Charles Rolland "Charley" Douglass (January 2, 1910 –
April 8, 2003) was an American sound engineer, credited as the inventor
of the laugh track.
Douglass was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in
1910 to an American family. His father was an engineer on assignment
there, and eventually relocated the family to Nevada. Douglass graduated
from the University of Nevada with a bachelor's degree in electrical
engineering, and eventually found work as a sound engineer with CBS
Radio in Los Angeles. During World War II, Douglass served in the Navy
and worked in Washington with engineers developing shipboard radar
systems.
Douglass retired in 1980. He died of pneumonia on April
8, 2003 in Templeton, California at age 93. A memorial service was held
in Laguna Beach.
Douglass was married for 62 years to Dorothy
Dunn Douglass. They had two sons, one of whom (Bob) currently (2015) operates
Northridge Electronics, the company established by Charley in August
1960.
The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences honored Douglass
with a 1992 Emmy for lifetime technical achievemen.
The "Laff Box"
Before television,
audiences often experienced comedy in the presence of other
audience members. Television producers attempted to recreate
this atmosphere in its early days by introducing the sound of
laughter or other crowd reactions into the soundtrack of
television programs. However, live audiences could not be relied
upon to laugh at the correct moment.[2] Douglass noticed this
problem, and took it upon himself to remedy the situation. If a
joke did not get the desired chuckle, Douglass inserted
additional laughter. If the live audience chuckled for too long,
Douglass gradually muted the laughter. 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.
At first,
Douglass's technique was used sparingly on live shows like The
Jack Benny Program; as a result, its invention went by
unnoticed. By the end of the 1950s, live comedy transitioned
from film to videotape, which allowed for editing during
post-production. However, by editing a prerecorded live show,
bumps and gaps were present in the soundtrack. Douglass was
again called upon to "bridge" or "fill" these gaps. Both
performers and producers gradually began to realize the power
behind prerecorded laughter. Comedian Milton Berle, while
witnessing a post-production editing session, once said, "as
long as we are here, this joke didn't get all that we wanted."
After Douglass inserted a guffaw after a failed joke, Berle
reportedly commented, "See? I told you it was funny." Douglass
went from enhancing a soundtrack to orchestrating audience
reactions.
By the early 1960s, the recording of
television sitcoms before audiences had fallen out of fashion,
and Douglass was brought in to simulate the audience response
for entire programs. Shows like Bewitched, The Munsters and The
Beverly Hillbillies are virtually showcases of Douglass' editing
work. Low-key shows, like The Andy Griffith Show, The Brady
Bunch and My Three Sons, had less raucous laugh tracks, but were
also entirely fabricated post-production. The practice of
simulating an audience reaction was controversial from the very
beginning, but it became standard practice and a commodity in
the industry.
From the late 1950s to the early 1970s,
Douglass had a virtual monopoly on the laugh-track business. In
1966, TV Guide critic Dick Hobson said the Douglass family were
"the only laugh game in town."[7] When it came time to "lay in
the laughs", the producer would direct Douglass where and when
to insert the type of laugh requested.[7] Douglass would then go
to work at creating the audience, out of sight from the producer
or anyone else present at the studio in order to preserve
secrecy around his technique. Consequently, very few in the
industry ever witnessed Douglass using his invention.
The
one-of-a-kind laugh-track device—known throughout the industry
as the "laff box"—was tightly secured with padlocks, stood more
than two feet tall, and operated like an organ. Only immediate
members of the family knew what the inside actually looked like
(at one time, the laff box was called "the most sought after but
well-concealed box in the world").[4] The laff-box operator 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. Inside
the machine was an endless array of recorded chuckles, giggles,
and belly laughs; exactly 320 laughs on 32 tape loops, 10 to a
loop. Each loop contained 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.
Douglass also had an array of audience
clapping, "oohs" and "ahhhs", as well as people moving in their
seats (which many producers insisted be constantly audible).[7]
There was also a 30-second "titter" track in the loop, which
consisted of individual people laughing quietly. This "titter"
track was used to quiet down a laugh and was always playing in
the background. When Douglass inserted a hearty laugh, he
increased the volume of the titter track to smooth out the final
mix. This titter track was expanded to 45 seconds in 1967 and
would receive overhauls every few years (1964, 1967, 1970);
Douglass also kept the recordings fresh, making minor changes
every few months, as he believed that the viewing audience was
gradually changing. 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.
Douglass'
laff box was unearthed in 2010. It was later discussed in detail
in a June 2010 episode of Antiques Roadshow, where its
historical value was appraised at $10,000.
The modern
equivalent of the laff box is a digital device approximately the
size of a laptop computer which contains hundreds of human
sounds. |
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