It's only taken 15 years....

On Tuesday, I had tickets to go to a taping of a comedy sitcom. We were going to see Last Man Standing, a show with Tim Allen in it. Ever since I was young, I had always wanted to be in a live studio audience, but had never made the attempt until now, 15 years after I moved to LA. I had tickets, but that didn’t guarantee entrance. So I planned to be there an hour and a half early so that we would get in. Jeff was running late, so we didn’t arrive until an hour later. They told us it was unlikely we would get in. Eventually the line dwindled until there were only 6 people in front of us. But two of those people wanted to be with their friends who were behind us, so they traded numbers with us. We were finally taken in, but told that we would be sitting in single seats. Oh well, at least we would get to see the show! Once inside, the usher was taking us to our seats, but she couldn’t find the other seat. So she called “upstairs” and asked to release some VIP seats that were empty. They agreed! The usher said to us, “You better be on your best behavior because you are sitting next to Jane Allen.” We had the best seats! We were in the front row right in the middle, next to Jane Allen. Several times during the show, Tim Allen came over to talk to his wife. We didn’t talk to him, but he was only about 3 feet away from us. It was pretty cool.

The set was long and skinny, as were the audience seats. They were only about 4 rows deep, but very long. Then the crew and actors moved up and down the stage to the set they needed for that particular scene (living room, kitchen, office, etc.) We didn’t see very much of the actors during the taping. Either they were on a set that we didn’t have a very good angle to see, or there were so many cameras, sound microphones, and people in the way of the set to see hardly anything. But they had big tv screens mounted in front so that we could see what the director was seeing. I was amazed that they switched cameras so quickly while doing the live taping. It looked just like the way it does on TV. The actual show didn’t look that different. It was like watching a scene, rewinding it, waiting 5 minutes, watching the scene again, waiting 10 minutes, then watching the next scene. But it wouldn’t be nearly as fun to do this at home because you wouldn’t have the comedian at home. He kept us laughing during all the breaks. He was so funny, he questioned and teased the audience about why they were there, where they were from, we had a dance contest, he told a few jokes, we had a guessing contest, it was lots of fun. We were laughing for 3 hours straight. We tried not to laugh while they were feeding us pizza. A happy audience laughs a lot, so they kept us happy. I was a little worried that it wouldn't be very funny seeing the same thing over and over, but every once in a while one of the actors would change a line, or change their timing. Oftentimes, the second take was funnier because they would adjust according to our reaction to their lines. I am really looking forward to seeing the final episode, which lines did they keep, etc. I kept score for one of the games, so the comedian gave me a copy of the script. I wrote down all the changes so that I would know what to look for. It was a really fun night, I highly recommend it for anyone in the area. The episode we watched was “This Bud’s for You.” I will try to let you know when it is being shown, so that you can listen for my laugh. Sorry I don't have any pictures, but we weren't allowed to bring cameras, cell phones, etc.