Subject: Messageboard Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 13:49:35 +1000 From: Mark Longmuir To: longmuir@labyrinth.net.au Serena (who is in the mood to type): Another article about being in the audience of WLiiA.....Taken from Starweek Magazine for those of you not lucky enough to live in Toronto ;)......READ ON!! (14-Aug-1999 20:44:22) Tim: Cool Serena thanks :) I was just far too lazy to read the article in Starweek :) (n/t) (14-Aug-1999 21:27:26) The annoyed Dana2 who read her issue of Starweek today after Serena mentioned it..: Alright here's a thought..If you don't want to go thorugh the sitting, and non-stop 2 and a half hour improv then don't be a member of the studio audience..I would be in heaven itself to even sit in the stupid cement chair..So what?? If that's the price to pay to see Ryan and the gang on stage I'd be all for it..Lowsy reporters..When it comes to getting kncoked down off the royal treatment , all they do is complain..Terry Jackson..If that's her/his real name..Write more about what the contestants DID!!! Not what you were suffering from..Or a few others..Ah..I just want to slap some trout at that reporter and maybe a good size salmon too.. :0/ (n/t) (15-Aug-1999 16:23:53) netiquette counselor...: someone's addicted to long message subjects... (body body body!) (n/t) (15-Aug-1999 17:23:12) dana streisand: memories.... like the corners of my mind... misty water colored memories... (n/t) (15-Aug-1999 00:59:56) Mark: Gosh... Dan Patterson has a British accent? Who woulda thought! :) (n/t) (15-Aug-1999 07:06:24) Matt: Novelty upon novelties! Keep it to yourself, but I've heard Greg Proops is American. Scandalous! :) (n/t) (15-Aug-1999 12:01:44) Dana2: Saying sorry for the last time..: Yes alright..I posted something way too long, sue me..I said I was sorry geez! I guess it must have been the oranges. (n/t) (15-Aug-1999 18:44:42) Ang2: There was nothing wrong with IHOP!!! (Just DON'T eat the garlic bread!) :) (n/t) (16-Aug-1999 01:14:12) --------------------------------------------------------------------- [Inside The Web] [Image] [Get FREE Message Board] [Image] Whose Board is it Anyway? Another article about being in the audience of WLiiA.....Taken from Starweek Magazine for those of you not lucky enough to live in Toronto ;)......READ ON!! Saturday, 14-Aug-1999 20:44:22 209.112.9.193 writes: TAPINGS PUT AUDIENCE ON THE SPOT By Terry Jackson Pasadena Calif- Filming a TV show can be gruelling. Long hours under hot lights. Countless retakes. Pushy producers and directors exhorting you to be upbeat, to give your all. And all you want is the bathroom break that never comes. Yeah it's hell being an audience member. Spend a Saturday night with about 300 people clapping, cheering and laughing through a three hour taping of Drew Carey's improvisational comedy show WLiiA, and you'll feel like a graduate of a Hollywood-style Outward Bound trek-exhausted but happy about the experience. That's why free tickets to the filming of Carey's half hour show-he double dips at ABC, which also airs DCS-are hot items in Hollywood. Audience hopefuls-most under 35, started lining up at noon outside Raleigh Studios to fill one of 297 seats available for the 7pm taping. About two dozen were turned away. For the rest, getting inside the studio was a little like entering a velvet-lined prison. (Serena here: ::::giggling::::) Executive producer Dan Patterson, a cheery chap with a British accent comes out to warm up the audience, seated on waiting room style chairs on risers to the front and left of the stage. For the few who admit they've never seen WLIIA-for some tourists it's the TV experience that matters-not which show it is- Patterson explains the show. Carey poses a variety of situations for the show's panel of actor/comedians-series regulars Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie and Wayne Brady-along with Brad Sherwood, who was filling the rotating guest slot. The show is a little like charades in the nature of its physical comedy, and the games the panel plays includes Party Quirks, in which all but one of the actors pretend to be at a party behaving strangely and the other one has to guess why. No one on the panel has a clue about what he or she might be asked to do, and it's a credit to the improvisational skills of Carey's crew members that they work the games so well. But for the show to be good TV -it's a hit for ABC and begins its second season next month on Thursdays at 8pm- the audience has to REALLY get into the action Patterson says. So he issues his marching orders: "Clap enthusiastically, even if you hate it. And we want only happy faces behind Drew. No obscenities. No heckling. And don't shout out the names of companies that might sue us." Then Patterson teaches them how to laugh and clap on cue. The first try's okay, not great, and Patterson tells them it would be fine on the British version of the show-WLiiA debuted in Britain several years ago-but in the US, more is expected. (Me here again: I don't think this is right this is where Dapper Dan comes in with his cricket remark, yes? No mention of the Brit version- and I don't think he would do that anyway- he wouldn't spit on the show and Brit audience members that way.) So the next time the audience claps and cheers like Mark McGwire just hit no. 70. Oh and one last thing no one can leave once the taping begins, he says. That's when you notice the lack of serious padding in the chairs and regret the three Cokes you gulped an hour ago. Patterson gives way to Carey, who comes bounding in frm stage right . This night is just the second show of the new season, so Carey and his cast are full of energy that seems to infect the audience. Carey even gets away with a joke about how he wasn't so bummed out about JFK Jr's death because it means he and the rest of the guys in the world have moved up on the attractiveness-to-women scale. Soon taping begins, and the audience delivers its most thunderous applause yet. Carey introduces his panel , explains the showand kicks off the first game, one in which Stiles and Mochrie must act out movie and TV genres while searching for, ah bear traps. Right now, the seat bottoms starts to feel like granite and hight tide is approaching for your bladder. The action stops for the commercial breaks, and stagehands bring in stools or props for the next round of games. An hour and a half into the taping, a stagehand gives Stiles what looks like two aspirin, and Carey gets a Pepsi re-fill ofr the coffee cup on his desk. Soon it's time for a segment called the Drew Ho-Down, where Carey joins three members of the panel in sing impromptu songs about a subject suggested from the audience. The evening starts to drag as the audience shifts on the now painfully hard seats. (me again: And thoughts of IHOP start running through your mind.....NOT!! ;)) Then, Patterson tells Stiles that while his ditty about having sex with Mrs Claus would fly in Britain, maybe even Canada (Serena: SURE IT WOULD!), it won't pass the ABC censors. (:::SIGH:::) So they have to do the bit again-minus the colourful euphemism for having sex. Stiles isn't happy, but he does it. Finally more than three hours after taping began, Patterson is satisfied he has 44 minutes of television- two half hour shows minus commercials-and dismisses the audience. At first the audience just sits there stunned. Then, there's a palpable sigh of relief and a smattering of applause as the studio pages (PAGETICIA!) point the audience towards the bathrooms and the exit. THE END!! Serena (who is in the mood to type) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Message thread: Serena (who is in the mood to type): Another article about being in the audience of WLiiA.....Taken from Starweek Magazine for those of you not lucky enough to live in Toronto ;)......READ ON!! (14-Aug-1999 20:44:22) Tim: Cool Serena thanks :) I was just far too lazy to read the article in Starweek :) (n/t) (14-Aug-1999 21:27:26) The annoyed Dana2 who read her issue of Starweek today after Serena mentioned it..: Alright here's a thought..If you don't want to go thorugh the sitting, and non-stop 2 and a half hour improv then don't be a member of the studio audience..I would be in heaven itself to even sit in the stupid cement chair..So what?? If that's the price to pay to see Ryan and the gang on stage I'd be all for it..Lowsy reporters..When it comes to getting kncoked down off the royal treatment , all they do is complain..Terry Jackson..If that's her/his real name..Write more about what the contestants DID!!! Not what you were suffering from..Or a few others..Ah..I just want to slap some trout at that reporter and maybe a good size salmon too.. :0/ (n/t) (15-Aug-1999 16:23:53) netiquette counselor...: someone's addicted to long message subjects... (body body body!) (n/t) (15-Aug-1999 17:23:12) dana streisand: memories.... like the corners of my mind... misty water colored memories... (n/t) (15-Aug-1999 00:59:56) Mark: Gosh... Dan Patterson has a British accent? Who woulda thought! :) (n/t) (15-Aug-1999 07:06:24) Matt: Novelty upon novelties! Keep it to yourself, but I've heard Greg Proops is American. Scandalous! :) (n/t) (15-Aug-1999 12:01:44) Dana2: Saying sorry for the last tim