Wheeling and Dealing

Today was a fun day. Early this morning, I got up and left with my aunt to go see a taping of Deal Or No Deal, pretty much my favorite game show of all time. We left with plenty of time to spare, or so we thought. We ran into some bad traffic. I know you always here the stereotyping of LA traffic being bad, let me tell you, it is. It took us over and hour and a half to go about 25 miles. The traffic was stop and go the whole way, with a lot more stopping than going. I wasn't sure if we were going to make it. A shuttle left the free parking at the college at 8:45 am, or so we were told. We got to the parking lot at 9:00 am, and the shuttle left shortly after we got there.

We arrived at the studio, and went through security. After that, we formed lines inside and waited for instructions and seating. The studio sat 360 something people. Getting tickets was a big deal, they want all the seats to be full. You had to buy the tickets and call the night before to validate your spot. They also said to wear dark clothes. My clothes had logos, so they made me put tape over the logos.

After we were seated, we had to wait for another hour as everyone else was seated, and the preshow mantra was conducted. Unfortunately, I was not seated in the "hot spots", the seats that get lots of airtime on TV. I was seated about 4 rows above where the family stands, but who knows, I just may be seen by the 20 million plus people that turn in to the show. Look for the funny looking guy with the beard and shorts.

Once the show finally started, it was different than I thought. It was way different than it seems on TV. The audience is instructed what and how they are to do everything, we are like little programed applauding robots. I have never clapped so much in my life. If you had a stopwatch and timed how long I was clapping, it would have been over an hour. Speaking of which, with all the clapping, it was hard to hear at times. When my man Howie Mandel was introducing things, such as after the commercials, the models, the contestant, I couldn't even hear anything he said.

Speaking of Howie, he seemed different in person. He was wearing these pointed shoe/cowboy boot looking things that were very bizarre. It is hard to explain, but they just seemed out of proportion. He also wasn't as friendly as I thought. He didn't ever really acknowledge the crowd. During the breaks, he would leave the stage.

A man sitting a few seats away from my aunt and me was very loud. He would yell really loud for a long time and for no apparent reason. And he wasn't even yelling during the game that much, he would yell during the breaks at the guy who job it was to keep the crowd excited. The crowd keeper awake man kept us awake by having a golf game for shirts, giving out shirts and candy, singing the show rules, having a strange name contest, a drawing contest, and a limbo contest. He was loud, but kept the crowd lively.

Overall, the taping took over three hours. I thought commercials breaks were long on TV, you should see them in real life. People came out and coached the contest and family, they also would redo their makeup. Oh yeah, and the makeup of the models. They also would clean the cases and other surfaces. During the breaks, all the models would get into little groups and talk, sit down, and eat.

When the show was over, we weren't done. Stock shots were taken of the audience obeying the directorish guy's command. We would lightly chuckle, laughter followed by applause, pretend to react to a high offer, a low offer, and so on. All these had to be done for each of the different background lights. It was quite fun, but totally contrived.

The actual game played by the contestant was good. I'll leave it a surprise so you have to watch it to see what happened. It is set to air November 30. Overall, it was a really fun experience. Next time I watch the show, I will definitely pay more attention to the audience.

Believe it or not, today's fun had just begun. This evening, we watched a quarter of my uncle's high school football game. This was about as long as everybody's attention span would allow. After that it was time for dinner. Wow, was it a dinner. It was probably the best restaurant I have ever been to. We went to noodle world. I ordered some fried rice, and got a sample of everyone's meal. It was so good. When I finally finished my huge plate of fried rice, I was stuffed, but had just enough room for dessert. I split a chocolate milkshake with boba with my cousin. What is boba you may ask, well I'll tell you. It is little tapioca balls. You can't really taste them, but man is it fun to suck a whole bunch of them up through your straw. Bring back memories dad? It was a great day. I also have big plans for tomorrow, but I'll keep those a surprise for now.