What is Canned Laughter?

Do you know what is canned laughter? Well the name suggests that it is associated to laughter, but yet it is a laugh track or a sound track that is added to television comedies. It is used when the audience is required to laugh and that special effect sound is played. This sound track is played when there the show cracks jokes or moments of slapstick comedy.

Not all shows use canned laughter after jokes; some shows record their episodes in front of a live audience and repeat it. The canned laughter was first used in 1950s television series named The Hank McCune Show. The laughter was first produced from a box which was invented by Charley Douglass. Later, his sound machine was used to deliver a number of laugh types including chuckles, giggles, and tear producing laughter. The machine is called as Laff Box. Different types of laughter can be produced separately and when it comes to modern days, producing different types of laughter is very easy just like playing a sample keyboard.

Modern day laugh track is more sophisticated, thanks to the advancement of sound technology. This sound track can be virtually used anywhere in the episode to make the show much more appealing and realistic. The canned laughter was commonly used on 30-minute sitcoms and sometimes also used in hour-long shows. It was used unusually on the series ‘Eight is Enough’ which was not often comic. The common idea of using the canned laughter is to provoke the laughter of audience at home. In order to promote laughing which is especially considered as a medicine for humans, this type of sound track is used. However, some have found this type of fake laughter a bit annoying and it makes attempts to get laughs on the comic lines which sometimes are comparatively undeserving.

This resulted into rejection of using such fake sound track in recent comic television. One of the biggest examples of not using this sound track is the British as well as American versions of “The Office”. Some say that they enjoy such shows more as they give viewers the opportunity to laugh on their own, freely, without being influenced by anything imagery. There are many shows that do not always use the audience laughter completely which they record in front of live audience. However, to make the comic more influencing, many use laugh tracks that generate response even when the lines are not very impressive. This form is usually called as “sweetening” the laugh track.