning with the Filmation-produced The Archie Show in 1968. Many other Filmation shows employed a laugh track, including Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, The Brady Kids, Groovy Goolies, and The New Adventures of Gilligan. The studio ceased using the chuckles by 1983.

By 1969, nearly all cartoon shows produced—both for the Saturday morning fare as well as prime time—followed Filmation's lead and included Douglass’s laugh track, including The Pink Panther Show, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, Harlem Globetrotters and Josie and the Pussycats.

Making their own

Hanna-Barbera

Early in 1971, Hanna-Barbera opted not to pay for Charley Douglass’s services. Pre-1971 hits like Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Harlem Globetrotters, and Josie and the Pussycats employed a laugh track, but Hanna-Barbera looked for any chance to cut costs. As a result, instead of utilizing a full laugh track, a sound engineer at the Hanna-Barbera studios isolated approximately half a dozen canned chuckles from Douglass’ vast library. Mixed with an almost tinny, metallic sound to it, there were approximately five mild laughs, plus one or two uncontrollable belly-laughs (one contains a very audible woman cackling at the tail end). This limited laugh track did not contain any looping tapes with 10 assorted laughs per tape, no endless variety of chuckles and no titter track. When audience reaction was needed, the limited laughs were dubbed repeatedly. On occasion, two or three of the chuckles were combined to give the effect that there was more diversity to the already limited laugh track.

Critics took note of the inferior sounding laugh track permeating Hanna-Barbera's Saturday morning fare. The same prerecorded laugh can be heard after nearly every punchline, and oddly even at times when no punchline was even intended. The fact that the treble was mixed far too high for the soundtrack it accompanies only drew attention to the falsity of the practice. Several shows that use the abridged laugh track are listed as follows:

• Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch! (CBS, 1971–1972)
• The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show (CBS, 1971–1972)
• The Flintstone Comedy Hour (CBS, 1972–1973)
• Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space (CBS, 1972–1974)
• The New Scooby-Doo Movies (CBS, 1972–1974)
• Jeannie (CBS, 1973–1975)
• Hong Kong Phooey (ABC, 1974–1976)
• Jabberjaw (ABC, 1976–1978)
• The Scooby-Doo Show (ABC, 1976–1978)
• Dynomutt, Dog Wonder (ABC, 1976–1977)
• Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels (ABC, 1977–1980)
• The Super Globetrotters (NBC, 1979–1980)

On occasion, the studio would slow down the laugh track for a greater effect; this was done in Season 2 of The New Scooby-Doo Movies.

Hanna-Barbera also used the limited laugh track when they produced Wait Till Your Father Gets Home in 1972, their first prime time animated television show since the demise of The Flintstones in 1966. This laugh track was also slowed down during production, plus the studio added a third belly laugh to add a little more "variety" to the track (This was the only TV series made by Hanna-Barbera to have this added belly laugh).

The laugh track was discontinued after the 1979-80 television season. The final shows to receive the chuckles were Captain Caveman, Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo, Super Globetrotters and Casper's First Christmas.

Rankin/Bass

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Rankin/Bass' The Jackson 5ive featured an inferior laugh track dubbed onto its soundtrack, drawing attention to the falsity of the practice.

Animation studio Rankin/Bass also experimented with creating their own laugh track for The Jackson 5ive Saturday morning cartoon show. Like Hanna-Barbera, Rankin/Bass isolated several snippets of canned chuckles from Douglass’ library, and inserted them onto the soundtrack. Unlike Hanna-Barbera, though, the chuckles were nothing but loud eruptions of laughter; mild jokes received unnatural bouts of laughter, while other times, the laughter would erupt mid-sentence. The poorly edited laugh track emphasized the artificial nature of canned laughter more than Hanna-Barbera's version; as a result, Rankin/Bass ceased using laugh tracks after The Jackson 5ive mishap.

Rankin/Bass' laugh track, however, did provide a better variety of laughs when compared to the extremely limited Hanna-Barbera laugh track. The laugh track also was more up-to-date; most of the chuckles used on the Rankin/Bass laugh track were used on a regular basis during the 1971-1972 and 1972-1973 television seasons.

The Muppet Show

Unlike the two "silent" pilots before it, The Muppet Show series incorporated its own laugh track onto the show, but in a completely different manner; because the variety program was modeled after vaudeville, oftentimes the viewers would be treated to glimpse of the theater audience and their reactions to The Muppets' antics on stage (though the audience was composed of Muppet characters as well).

As the show was produced overseas at the ATV studios in Elstree, England, Jim Henson and his Muppet production team were able to bypass Douglass’ easily recognizable laughs. New laughs, chuckles, and even applauses were recorded for the first few episodes so they would sound fresh and new. Some of these guffaws were provided by the actual cast and crew members reacting to the playbacks and dailies of the episodes they were taping; Eventually, The Muppet Show recycled these same chuckles repeatedly over its five-year run, establishing its own one-of-a-kind laugh track. A by-product of this convincing laugh track was the belief by viewers that The Muppet Show was indeed taped in front of a live audience, some even asking for tickets to attend tapings.

From time to time, various Muppet characters or guest stars would break the fourth wall and acknowledge the use of the laugh track. In the fourth episode of the series, Kermit the Frog is asked by guest Ruth Buzzi if he felt a gag or routine would be funny enough for the show, to which he turns to the camera and replies, "That's up to the laugh track." A Season Two episode featuring guest Steve Martin eschewed a laugh track altogether to support the conceit that the show had been canceled that night in favor of auditioning new acts; the only audible laughs are those of the Muppet performers themselves.

For Muppets Tonight, the laugh track is used during the show, but was skipped at the beginning and end.

The Kroffts

From 1969 to 1975, Sid and Marty Krofft incorporated a full laugh track onto all of their Saturday morning children's shows (save for Land of the Lost, which was more dramatic in nature); by 1976, however, the Kroffts transitioned from high concept children's fare to variety programs. While shows like Donny & Marie, The Brady Bunch Hour, Pink Lady and Jeff, and even their 1987 syndicated sitcom D.C. Follies were taped before live audiences, the studios were relatively small, resulting in a small audience. In addition to the small audiences, some elements of these shows were shot on-location and outdoors (i.e. Wonderbug and Magic Mongo); because of this, the Kroffts too isolated several chuckles from Douglass's library to incorporate into the soundtrack of these shows, for both sweetening, and to maintain continuity. The laughs the Kroffts isolated were of a better variety, ranging from loud belly laughs, to soft titters, and even the sounds of children's laughter: some of these laughs were older (from the laugh track of the mid-to-late 60s), while others were of the current 1976-1977 television season, just before the real television laugh track was overhauled by the 1977-1978 television season.

Game Shows

During the 1970s through the early 1980s, some TV corporations even managed to isolate several of Douglass' guffaws and add them for sweetening on game shows (often played when a contestant or the host says something funny and only a small reaction comes from the live audience). One of the leading producers to do this was Chuck Barris, whose game shows were designed mainly to entertain the audience, as well as play for prizes. Many of his productions, including The Gong Show and 3's a Crowd, had used the isolated chuckles for sweetening. Game shows produced at NBC's Burbank facilities in particular in the 1970's and 1980's used a unique library of oohs, aahs.

Laugh tracks were also used on Merv Griffin's Crosswords, which ran from 2007 to 2008 and, unlike most game shows, did not tape in front of a studio audience.

Children's Shows: 2000s

Laugh tracks are used extensively in Disney Channel original sitcoms. Shows such as That's So Raven, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Cory in the House and The Suite Life on Deck are taped in front of a live studio audience. More recently, laugh tracks have been used on shows like Sonny With a Chance, Wizards of Waverly Place, Hannah Montana, Shake It Up and Take Two With Phineas and Ferb.

There are some exceptions. Lizzie McGuire, Even Stevens Phil of the Future and JONAS do not use a laugh track, are not taped in front of a studio audience nor use a multi-camera format. Disney's top competitor, Nickelodeon, also utilize laugh tracks on shows such as iCarly, Drake & Josh, True Jackson VP Victorious due to their decision to do away with their now-defunct original studios.

Glenn Martin, DDS, a claymation show produced by Nickelodeon, utilized a laugh track for the first seven episodes only, then ceased its usage. Series creator Eric Fogel commented, "It took too much internal thinking".

Laugh tracks outside the U.S.

UK

In the 20th century, most UK sitcoms were taped before live audiences to provide natural laughter. Other comedies, such as The Royle Family and The Office, which are presented in the mode of cinéma vérité rather than in the format of a traditional sitcom, do not feature any audience laughter.

The League of Gentlemen was originally broadcast with a laughter track, but after the first two series this was dropped. The pilot episode of the satirical series Spitting Image was also broadcast with a laugh track, apparently at the insistence of Central Television. This idea was quickly dropped as it was felt by the show's producers that the show worked better without one. Some later editions, in 1992 (Election Special) and 1993 (two episodes) did use a laughter track, as these editions were performed live in front of a studio audience and included a spoof Question Time.

Additionally, some programmes have been shown to a live audience, though they were not filmed live. Many scenes of the BBC's Last of the Summer Wine were filmed outdoors but the show's producers, while confirming that the show is filmed without an audience, point out that the laughter is not "manufactured" but instead is a recording of the genuine response of a studio audience to whom the completed episode is shown. This is a technique which is frequently used for programmes that feature a lot of location filming (for which an audience could obviously not be present) or which involve a lot of post-production effects work. A prime example of this is Red Dwarf; the first six series were shot partly in front of a live audience and, due to special effects scenes, filmed but shown to the audience later. This caused a lot of problems, so Series 7 was filmed without an audience but was shown to one to get 'live' laughter. Series 8 saw the return of the live audience. The show's return, Red Dwarf: Back to Earth does not use a laugh track.

Canada

Most contemporary Canadian television comedies are laugh track-free, e.g.,

• The Newsroom,
• Made in Canada,
• Trailer Park Boys,
• The Jon Dore Television Show,
• Good Morning World,
• Corner Gas,
• Little Mosque on the Prairie,
• Billable Hours, etc.),

but some still rely on laugh tracks in some form.

Some programs, such as the sitcom

• Maniac Mansion (1990–1993) and the children's program
• The Hilarious House of Frightenstein (1971) were broadcast in Canada without a laugh track, though one was added for American airings.

Other comedies such as

• The Kids in the Hall,
• Basil Brush,
• The Red Green Show,
• This Hour Has 22 Minutes,
• Rick Mercer Report, and
• Royal Canadian Air Farce, feature the laughter of a live audience.

In the case of The Red Green Show, the audience itself is incorporated into the show's format, playing members of Possum Lodge, the fictional setting of the show.

Asia

In parts of East Asia, laugh tracks are often loud and exaggerated in comedy-variety shows despite them being filmed with small live audiences.

While contemporary sitcoms in mainland China use a live studio audience, the Shanghai-based sitcom iPartment uses a laugh track despite being filmed in a single-camera format.

In the Philippines, some of the radio stations in the country like 91.5 Energy FM, 90.7 Love Radio and other mass stations uses artificial laugh tracks during their respective radio talk show, some are infamous for their constant use of artificial laugh tracks. Some radio programs in the country are known for its constant use of funny sound effects and joke portion.

Support and legacy

Si Rose, executive producer for Sid and Marty Krofft, convinced the Kroffts to use laugh tracks on their puppet shows, such as H.R. Pufnstuf, The Bugaloos, and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters.

Rose stated, "The laugh track was a big debate, they (the Kroffts) said they didn't want to do it, but with my experience with night-timers, night-time started using laugh tracks, and it becomes a staple, because the viewer watches the program and there's a big laugh every time because of the laugh track, and then when you see a show that's funny and there's no laugh because of no laugh track, it becomes a handicap, so I convinced them of that. Good or bad.". Marty Krofft confirmed that he and Sid were initially reluctant to use a laugh track on their shows, but agreed that it was a necessity.

In a 2007 DVD interview, Filmation producer/founder Lou Scheimer praised the laugh track for its usage on The Archie Show. "Why a laugh track?" Scheimer asked. "Because you feel that you are watching the program with a group of people instead of being alone." Scheimer confirmed that The Archie Show was the first Saturday morning cartoon to utilize a laugh track.

Television historian Ben Glenn II once commented that the laugh tracks used today are radically different than the "carefree" quality of the laughter of past:

Today’s sitcoms are based mostly on witty reparté and no longer rely on outlandish situations or sight gags, such as you would see in an episode of Mister Ed, The Munsters orBewitched, and today’s muted laughs reflect that. Generally, laughs are now much less aggressive and more subdued; you no longer hear unbridled belly laughs or guffaws. It's 'intelligent' laughter—more genteel, more sophisticated. But definitely not as much fun. There was an optimism and carefree quality in those old laugh tracks. Today, the reactions are largely 'droll' just the way in which they sound.

In the past, if the audience was really having a good time, it shone through. Audience members seemed less self-conscious and they felt free to laugh as loudly as they wanted. Maybe that's a reflection of contemporary culture.

In the 50s, the laughs were generally buoyant and uproarious, although somewhat generic, because Douglass hadn’t yet refined his structured laugh technique. In the 60s, however, you could hear more individual responses—chortles, cackles from both men and women. The reactions were much more orderly and organized. I can actually tell you the exact year that a show was produced, just by listening to its laugh track.

The "laff box" was discussed in detail, and appraised on an Antiques Roadshow on June 20, 2010. The device was thought to be worth $10,000.

See also

• Claque
• Noddies

External links

• TVParty.com - The Laugh Track
• Newyorktimes.com - Charles Douglass
• Canned Laughter: A History Reconstructed - An Interview with Ben Glenn II, Television Historian