While reading further posts in this thread, I remembered two other occasions:
When I was in fifth or sixth grade, the Boy Scout troop that I was in got tickets to be in the studio audience for a taping of The Bart Starr Show – a weekly talk show in Green Bay. The show featured Starr (who had been the Packers’ star quarterback in the '60s, and was then the team’s head coach), along with a local TV sportscaster, who served as host.
The audience was small (probably less than 50 people), and the set definitely felt smaller than it looked on TV (apparently a recurring theme). Taping was done pretty briskly, and we got to meet Coach Starr, and the Packer player who was that week’s guest, after the taping concluded.
The other occasion, which wasn’t directly a “recording of a show,” so much as me being on the news, was when I got stuck on a commuter train, about 4 years ago, while heading to work. It had been part of a larger system issue that affected Chicago Union Station that day – someone had decided that it was a great idea to do an upgrade of the system that ran the switch control systems during morning rush hour, and when the upgrade made the system crash, every train had to come to a stop, for several hours.
I had made a post about the incident on my Facebook page, and an hour or so later (once I’d finally made it to my office), I got a message from one of the reporters at a Chicago TV station, asking if I was willing to be interviewed about it. She came over to my office, and her interview with me wound up being about 45 seconds of a 2-minute story on the local evening news.
In central Indiana, we had “Janie and Friends,” hosted by a lovely lady named Janie Hodge. She frequently had kids as guests on the show. One time I wrote her an impassioned letter, begging to be allowed to be a guest on her show. I never heard back–or so I thought.
Many years later, my mother told me that Janie had actually called and invited me to be on the show. But it was so far away–we lived about an hour from Indianapolis–and the scheduling would have been difficult, that my mother had to turn her down.
Even though I was a fully-grown, reasonably mature adult when my mother finally told me this, I felt utterly betrayed! I could have been on “Janie and Friends,” and you said no? How could you do that to me?!
Similar experience for me. I was at an episode of Frazier back in the late 90s.
The comedian we had didn’t tell many jokes, rather spent most of his time explaining what was going on and answering questions, as he was the only person who interacted with the audience. It was filmed out of order so difficult to follow the story. Anytime they flubbed a scene (mostly forgetting lines, no hilarious bloopers), it took a long time to reset and start filming again.
I’m not sure if this counts, as it may have been a live show and not taped.
My sixth grade class went on a field trip to WTTG (Channel 5) in Washington, DC in 1968 or 1969 to be in the audience for a news/interview show called Panorama, hosted by the then mostly unknown Maury Povich. I have no recollection of what that day’s show was about, but Povich interviewed a couple of my classmates in the front row.
Mostly what I remember was the two or three-hour bus ride each way and being bored while there.
I think it was just a rule they had. I watched the show a few times after the tapings and did see a contestant in his Air Force uniform. I thought this was weird, there are no Air Force bases near San Diego.
Thanks for the info! I grew up between Hartford and Milwaukee. Never heard of X-Plodz (and neither has the internet ), but Ukiah had a real following. (ps: one of the founding members, Brian St.Louis, died this summer).
Speaking of Milwaukee, I’ve been going to Summerfest since the early 70s, and one of the best shows was a young Bruce Hornsby. They announced at the beginning that some of the songs were being shot for videos (MTV was huge, then). But that meant that they’d end a song and Bruce would say “Sorry, but we’re going to do that twice more a get different camera angles”. But they didn’t cut any songs… it was just a long show.
My daughter was on her high school’s quiz bowl team, so we got to see the taping of a show on local TV (It’s Academic, shown in Washington DC). As others have mentioned, the space was smaller than I expected. There was a producer who encouraged us to stand up or applaud at certain moments. It was fun. Her team never won though
I grew up in southern California in the 60s and 70s. I attended these shows:
The Jimmy Dean Show. I was a little kid, but I vividly remember the muppet Rowlf the Dog.
A couple of episodes of the Johnny Carson Show.
The Dinah Shore Show. I remember that the musician Taj Mahal was the guest.
Laugh-In. They were filming a “joke wall” bit that day. We saw Goldie Hawn in a corridor of the studio afterwards, and I remember my mom predicting she would be a big star someday because she was so cute and funny. Mom was right!
Oh, I’ve been to Antiques Roadshow and they were recording a segment at the time that I later saw on the show. The ‘studio’ was larger than I expected and the various appraisers’ tables were spread out far and wide.
), but Ukiah had a real following. (ps: one of the founding members, Brian St.Louis, died this summer).