That the young David Bowie recorded Laughing Gnome, a dreadful pastiche of a Newley novelty song, in 1967, and continued to emulate Newley's flattened-out vowel sound for some time afterwards - 'Ground control to Major Tom' - is thus seen as inexplicable, rather than a reminder that Newley meant something, even if, as so often in pop, no-one was sure what.
When Pentagon stenographers transcribed a recent interview, they dutifully recorded "laughs" or some variation 33 times, plus four "chuckles".
In the 60's, many popular half-hour comedies -- especially those with absurd concepts like "Bewitched" and "Mr. Ed" -- were filmed without an audience and had recorded laughs added later.
That's the conclusion of an analysis of the recorded laughs of young orangutans, chimpanzees, and human children.
The researchers then compared the acoustical properties of the recorded laughs with those of three human infants.
In behavioral pilot testing, we found that naïve listeners performed significantly better than chance in classifying the recorded laughs as "real" (Evoked) or "posed" (Emitted), in line with how these laughs were produced as an expression of genuine amusement, or not.
The writing is sharp and the language is coarse yet it's that ever-changing "sit" in this sitcom that provides those (never pre-recorded) laughs.
The jury heard that the security services had the men under such close surveillance that they recorded them laughing and joking about their plans and how they did not need to worry about their car's MOT, because they would be dead by the time it expired.
A video from a dashboard camera in another patrol car, which was also played during the trial, recorded O'Callaghan laughing and smoking a cigarette as she peeked inside the car at Thomas, whose legs were tied with a nylon hobble restraint.
The engagingly modest fighter, with an 18-0 record, laughs softly.
"He faded down the record, laughed, and said, 'Well, that's the blues, folks.' " Friends said Mr. Henderson, raised by sharecropper parents in small Mississippi towns like Alligator and Hushpuckena, explained the blues so well because he had lived its rural roots.
