How Did the Laugh Track on TV Shows Get Started?

We’re all probably familiar with the canned laughter that takes place on television sitcoms, but how and why did this laughter, known as a laugh track, get started?

Added laughter in television shows can be traced back to a sound engineer named Charley Douglass, who worked at CBS in the early days of television in 1950. Douglass didn’t like how studio audiences during tapings of…