Cheers for Fake Laughs

Now that the applause has subsided (Applause subsiding) and the tears have dried (Sound of tears drying), we pause a taped moment for this Thursday’s first anniversary of the passing of Charles Douglass, TV’s affable Svengali who invented the laugh track. (Uproarious laughter, applause.) From its start, TV cherished fake -- and it cherished nothing more lasting than the real laughs Douglass recorded during a Red Skelton pantomime (Chuckles) and played back on command for years to underline even the lamest sitcom line. (Gasp!)

The idea, of course, was to create cheaply in millions of far-flung living rooms a sense of success and the communal theatrical experience of people murmuring, chuckling, laughing, guffawing and being driven to humorous hysteria by the words and sight of someone standing alone in front of a Cyclopean camera. (Prolonged murmurs of disbelief.) Fake laughter assisted comedians’ timing while addressing the primal fear of the former vaudeville stars who launched TV: the sounds of a silent audience. (Silence).

Until then, real people pretty much knew for themselves when to laugh: When they felt amused. (Laughter.) But TV felt the need to suggest when laughter was appropriate for invisible dullards sitting at home. (Loud laughter, then enthusiastic applause.) Tracks now enhance the forced laughter of tired audiences in repetitious tapings. (Zzzzz.) Tracks even suggest how intensely viewers should laugh. (Puzzled chuckles leading to hesitant guffaws, swallowed quickly by silence.)

Douglass, once a radio engineer, won a 1992 Emmy. (Prolonged applause.) Nobody suggests one friendly man is responsible for the mountains of fakery now permeating modern American life -- the fake flowers, hair, e-mails, enhanced bodies and forced photo-ops posing as news without news but with cameras anyway. (Gentle boos.) Nor did Douglass invent the phony mix of politely intense and meticulously diverse male, female, white, Asian, Latino and black audience members behind today’s political candidates. (Gasps of disbelief, then boos.)

For years of laugh tracks, now run by laptop, no one noticed the sound of the very same people, many no doubt as gone as Douglass, laughing through countless TV programs. (Nervous laughter.) Nor the fake cheers added to so-called live music albums. (Rimshot!)

Today, a majority of TV sitcoms still rely for the sounds of success on Charlie Douglass’ genuine fake laughter. A few shows survive fake-laugh-free (Cheering), notably “The Simpsons.” (Doh!)

Douglass died at 93. (Mass sighs.) But his guffawing gizmo lives on and on and on. (Hesitant applause building immensely, merging into prolonged chants: “Char-lee, Char-lee, Char-lee!”)