The History of Laughing Records (Episode 77)

For being studied from philosophical, sociological, psychological,
and biological perspectives for centuries, there is no one unified
theory on the meaning of laughter. A common condition of all
cultures, every person is susceptible to these involuntary
responses. As Aristotle put it, “Humans are laughing animals”. One
factor that most Gelotological philosophers and scientists agree
upon is that laughter is an essential social tool. Laughter creates
connection, expresses emotion, adds conversational context, signals
acceptance, creates positive feedback loops, acts as a defense
mechanism, and helps to ferret out the weak and embarrass them. In
short, laughter is how we bond. It’s how we tell others and
ourselves that things are going to be okay. Social, emotional, and
cognitive regulation. A primitive means to deal with our
unpredictable, inconsistent, and intense existence. 1900s French
Philosopher Henri Bergson wrote that laughter was a collective
apparatus that causes a separation from logic and emotion which
allows society to intellectually adapt to situations, balance moral
quandaries, and correct eccentric behavior. Of course, not too
many people are worried about where laughter comes from or what it
does, we just know that videos of men sustaining testicular
injuries is never not funny.  All this begs the
question...what do you get when you cross a joke and a rhetorical
question? In the 1920s, an answer to that might have been the
laughing record fad. 78s featuring uncontrollable cackling took
hold of the culture causing a sort of mass hysteria in the sitting
rooms around the world. It was a regular pole-sitter laughageddon.
Inexplicably, millions of people could not get enough of songs that
were interrupted with the wild pre-recorded howls and snorts
flatulating from their Victrola phonograph machines. The bizarre
novelty record phenomenon had a long lasting impact in both
humanizing the nascent technology and laying the groundwork for
embedded laugh tracks to assist audiences with remembering the
hilarity they were witnessing. On this episode, we chuckle,
chortle, snicker, titter, giggle, and guffaw our way through the
bust-your-gut history of laughing records.  Primary sources
for this episode: Ian Nagoski of Canary Records Cary O'Dell -
Library of Congress Vocal Tracks by Jacob Smith Highway Hi-Fi is a
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