Reel 1, Track 3: Laughter, Unattributed
An engineer's index card for six tracks of laughter, timed to the second, with no record anywhere of what was funny.
Behind the curtain+
A low-traffic story carrying one fact that finishes itself: the first canned laugh exists because a guest told a joke too spicy to broadcast, and the editors cut the joke and kept the laugh.
A cue sheet files joy by the second and has no vocabulary for what caused it, so the form supplies the whole payload without a narrator present to point at it.
REEL 1: LAUGHTER, UNATTRIBUTED
Stock: Magnetophon tape, ex-Signal Corps. Source: house audience, recorded live. Programme material: withdrawn. Not for air.
TRACK 1 / 0:02 Single, male, front row. Anticipatory. Use before the line, not after.
TRACK 2 / 0:04 Mixed, building. Clean tail. General purpose.
TRACK 3 / 0:11 Full house. Two women in the balcony carry it past the eighth second and have to be faded under. Best material on the reel. Do not lay over dialogue.
TRACK 4 / 0:06 As Track 3, second take. Thinner.
TRACK 5 / 0:03 Scattered. Glass drops at 0:02. Usable if trimmed to 0:02.
TRACK 6 / 0:19 Applause with laughter beneath it. Hold in reserve.
NOTES
Tracks 1 to 6 recorded the same evening, same house, same cause.
Cause not held on this reel. Refer to Programme Dept.
Programme Dept. holds no copy.
Duplicate before splicing. This is the only one.