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This is a clip from the hit TV series,

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"Parks and Recreation."

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...128 ounce option.

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Most people call it a gallon, but they

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call it the regular.
Now let's see what

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that same clip would
be like if we added

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a laugh track.

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[rewind sound]
...128 ounce option.

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[laughter]
Most people call it a

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gallon, [laughter]
but they call it the regular. [laughter]

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It seems so wrong,
but for most of

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television history, it was
so right. [background laughter]

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Over the last half century
or so almost every

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comedy on television had canned laughter,

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from "I Love Lucy"

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to "The Big Bang Theory."

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For some, the laughter is viewed as an

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imposition. For others, a secondary

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character you almost forgot was there,

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until it wasn't anymore.

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In recent years, the

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laugh track has been used less and

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less as sitcoms in general have

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decreased in popularity.
Let's break down

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where the mysterious laugh box came from

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and where it went.

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Before television existed,

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there was the ballet, the opera,

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magic and comedy shows.

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When you went to one of

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these events, you were

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experiencing the audience reactions in

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real time.
If something was shocking,

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you could hear and
feel the gasps echo

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around you and
similarly with laughter.

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But then came the radio,
the first ever

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broadcast medium.
Those communal

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reactions disappeared as American

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families gathered in their living rooms

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to be entertained.
Radio producers wanted

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to develop a way to give people the live

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experience at home.
The first-ever laugh

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track began with
Bing Crosby's radio show.

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Recording pioneer Jack Mullen

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recalls the creation to "Channels of

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Communication," a trade journal in 1981.

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"The hillbilly comic Bob Burns was on the

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show one time and through a few of his

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then extremely racy and off-color folksy

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farm stories into the show. We recorded

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it live and they all got enormous laughs,

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but we couldn't use the jokes. So

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scriptwriter Bill Morrow asked us to

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save the laughs.
A couple of weeks later he

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had a show that wasn't
very funny and he

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insisted that we put
in the salvage laughs.

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Thus the laugh track was born.

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Fast forward to the
era of early television.

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Comedies were filmed with a single

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camera in front of a live audience.

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That meant that each scene would be filmed

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multiple times from multiple angles,

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instead of the multi cams today, which

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have multiple cameras capturing one take.

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Those separate angles and takes would be

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cut together and when that happened, the

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laughter was inconsistent.

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Audiences would laugh at the

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wrong time, too loudly,

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for too long and were simply unreliable.

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In the late 1940s, CBS sound engineer

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Charlie Douglas noticed those

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inconsistencies and couldn't take it

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anymore. If a joke didn't get a desired

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laugh, he would insert one with the use

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of a laugh track. This technique became

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known as "sweetening." Douglass went so far

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as to create a physical laugh box.

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According to Ron Simon, curator of

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television and radio at the Paley Center

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for Media, the device was about three

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feet tall, the shape of a filing cabinet,

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very heavy and had slots for 32 reels,

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which could hold ten laughs each. It was

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officially named the audience response

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duplicator, but it became known as the

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"laugh box." At its best,

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the "laugh box" could hold 320

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laughs. Press them one at a time

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and you get a similar laugh.
[single laugh]

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Press multiple keys at once 
[laughter] and a symphony of

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laughter would play.
Each key represented

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a different age, sex,
and style of laugh,

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with a foot pedal regulating the way.

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The "laugh box" was mysterious though.

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Since Douglas owned the patent and

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created all of them, nobody outside of

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him and his family members had ever seen

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the inside of the machine. And when

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Douglas wasn't around, the machine was

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kept tightly padlocked.
In an interview

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with "TV Guide" in 1966,
Dick Hobson said

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if the laugh box should start acting

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strangely, the laugh boys

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wheel it into the men's room,

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locking the door behind them so no

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one can peek.
I mentioned the name

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Charlie Douglas and it's like Cosa

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Nostra, everybody starts whispering.

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It's the most taboo topic in TV.
The first sitcom to

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use the "laugh box" was the

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short-lived series, "The Hank McCune Show"

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in 1950. [laughter on show]
The idea of recorded laughter

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spread throughout Hollywood and by the

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1960s almost every single cameras sitcom

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was utilizing canned laughter. But it was

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only Douglas that engineered the

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laughing for everyone for almost a

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decade. For $100 Douglas would wheel the

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mysterious box to each studio on a dolly

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and sit with the producers in a

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screening room and decide what kind of

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laughter and when. Eventually Douglas

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hired a second-in-command to keep up

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with the 100 hours of television he

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needed to sweeten.
And the rest was

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history. Multicam sitcoms were

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popularized in shows like "Friends,"

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"Frasier," "Seinfeld" and

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more incorporated canned laughter.
[Sound of "Friends" in the background]

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The actors and actresses would know to

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hold for laughter, knowing that each

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scene would be sweetened.
[more sound from "Friends"] The Discovery

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Channel documentary, the one that goes

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behind the scenes, shows how it works.

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[Sometimes the audience responds too big.]

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If I went with the actual
laugh, [laughter]that laugh

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is still going through her next line

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into his next reaction and that's, it's

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five, six seconds. And in TV land that's

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an eternity. [laughter]
[Sometimes we have to put in

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a laughter that is shorter.]

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It felt like comedies would be

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like this forever. And then "The

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Big Bang Theory" went off the air in 2019

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and took with it one of the last

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multicam sitcoms with canned laughter.

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When we look at the television landscape

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today almost, every single comedy is a

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single-camera comedy and not a multicam

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sitcom with canned laughter. You can

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count on two hands how many multicam

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sitcoms that use a laugh track are on TV

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right now, and not to

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mention those that went off

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the air this year [2020].
The use of the laugh

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track has almost disappeared completely

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from the TV lineup.
So what changed?

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Dead air in television
used to be frowned upon

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and shows would push for laugh

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tracks whenever possible.
[distant laugh track]

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Bill Cosby claimed his first sitcom, "The

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Bill Cosby Show," that ran from 1961 to

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1971, failed because he had insisted on

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not using a laugh track. Not to be

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confused with the very successful "The

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Cosby Show" that aired in the 1980s and

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did have a laugh track.
And "MASH" fought

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to not have a laugh track at all, but

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they came to a compromise with the

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studio. They would use the canned

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laughter, but just not during the very

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serious OR scenes.
While we associate

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the 80s and the 90s with the laugh track,

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that was actually the time when single

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camera comedies without canned laughter

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started to take over.
A key player in this

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transition was HBO. Their show's

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"Dream On" in 1990 and "The Larry Sanders

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Show" in 1992 ran without laughs tracks

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and even garnered praise for doing so.

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The airing of these shows proved that

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comedies could exist, and exist

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successfully without laugh tracks. Other

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studios took notice and

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began to follow suit.

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Then came "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "Malcolm

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in the Middle," "Scrubs,"

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"Arrested Development," "It's Always Sunny

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in Philadelphia," "30 Rock," "The Office" and

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the list goes on and on.

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Writers and producers were excited by

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the change, as it allowed them to stray

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from the constant stream of punchlines

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to explore character based humor. Another

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reason the laugh track fell to the

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wayside? According to Mike Royce the

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co-showrunner of Netflix's
"One Day at a Time,"

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"I think one of the reasons why

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people don't like laugh tracks is they

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don't like to be told how to react. It's

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an American thing: Don't tell me what the

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[bleep] to laugh at."
"T"he Big Bang Theory was

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one of the last big sitcoms that used

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canned laughter and even their creator

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Chuck Lorre insisted that absolutely no

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sweetening took place on any of his

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series, which also include "Two and a Half

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Men"" and Mike and Molly,"
stating "I do not

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and have never, sweetened my shows with

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fake laughs. I've always thought it was

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pretty hateful and
a self-defeating practice."

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For now, the laugh track lives

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in a very strange state. It's used in

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very few shows, but lives on in the

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reruns of ever popular series like

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"Friends," "How I Met
Your Mother," and more.

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Perhaps history might repeat itself

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and we'll see a resurgence in multicam

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sitcoms and the laugh track.

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Until then, we can thank streaming

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services like Netflix and Hulu for

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keeping Charlie Douglass's legacy in our

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living rooms. Thank you for watching.

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Please be sure to like, comment and

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subscribe to our channel and ring the

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bell below. That way, you're notified

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whenever we post a new video.
[music ends]

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