Sitcom laugh tracks that you hear on television today still actively use the canned laughter of people who have been dead for decades, a slightly unsettling acoustic reality…

A closer look

Sitcom laugh tracks that you hear on television today still actively use the canned laughter of people who have been dead for decades, a slightly unsettling acoustic reality known in the industry as the sweetening process. Audio engineer Charley Douglass invented the Laff Box in the 1950s to save terrible jokes, recording a variety of giggles, guffaws, and chuckles from early studio audiences to seamlessly splice into modern programming whenever the writing staff fails to be genuinely funny. Next time you binge-watch an incredibly mediocre comedy series, just take a moment to realize you are literally listening to a chorus of ghosts aggressively trying to convince you that a terribly written punchline is hilarious