Charles Douglass
| Charles Douglass | |
|---|---|
Charley Douglass, 1950s
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| Born |
Charles Rolland Douglass January 2, 1910 Guadalajara, Jalisco Mexico |
| Died | April 8, 2003 (aged 93) Templeton, California U.S. |
| Other names | Charley Douglass |
| Spouse(s) | Dorothy Lorraine Dunn |
Charles Rolland "Charley" Douglass (January 2, 1910 – April 8, 2003) was an American sound engineer, credited as the inventor of the laugh track.
Douglass was born in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 1910 to an American family. His father was an engineer on assignment there, and eventually relocated the family to Nevada. Douglass graduated from the University of Nevada with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, and eventually found work as a sound engineer with CBS Radio in Los Angeles. During World War II, Douglass served in the Navy and worked in Washington with engineers developing shipboard radar systems.
Before television, audiences often experienced comedy in the presence of other audience members. Television producers attempted to recreate this atmosphere in its early days by introducing the sound of laughter or other crowd reactions into the soundtrack of television programs. However, live audiences could not be relied upon to laugh at the correct moment. Douglass noticed this problem, and took it upon himself to remedy the situation. If a joke did not get the desired chuckle, Douglass inserted additional laughter. If the live audience chuckled for too long, Douglass gradually muted the laughter. This editing technique became known as "sweetening," in which pre-recorded laughter is used to augment the response of the real studio audience if they did not react as strongly as desired.
At first, Douglass's technique was used sparingly on live shows like The Jack Benny Program; as a result, its invention went by unnoticed. By the end of the 1950s, live comedy transitioned from film to videotape, which allowed for editing during post-production. However, by editing a prerecorded live show, bumps and gaps were present in the soundtrack. Douglass was again called upon to "bridge" or "fill" these gaps. Both performers and producers gradually began to realize the power behind prerecorded laughter. Comedian Milton Berle, while witnessing a post-production editing session, once said, "as long as we are here, this joke didn't get all that we wanted." After Douglass inserted a guffaw after a failed joke, Berle reportedly commented, "See? I told you it was funny." Douglass went from enhancing a soundtrack to orchestrating audience reactions.
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