To laugh is human, in a full room, divine We’re sorry, this service is currently unavailable. Please try again later. Dismiss Normal text size Not all laughter is created equal. Consider the canned variety. For decades it was the rule that TV and radio comedy came with a pre-recorded laugh track, and Charley Douglass was their maestro. The sound engineer at CBS studios cobbled together a machine out of household odds-and-ends on which he could store up to 320 different laughs, from the gentle murmuring titter to the full-throated guffaw. He’d play them like a mad organist, pumping pedals and twisting dials, allowing his faked studio audience to gather in volume and intensity as the on-screen performers built towards their biggest gags.