TV Icons: 1953 Prototype Canned-Laughter Machines in June 26 Auction

ORANGE, Calif., June 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Grand European furniture, Sevres porcelain, a Steinway baby grand piano – all are expected to attract serious bidders to Don Presley's auction gallery on June 25-26. But watch the mood lighten when two circa-1953 American pop-culture icons are presented at the podium – Charles Rolland Douglass's "LaffBox" and the "Jayo Laugher" invented by I Love Lucy's legendary creator/producer Jess Oppenheimer.

Each of the trailblazing sound devices is a prototype designed to hold a library of pre-recorded laughter and audience applause for use during the taping of TV shows.

The LaffBox was discovered two years ago in a storage locker, together with a thick binder of documents about the machine's history. Recently, it was consigned to a Presley auction. Presley believed the LaffBox's concept to be unique, and publicized it as such.

Shortly thereafter, Presley was contacted by the late Jess Oppenheimer's son, Gregg Oppenheimer, who told the auctioneer that his father had invented a laugh machine, as well – the Jayo Laugher.  

It seems that while Jess Oppenheimer (1913-1988) was developing his Jayo Laugher in 1953, a CBS sound engineer named Charles Douglass (1910-2003) was quietly developing a similar device of his own, which he dubbed the LaffBox.

Had Oppenheimer known a competing machine was in the works, he might have placed a greater priority on legally protecting the Jayo Laugher, but he did not become aware of the LaffBox's existence until reading about it in a newspaper article.

As reported in the Dec. 16, 1954 issue of Daily Variety, both Oppenheimer and Douglass raced to secure a patent. Douglass prevailed.

Oppenheimer's Jayo Laugher was retired to the Oppenheimer family archive, but Douglass's LaffBox went on to provide taped laughter and applause for over 20,000 TV shows, including The Beverly Hillbillies, The Munsters, The Brady Bunch and The Andy Griffith Show.

"Canned laughter may be electronic now, but these two mechanical prototypes were pioneers in their field," said Presley. "Both should be in the Smithsonian or other museum with an American pop culture or 20th-century technology collection."

In the case of the Jayo Laugher, it will be giving back to the industry whose pioneers produced I Love Lucy. Gregg Oppenheimer and his sister, Jo Oppenheimer Davis, are donating the entire proceeds from the sale of the Jayo Laugher to the charitable Motion Picture & Television Fund.

Online: www.donpresleyauction.com

SOURCE Don Presley Auctions