Laugh track

A laugh track (a.k.a. canned laughter, laughter track, 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 "laugh track" 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. With the introduction of this method of recording, it became possible to add sounds to a show in post-production and Bing Crosby adopted the technology to pre-record his radio show A) to avoid having to do it live and B) to avoid having to do it a second time for West Coast audiences.

Longtime engineer and recording pioneer Jack Mullin explains from an interview recorded in the late `70's how the laugh track was invented on Crosby's show with these Ampex recorders:

"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."

Early Live Television, Film and the birth of "sweetening"

In early television, most shows that were not broadcast live used the single-camera filming technique familiar from movies, where a show was created by filming each scene several times from different angles. Since it was not possible for an audience to be present during single-camera filming, there could be none of the live audience laughter that audiences had come to expect from radio comedy, and which was still offered in the many shows broadcast live with audiences laughing in the studio. In addition, live audiences could not be relied upon to laugh at the correct moment. Other times, the audiences would laugh too long or too loud, sounding unnatural and forced or throwing off the performers' rhythms.

CBS sound engineer Charley Douglass noticed these inconsistencies, 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. Conversely, the process could be used to "desweeten" audience reactions, toning down unwanted loud laughter or removing inappropriate applause, thus making the laughter more in line with the producer's preferred method of telling the story.

Douglass spent countless hours extracting laughter, applause, and other reactions (including 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.

These recorded laughs could be added to single-camera filmed shows, making them seem as though there was a live audience. 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.

Multi-camera shows and Videotape

Soon after the advent of the laugh track, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz invented a method of filming with an audience utilizing a multi-camera format. This process was originally used for their show I Love Lucy, which used a live studio audience and no laugh track.

Multi-camera shows with live audiences sometimes used recorded laughs to supplement the response of the audience. 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." Soon after the invention of the multi-camera filmed show, sketch comedy and variety shows began to move from live broadcasting 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; eventually, both performers and producers began to realize the power behind these prerecorded chuckles.

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 removing all excessive or annoying live audience reaction as well. This was known as "desweetening", which would result in the episode in question having a tighter performance for broadcast. The end result would also be more in line with the producer's preferred method of telling the story.

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.

1960s - The age of laugh tracks

Despite the success of I Love Lucy, most television comedies in the '50s and '60s used the single-camera technique, with a laugh track simulating the absent audience. Producers became disenchanted with the multi-camera audience format, as the consensus at the time was that live audiences were tense, nervous and rarely laughed on cue anyway. As a result, single-camera filming with a laugh track became the dominant mode of sitcom production in the '60s.

Writers and actors of single-camera sitcoms 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.

Shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, a single-camera show, screened its pilot for an audience, but switched to a laugh track when the real audience reaction was too loud.

Hogan's Heroes

Network research suggested that the laugh track was required in order to brand a single-camera show as a comedy. In 1965 CBS showed its new single-camera sitcom Hogan's Heroes to test audiences in two versions: one with the laugh track, the other without. Partly due to the somewhat cerebral nature of the show's humor, the version without the laugh track failed miserably with test audiences, while the version with canned laughter got an excellent reaction. The show went on the air with the laugh track, and CBS abandoned the idea of doing single-camera comedies without at least a touch-up from Charley Douglass’s laff box.

Shows had different types of laugh track, depending on style. Outlandish or fantastic 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, had quieter or more modulated tracks. 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 chuckles as the series became more dramatic.

By the mid-1960s, nearly every sitcom was single-camera and had canned laughter dubbed onto the soundtrack. Only a few sitcoms, such as The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Lucy Show used studio audiences and turned to Douglass only to edit or augment the real laughter via sweetening. Even prime-time animated series like The Flintstones and The Jetsons used laugh tracks to make it clear that they were comedies.

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.

Only a select few single-camera or animated comedies of the era were able to do without laugh tracks. Peanuts creator Charles M. Schulz was asked to add a laugh track to his strip's first prime-time TV special, A Charlie Brown Christmas, but refused. The special was a major critical and commercial success. More often, however, shows that did without the laugh track would fail, unable to convince viewers that they were in fact comedies rather than dramas or adventure shows. The musical sitcom The Monkees (NBC, 1966–68) eliminated its laugh track midway through season 2. 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.

Live audiences make a comeback

Though the use of canned laughter reached its peak in the 1960s, the trend began to reverse in the 1970-1 season with the debut of two shows done in the multi-camera format pioneered by I Love Lucy. The 1970 debut of The Mary Tyler Moore Show (CBS, 1970-77), shot on film in front of an audience, preceded the 1971 debut of All in the Family (CBS, 1971–79), which proudly announced that it was "recorded on tape before a live audience." The producers behind these shows, MTM Enterprises and Norman Lear respectively, used the multi-camera format for all their subsequent shows, including hits like The Bob Newhart Show (CBS, 1972–78) and Maude (CBS, 1972–78).

Other companies began abandoning single-camera filming and laugh tracks. 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. By the second season, The Odd Couple was filmed with three cameras and performed like a stage play in front of a studio audience. The sitcom Happy Days (ABC, 1974–84), also from The Odd Couple creator Garry Marshall, also shifted from single camera with a laugh track to a live audience in its third season. Paramount Pictures, which produced these two shows, embraced multi-camera for nearly all its subsequent TV comedy productions in the 70s, using canned laughter only to augment scenes shot without the audience.

Several shows in the '70s, however, retained the single-camera filming style and therefore the laugh track. M*A*S*H (CBS, 1972–83) was the most successful single-camera comedy of the '70s, and while creator Larry Gelbart wanted the show to air without a laugh track ("Just like the actual Korean War", he remarked dryly), he reached a compromise with CBS where the show was only permitted to omit canned laughter during scenes in the operating room. However, a separate soundtrack, with no laugh track, was prepared for every episode, and this version aired in the UK; both soundtracks were later offered on the DVD releases.

Hour-long single-camera comedy-dramas such as The Love Boat and Eight is Enough also used laugh tracks for the scenes that were purely comic in nature. Laugh tracks were also used for many animated Saturday morning cartoons from studios such as Hanna-Barbera and Filmation as well as the children's live-action shows from Sid and Marty Krofft. The syndicated variety show The Muppet Show could not use an audience due to the complexity of its production, and used a laugh track instead.

Usage in America, post-1990

Single-camera comedy has made a comeback in the U.S. since the early 1990s, but networks have mostly abandoned the old tradition of laugh tracks for single-camera shows. A key player in this revolution was HBO, which allowed its single-camera comedies such as Dream On and The Larry Sanders Show to run without laugh tracks, and won critical praise for doing so. Single-camera shows with no laugh track have become increasingly common on broadcast networks as well, with critical and popular hits such as Malcolm in the Middle and Modern Family, alongside multi-camera hits such as Two and a Half Men and The Big Bang Theory, which employ audiences and not laugh tracks.

Other producers of multi-camera shows have denied that they use sweetening to add laughs to failed jokes, but sweetening is still required to transition between different takes of a scene without a noticeable difference in the sound of the audience. Multi-camera sitcoms may also add laugh tracks when they reshoot scenes after the audience has gone home.

One of the last single-camera broadcast network shows to employ a laugh track was Sports Night (ABC, 1998–2000), which shot its early with an audience present. While it abandoned the audience and moved toward a single-camera method of production, the network insisted that the show use a laugh track to create continuity with the style of those early scenes. Due to the objections of creator Aaron Sorkin, the laugh track became more subtle as the season progressed and was completely removed at the start of the second season.

Laugh tracks are still sometimes used for multi-camera sitcoms that shoot without live audiences. How I Met Your Mother, which uses the multi-camera format but no audience, uses a laugh track assembled from the sounds of audiences watching completed episodes early in the show's run. The game show Merv Griffin's Crosswords, which ran from 2007 to 2008 and, unlike most game shows, did not tape in front of a studio audience, used a laugh track as well.

Sweetening with a laugh track is also 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

File:Jackson-5-cartoon.jpg

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

While Disney Channel original sitcoms mostly shoot in front of studio audiences Disney's top competitor, Nickelodeon, mostly shoots such hits as iCarly and Victorious without audiences (due to their decision to do away with their now-defunct original studios) and use laugh tracks as a substitute.

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.

Canada

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

Asia

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.

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.

The "laff box" was discussed in detail, and appraised on the June 20, 2010 episode of Antiques Roadshow. 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