Charles Douglass

American sound engineer (1910–2003)

Charles Rolland Douglass (January 2, 1910 – April 8, 2003) was a Mexican born 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 electrical 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 TV, audiences often experienced comedy in the presence of other audience members. Television producers attempted to recreate this atmosphere in the early days by introducing laughter or other crowd reactions into the soundtrack of TV programs. However, live audiences could not be relied upon to laugh at the correct moment. Douglass noticed this problem, and decided to remedy the situation. If a joke did not get the desired chuckle, Douglass inserted additional laughter. If the live audience chuckled 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 desired. By the end of the 1950s, live comedy transitioned from film to videotape, which allowed for editing during post production. By editing a prerecorded live show, bumps and gaps were present in the soundtrack. Douglass was 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." In 1966, TV Guide critic Dick Hobson said the Douglass family were "the only laugh game in town." When it came time to "lay in the laughs", the producer would direct Douglass where and when to insert the type of laugh requested. The one of a kind laugh track device—known throughout the industry as the "laff box"—was secured with padlocks, was more than two feet tall, and operated like an organ. Only immediate members of the family knew what the inside looked like. Douglass' laff box was unearthed in 2010. It was later discussed in detail in a June 2010 episode of Antiques Roadshow, where its historical value was appraised at $10,000. In 1986, Charley's son Bob began experimenting with an all digital audio computer manufactured by CompuSonics, a Palo Alto, California company, as a replacement for the analog equipment invented by his father. By 1990, Bob was using a custom version of CompuSonics equipment that had multiple channels of digital audio samples and a laptop computer interface for control. The new Laff Box was loaded and unloaded from the trunk of Bob's Mercedes Benz with a small crane bolted to the trunk floor. In 2003, the laff box consisted of a digital device approximately the size of a laptop computer which contains hundreds of human sounds. Dorothy lived in Laguna Beach until her death in January 2014 at age 95.

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences honored Douglass with a 1992 Emmy for lifetime technical achievement.