# Inventor of Canned Laughter Dies--HA-hahahahahaha . . . **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 25, 2003, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventor-of-canned-laughter-dies-ha-hahahahahaha/171098 "2003-04-25T13:00:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventor-of-canned-laughter-dies-ha-hahahahahaha/171098/21 "2003-04-26T15:13:36Z")
Harlan Ellison wrote a short story about canned laughter. The protagonist’s mother had been in the audience of a show back in the 50’s when they taped the original laughter. Her recorded laughter was still being used decades later and her ghost was trapped on Earth as long as her laughter remained. The son had to track down and destroy all copies of the laugh track to free his mother’s ghost. ---
**Author:** ![Mooney252](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7c8e57/32.png) [@Mooney252](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mooney252)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventor-of-canned-laughter-dies-ha-hahahahahaha/171098/22 "2003-04-26T15:48:27Z")
Great thread (and the Scooby Doo stuff made the cartoons unwatchable). But there’s something to be said for laugh tracks. Nothing like a live audience where they get the joke 15-20 seconds after the punchline and the SNL crew is already into the next bit . . . ---
**Author:** ![Ice\_Wolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/dfb087/32.png) [@Ice\_Wolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ice_Wolf)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventor-of-canned-laughter-dies-ha-hahahahahaha/171098/23 "2003-04-26T16:39:31Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by cuauhtemoc \* > \*\*There was one TV show in particular on which the laughtrack disturbs me, and that show is M_A_S_H. On one hand, there was no reason for it, and it was kind of annoying sometimes. On the other hand, it added an ironic dimension to the show, the way all these horrible things were going on and people were guffawing in the background. It also served to highlight Hawkeye’s Groucho-like timing. Surely it wouldn’t have been the same show without the laughtrack, but all in all I can’t make up my mind whether I think the it added to M_A_S\*H’s quality or diminished it. What do you think? \*\* I remember reading somewhere how the cast didn’t like the laughtrack either, and arranged that there wasn’t any laughtrack during scenes in the operating theatre. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2003, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventor-of-canned-laughter-dies-ha-hahahahahaha/171098/24 "2003-04-26T19:24:42Z")
Mark Evanier was [right](http://www.newsfromme.com): > [@](#): > > I think we can all imagine the Saturday Night Live sketch: Someone delivering a sombre, tearful eulogy for Charlie while a guy at a machine “sweetens” it and lays in the guffaws. And I think we can count on a Leno monologue joke: Jay, in a serious tone, announces something along the lines of, “The inventor of the laugh track died today,” and then they dub in some huge audience reaction. And, from the “predictions that came TRUE” department, a review from _Variety_ back in the day of _The Hank McCune Show_, believed to be the first show with a laugh track, stated that > [@](#): > > there are chuckles and yocks dubbed in. Whether this induces a jovial mood in home viewers is still to be determined, but the practice may have unlimited possibilities if it’s spread to include canned peals of hilarity, thunderous ovations and gasps of sympathy ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2003, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventor-of-canned-laughter-dies-ha-hahahahahaha/171098/25 "2003-04-27T07:35:53Z")
Interestingly, when M_A_S\*H was run on the BBC, the laugh track was removed. Made it a whole other program, and much better IMO. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/inventor-of-canned-laughter-dies-ha-hahahahahaha/171098.md?page=1)