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Short Stuff: Laugh Tracks · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's chuck and this is short stuff, a very special
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: sandwich edition between our very special two part episode on Sitcoms. Right, chuck,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Insert Laugh track, Jerry. That's right, nicely done, Jerry. So Um,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: we're talking about laugh tracks. Everybody knows what a laugh
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: track is. It's also sometimes called canned laughter and if
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: you didn't realize that a lot of the sitcoms that
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: you watch have laughter added in, well prepared to have
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: your socks knocked off, because that is the thing and
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: it's been around for seventies, seventy years a little over. Yeah,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: and it's a really cool story, uh, and that they
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: discovered there was a problem early on with live studio
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: audiences and that sometimes they laughed at the wrong time,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: sometimes they didn't laugh at all, sometimes they laughed too
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: loudly and for too long, and they had a laughter
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: problem because people are stupid. And so, UH CBS sound
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: engineer named Charlie Douglas said, you know what, I think
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: I can crack this thing. They've been using laugh tracks
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: and radio forever. Um. Why don't I see if I
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: can put together a library of of laughter and use
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: that to augment the laughter and sometimes entirely, entirely replaced
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the laughter of the real audience. Yeah. So, so Charlie
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Douglas started recording actual people laughing, and you can't like
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: you have to be pretty selective when you're recording laughter
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: because there's a lot of times where people are talking
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: or actors are giving dialogue. Still. So Red Skelton had
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: a show and he was a very famous, very physical
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: comedic actor. He could go long stretches just entertaining people
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: without saying a word. So he was a natural source
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: of this Um laughter that Charlie Douglas went around and recorded.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: So was the mime Marcel Marceau, and so he started
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: recording any kind of laughter. He didn't he put it
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: all together, splice tapes together, and his first attempt at
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: a very rudimentary attempt at a laugh track made his
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: debut in nineteen fifty on a show I've never heard
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: of before, chuck, the Hank mccune show, of you. Nope,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: never heard of it, but it's it's historic in that
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: it was the first show that the laugh track debuted on.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: That's right. Uh, and Douglas got pretty into this. Uh,
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to put it lightly. He kind of obsessed, it seemed,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: over getting these laugh tracks just right. I don't think
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: he was happy with just saying like, all right, we
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: got some canned laughter, we got a couple of versions,
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: let's just go with it, uh, and ended up getting
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: sort of being like a conductor slash magician, and that
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: he had all different kinds. I think he ended up
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: with about three and twenty different kinds of laughs, from
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: uproarious to like just a little bit, to a few
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: people tittering to it rising and falling like a symphony.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: And the coolest thing about all of this is he
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: did this and and put it in a literal physical
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: machine right, actual like. It ended up being called the
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: laugh box, although he tried to call it the audience
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: response duplicator or, if you I could totally see in
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: the fifties, pretending it's a robot and calling it R D. Yeah,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: and also audience response duplicator is a pretty good band name.
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: I want to think about it. Now. What kind of
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: music exactly? I don't know. That's your's special I go
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: to math rock every time. I don't know what that
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: would be. But yeah, so this this box, the laugh box,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: it was about the size and shape of a filing cabinet, well,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: a three FT tall filing cabinet, or one meter for
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: friends outside of the US. Um and it was made
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: by Charlie Douglas himself from like household appliances, um parts
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: from an organ that he stripped, uh, and vacuum tubes
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: and it was really heavy, but it was really really effective.
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Like you said, it had all sorts of different laughs
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: of all types on it. I think it could hold
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: up to three hundred and twenty different laughs. And again,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: this is nineteen fifty and this guy basically created a
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: laughing computer. Yeah, there were thirty two reels, ten laughs each,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: and it had, like you said, it had these it
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: looked more like these giant typewriter keys to me as
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: far as like literally how you would engage it, and
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: but you could play it almost like an instrument, and
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: that it wasn't just hit one button. You could hit
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a combination of buttons if you wanna get a very
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: specific kind of laughter. I had no idea this is
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: how this worked. I just thought it was all done
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: in post by just kind of splicing it together, uh,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: with like, you know, hey, just put track one on
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: there or something like that. I had no idea it
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: was a literal machine. It's very, very cool. Yeah, and
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: and Um, one of my favorites of all time is
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: the one person lightly laughing at a time. Yeah, that
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: was really used to great effect in Scooby Doo. If
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: you think back, like there was very often times when
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: just one person was kind of like, was that on
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: a laugh track? Uh Yeah, yes, it was, because the
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: scooby Doo animated characters were not performing live in front
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of a studio audience. Well, I know that. I don't
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: remember there being laughter on Scooby Doo. Oh, yeah, totally.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Anytime Scooby or shaggy, did you know built like a
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: seven foot sandwich, there was a laugh track. Exactly that
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: would have gotten a laugh track. I haven't seen it
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: a long time. I'm sure it's totally full of laughter,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: but I just don't remember. It really holds up, man,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: does it really? Yes, especially the original one from like
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: nine nine. All right, well, let's take a break. I'M
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: gonna go watch some of those and we'll be back
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: to talk about how laugh tracks were received right after this.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: All right. Did People like laugh tracks? No, yes and no.
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: Studio executives a lot of them loved it because it
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: solved a big problem, but it seems like almost exclusively
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: outside the studio executives, most people weren't too keen on it. No,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: and I mean like this started right out of the gate.
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: Um the laugh check was derided as phony or Corny
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: or whatever, and Charlie Douglass, the inventor of that laugh box,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: the guy who originated this, he became, I don't want
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: to say a recluse, but as far as the media
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: was concerned, you could not get an interview out of
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: him because I don't know if he took it personally
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: or took it hard or just to want to put
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: himself out there. But he, as far as I could tell,
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: he got very wealthy off of this thing. Between the
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: fifties and the seventies, if you heard a laft track
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: in a show, it was from Charlie Douglas. Yeah, I
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: bet you anything. He was hurt because, I mean there
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: were people that said, like this has ruined television in
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: some cases. Yeah, like an auto tune Kinda. Yeah, he
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: invented auto tune too. Not many people know that. Right,
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: he did it at all. He ruined everything and the
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: sound of airplane toilets flushing. Oh Wow, that's a good one,
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: especially if you're playing one person lightly laughing over the
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: air airplane toilet flushing. I still can't believe they haven't
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: solved that yet. Uh Yeah, I know, because and now everybody,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: like everyone, look over at the door. I'm about to
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: come out. It's terrible and I plugged my ears. It's
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: just so grating and uh, in your face. Anyway. So
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: in the seventies is when the laugh track Um kind
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: of hit its heyday, along with the heyday, as you
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: have now learned in our Sitcom's episode of the Live
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Studio Audience Multi camera taped show. But it was also
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: the time when it became sort of more of a
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: object of scorn. So that's when you started hearing the
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: famous announcement film before live studio audience just to let
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: people know like, uh, maybe we use some can laughter,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: but there are also real people here laughing. Yeah, it
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: was a boast. I had no idea why they said that,
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: but it was almost like a disclaimer the way they
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: said but really they were telling you, like the laughter
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: you're hearing is is human laughter, like genuine stuff, and
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: those were we're filmed in front of studio audiences. The
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: ones that are weird are the shows like Mash that
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: we're not filmed in front of a studio audience. But
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: there was still that laugh track, but you never thought
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: about it. You were just so used to it. It's
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: very weird, especially if you stop and think about laugh tracks.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: We'll get into that in a second, but it is
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: a very weird concept the way it supplied. But Um,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: I saw that almost went away as early as the
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: mid sixties, that some CBS studio executives tested uh, the
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: pilot of Hogan's heroes with a laugh track with one
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: focus group without a laugh track with another focus group,
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: or maybe the same focus group, I don't know, but
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the focus group chose the laugh track episode, of the
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Laugh Track version, and that just cemented laugh tracks for
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: decades to come. You can thank that one focus group
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: for it. Yeah, interesting pick for the show to do
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: that with. I think like it was interesting enough to
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: have a Sitcom about uh PO WS and Nazis. I
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: love the show. That's pretty good. As a kid thoughts
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: heroes is great, but Um, yeah, the laugh track is
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: weird and it's even weirder when you think about animated sitcoms.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: We talked about the flint stones. I believe that will
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: be coming up in part two of the sitcoms up.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: But Flint stones and the Jetson's they had laugh tracks two,
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: which doesn't make any sense at all, but people just
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: bought it because they were used to it. Yeah, exactly.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: It's you just don't even notice it unless you notice it,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: and then once you notice it it's hard to stop. But,
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: like you said, even mash had one and apparently the creator,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Larry Gilbert, said he wanted mash to air without laughs, quote,
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: just like the actual Korean War. Um, but he still lost.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: But they gave him the out to not have a
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: laugh track during the medical like surgery scenes. Yeah, it
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: all kind of flowed though I never really noticed that stuff,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: like when they were in the O R, that there
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: wasn't a laugh track going. Generally right. Uh. In other
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: countries they have done some interesting things. It's kind of
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: a very American slash UK thing, but in Latin America
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: apparently they would actually hire laughers to come in like
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: professional laughers Rayo doors and they would say laugh at
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: this moment and that moment, and I don't know if
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: it was like that. They were just plants in the
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: audience that we're supposed to laugh to get everybody else laughing,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: or the entire audience were made of ray a door.
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: So I'm not sure. But either way I guess they
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: issued the laugh track. Generally, I think it was probably
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: multiple plants to get people going because, uh, they have done, Um,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: I guess, studies, but they have shown that laugh tracks
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: people find things funnier when other people are laughing so aterly,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: when there as can laughter, people are more apt to
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: think something is funny. Yeah, fifteen to twenty percent funnier
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: when you add can't laughter to it, which is that's
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: funny in and of itself. This is fifteen funnier. That's
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: Hilarious to me. How do you how do you measure that? So,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: if you think back, even Seinfeldt Chuck, one of the
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: funniest shows of all time, had a laugh track, and
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: this was into the nineties, right. The Simpsons managed to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: launch with that one. They never had a laugh track.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: I don't think they even jokingly used one. Um. But
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: my point is even Seinfeld, up into the nineties, had
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: one and it wasn't until I saw the U K's
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: version of the office credited as the one that really
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: turned the tide. I think the HITCHHIKER's guide to the
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: galaxy in the UK. Um really broke out and said
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: we're not going to use this, but it was still
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: used extensively. It wasn't until the office came along and
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: just change comedy. The comedy involved was presented and written
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: in a way that a las check just would not
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: make sense because it was so cringe e. You know. Yeah,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I mean it's hard to imagine something like either version
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: of the office or arrested development or thirty rock or
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: curb your enthusiasm with a laugh track. It would be
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: very strange. Uh. And speaking of strange, one of the
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: most fun things you can do is just spend a
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: few minutes of your day watching Um sitcoms without the
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: laugh track, like classic sitcoms. Uh. They've notably done this
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: on youtube with episodes of friends and clips of friends
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: and it's just weirdly disconcerting. Uh. It's not as funny
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: and one of the weirdest things is know, you don't
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: realize that when you're watching a show with a laugh track,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: but they're like a stage play. They're waiting for a
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: beat while the people are laughing to stay their next line,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: and it's never more apparent than when that laughter is gone.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: It's very disjointed and weird because it's just silent, right.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: But then also without the laugh track, I think you
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: are very, very generous to say it's just not as funny. Um,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: I found it like not funny at all and actually
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: kind of upsetting, to tell you the truth. Like they're
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: the jokes are like deeply juvenile. They're supported every single
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: one by like a funny facial expression that's not actually funny.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: It looks kind of hostile instead, and you it becomes
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: clear that, friends, is like in no way funny on
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: its own. It like really leaned on the laugh track
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: to make it funny. Did you see the one, uh Ross,
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: without laugh track psychopaths? Now I know what I will
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: be doing right after we finished recording. Yeah, check it out,
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: because not only did they remove the laugh track for
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: the scene, but they they made it. They changed the
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: color so where it was black and white, and they
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: put like this brooding music. It's really, really good. Um.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: And while we're at just this general thing, also should
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: just recommend music lists, music videos. Yeah, those, those are great.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: Those are some of the funniest things on Youtube when
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: it just shows like people dancing around with like sneaker
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: squeaks and then going like all good stuff. Um, the
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: opposite is pretty funny too, where you take something that's
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: not intended to be funny and add a laugh track,
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: like way before space coast coast to coast. I don't
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: know if it was the same friends of ours, Dave Willis,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: who did this too, but somebody put like old episodes
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: of space ghost from the sixties on cartoon network at night,
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: even before adults swim, and just added laugh tracks so
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: like inappropriate places and made it like genuinely funny. I
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: would like to say I wonder if anyone's done that
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: with like the office. I'd be curious just to see
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: what that feels like. Yeah, yeah, I'm just gonna go
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: spend the rest of the day on the Internet watching
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: this stuff. I think I agree. All right. Well, chuck agreed.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: I said I was gonna go do something else. That
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: means short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is
• 15:16
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