Is anyone mourning the death of Charles Douglass, inventor of the TV “Laff Box?” “The question of where the first laughs in Charlie’s Laff Box came from is still subject to debate in TV geek circles. Some say they were sampled from a Marcel Marceau concert; others claim they came from a classic Red Skelton performance; still others say he recorded live audiences from early ‘I Love Lucy’ shows. All of these shows relied heavily on sight gags, which would have simplified the recording process.”