Video & Arcade Top 10, maybe?
As a wee one, I got to go on the Hobo Kelly Show, which I think was sort of a poor man’s Bozo. I didn’t get to play any games on stage or anything, just sat on the floor with the rest of the littles.
Watched a taping of Happy Days (the one where they’re stuck in the vault of Mr. C.'s hardware store). I don’t recall a lot, as directly after I was to be dropped off at a girl scout jamboree so I was excited about that. Boy did I brag up a storm!
Around 17 or 18, I was on a local talk show called Teen Talk. It was an episode about fashion and I remember I accidentally insulted another girl’s outfit on camera. I would love to be able to find that clip but being the 80s, I doubt it still exists.
I’ve never attended a taping of a network show, but having worked in local TV, I’ve participated in many tapings of local shows. When I was a radio DJ, I even appeared on a couple of them as a guest, when the topic was music-oriented. One time I even took part in the cooking segment, chopping carrots or something.
A TV station I later worked for had two local shows in the 50s and 60s that were legendary. One was a kids show with puppets, and another was an American Bandstand-type show for teens from area high schools. I often gave station tours, and not a group would go by when at least one person would walk into the big studio and say “I was in the audience for…when I was a cub scout, or a brownie, or in high school.” They would always ask if we still had any tapes of those shows, and alas, we did not. They were mostly done “live,” and if they ever were recorded, videotape was expensive, and the tape was used over again.
However, my wife attended a taping of “The Mike Douglas Show” in Philadelphia in the early 1970s. As others have noted, Philadelphia had some great local TV shows in the 50s and 60s, in addition to American Bandstand.
I have been a contestant on a quiz show both in Pakistan and the USA (once each) I have also been an audience member on quiz shows in both countries several times.
In Pakistan (in the 1980s) the show was recorded without interruption for about 25 minutes. There was one instance where an audience member got carried away and yelled out the answer. Recording was stopped, audience member removed and another question was substituted. This was edited out of the broadcast.
In the US the high school quiz shows (late 1990s to c2015) were much more choppy. A 22 minute show took about 90 minutes to record. The audience applause scenes were all staged and shot in advance of the competition. Even the slightest hesitation or mispronunciation by the host was reshot and edited in.
Interesting. When I took my daughter there there was a competition for possibly being on Nick, doing a promo. It consisted basically of Simon Says. They never promised you’d be on. My daughter won, they said they weren’t doing any taping that day, and that was the end of it. You did better.
I can’t imagine competing in an environment like that.
Back in 1979 a Navy buddy and I went to a taping of Tic Tac Dough. It was taped in a warehouse outside of San Diego. Wink Martindale was the host. The 100 or so audience members got a quick 30 second interview then 10 were called to be potential contestants. I was one of the ten. They would be taping 5 episodes on that day. After the third episode, a producer came up to me, I would be the next contestant. When he asked me what I did for a living, I told him I was in the Navy. He told me members of the military had to be in uniform to be contestants and told me sorry. I still ended up with a consolation prize though, a gift certificate at a health spa.
My wife and I have attended 3 tapings of The Price is Right, 2 in 2016 and one in 2018. These are a big cattle calls, you register, they take a picture to sell you later, you wait a couple hours then a producer comes out and has a quick chat with all the people, from this they pick the 9 folks that will get called down to be contestants. Then you wait another hour or so then everyone is packed into the studio (much smaller than it looks on TV). Each taping takes about 90 minutes, everything is done like a well lubricated machine. The second taping in 2016 was the day after the first, the interview process for my wife and I on this day was “Weren’t you here yesterday?” then he moved on the to next person. We knew then our chances of being picked was zero, but we stayed. I spent about halt that taping in the restroom, I was coming down with something and felt like crap. The taping in 2018 was much better, we knew what to expect and were prepared. We were seated right next to George Gray’s podium and chatted with him throughout the taping. Didn’t get picked as contestants again but got a signed picture of George. About 6 months later my wife and I attended a Drew Carey standup show at a local casino. About halfway through his show he stopped and pointed at us and asked if we at a TPIR taping earlier that year. We were surprised he recognized us, he never acknowledged us during any of TPIR tapings.
Oh, interesting. Do you think that was a verification thing, or something else?
Years ago, my job sent me to L.A. for a weeklong workshop. One of the after-hours activities they had planned for us was a sitcom taping. Unfortunately, that sitcom was “According to Jim.” To this day, I think that episode I attended is the only episode of the series I’ve seen in its entirety. Anyway, it was kind of interesting to see the process. In between takes they had a comedian come out and tell the audience to laugh really loud at the gags.
My wife and I also attended a taping of “The Talk” a few years back while we were in California on vacation. I registered for tickets online, and they had someone call us to confirm our attendance and give us instructions on where to park and how to get on the shuttle bus to the studio. In between takes the hosts touched up their makeup, and I think they did a bit or two with the audience that they posted on social media later. At the end, everyone in the audience got a fancy blow dryer (I think mine is still in the box).
The show aired live on the East Coast, but a few hours later on the West Coast, so we were able to actually watch it when we got back to our hotel room after lunch.
The 2-3 minute sections of actual quizzing are not interrupted. The oopsies are fixed after the game.
One thing I’d forgotten about the game show I was on. I was sitting in the contestants chair, a.k.a. “the hot seat“, When they wanted to retake the intro to a scene. So the camera, on a crane, was put right in front of me, and I was told when cued to slowly move it about 2 feet over… I think this is intended to give my perspective? Anyway, I’ve never watched the episode, so I’m not even sure it was used. 
I did that for a pledge drive at the PBS station in Seattle. It was during a Frugal Gourmet marathon, but I wore a silver ‘H’ on my forehead in tribute to Red Dwarf. I didn’t realize when I was picking my seat that I’d be right behind the hosts. I must have had some camera time because one guy I spoke to on the phone said “are you the guy with the ‘H’ on his head?”
For those who know Seattle trivia, someone told me that the makeup man for the hosts had been Getrude on J.P. Patches, but I can’t confirm that.
I’ve been to a few tapings of radio shows, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, and Says You!. You could hear me yell out an answer in one of them.
While it’s not a TV show, I was in the audience for a taping of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me once, and that was pretty similar. Any time Peter Sagal, Carl Kasell, or one of the panelists flubbed a word, they’d go back and re-record it. Some they did immediately, some they re-recorded at the end of the show.
The 10,000 Pyramid. The only thing I remember is that one contestant made a very funny mistake, but it was so long ago I’ve forgotten what.
Oh yes, one I’ve almost forgotten. I attended a taping of the game show “Beat the Clock” in Montreal, in the old CFCF studios on Ogilvy Ave. This was a Canadian version of the American show. I was about 12 years old. The special guest was Robert Clary from “Hogan’s Heroes”. That’s about all I remember.
Saw a taping of the original John Stewart Show. Added “bonus” was meeting and photographing Rev. Al Sharpton in the lobby while waiting in line to enter the studio. Guest musical act was “Inner Circle” of Bad Boys Bad Boys Whatcha Gonna Do fame.
My sister was a call-in guest for Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. She told me she really flubbed up and needed a lot of help to guess the limerick, and they edited almost all of it out so she sounded pretty good on the show that aired.
I was once in the audience for a sit-com.
It was pretty much like joebuck’s experience. It was a lousy show that I’ve otherwise never seen, and they had a comedian working the audience, who was pretty decent. He also did card tricks and hypnotized people during breaks, when they were re-setting the stage and stuff.
One thing I hadn’t expected was that the show was filmed totally out of order, perhaps to make the scene changes fewer. So I actually had almost no idea what was happening in the show being filmed most of the time. 
I went to a taping of Jerry Springer in high school when the show was at its wildest. I went with about 4 or 5 buddies and we were all hyped about what promised to be a fun time. The topic that day was gay marriage, not legal at the time, and they performed some mock weddings of half a dozen couples. It was still pretty fun but not what we hoped for. And we were in some crowd shots so that was cool.
Into the 80s, too. A kid in my class got to go and he was basically a celebrity for a month.
KCTS!
I used to watch their Red Dwarf marathons all the time when I was younger.
The host of one of these shows was the emcee at a trade association banquet I attended. He was way, way, way less fluent in person than he is on TV.