The Original Laugh-Track Machine, And The Man Who Became Its Virtuoso

It was know as the Laff Box, and it was mocked up – jerry-rigged, almost – by mechancial engineer Charlie Douglass. You’ve heard it on everything from The Munsters and Gilligan’s Island to Cheers and MAS*H, and “[it] could chuckle. It could guffaw. It could laugh with sighed relief. It even had a reel, controlled by the foot pedal, that was only titters, one person lightly laughing at a time. At its most sophisticated, the box had 320 laughs” – and Douglass deployed them with surprising cleverness and subtlety.