National Let's Laugh Day Timeline

1971

Laffy Taffy is Created

Originally Beich's Caramels, these fun and fruity confections were renamed Laffy Taffy and sold under the Wonka brand. Each piece has a joke on the wrapper making it officially the funniest candy in the world.

The 1950s

The Laugh Track Invented

Charles Douglass, a sound engineer, invented the laugh track. It became a standard in mainstream television. Most prime-time sitcoms used it from the late 1950s to the late 1970s.

The 1930s and 40s

The Art of Standup Comedy Takes Off

Standup became a regular form of entertainment in the “Borscht Belt”: a chain of summer resort towns in the Catskill Mountains of the Hudson valley in New York. This gave Henny Youngman an opportunity to say, “Take my wife… PLEASE!”

446 B.C.

Aristophanes is born

Yes, THAT Aristophanes. While there's nothing funnier than ancient Greek playwrights, Aristophanes was apparently quite the crack up. His brand of comedy included political satire and innuendo that would make Judd Apatow blush.