Deal or No Deal!

Last Wednesday Ryan took the day off, we got a babysitter, and drove to fabulous Culver City to attend a taping of "Deal or No Deal".

We thought it would be fun, but it was actually much better than we had expected. Mostly because it was just so dang interesting to see how they put these kind of shows together.

We showed up at 9am and wandered around for a minute trying to figure out where we were supposed to be. There was a long line of fairly well-dressed people standing along a wall, and the guy at the end said he was there for the show, so I got in line while Ryan kept looking for someone in charge. He came and got me a minute later saying that we were supposed to go up front to be admitted, so we left the pretty folks and joined a crowd of people who looked more like us.

About 45 minutes after we started waiting, they began taking people into the studio and finding them seats. We got great seats, right to the left of the tunnel (our left) about two rows up. After everyone had been sitting a few minutes, they started bringing in small groups of folks we recognized from the "pretty people" group outside. They carefully placed these people in all the front rows, in the section just in front of the models, and everywhere else the camera spent alot of time. Two sat right next to us, and we found out that they were actors! They were getting paid to be there and act excited. I always wondered why so many people in the audience were young and dressed like they were at the opera . . .

Those audience members look as good as the models . . .
(I stole this picture online - we weren't allowed to bring cameras)

The show was really fun. We were coached for about an hour while they set things up. We practiced laughing at Howie's jokes, sounding disappointed, giving standing ovations, that kind of thing. I guess the taping we attended will be the season premiere in September, so everybody has to watch and look for us. I don't want to ruin it, but the show comes down to two cases at the end, it's pretty dramatic!

After everything ended and the contestant left, we were asked to remain in our seats. Then they began about 45 minutes of "audience shots". This may have been the funniest part of the day. We were instructed to feign various emotions for the camera. They said things like, "Okay, now let's say Howie just said something kinda funny - polite chuckles." "Now pretend the banker just offered a deal that's insulting: a 'oh no he didn't!' reaction!" "Now, there's somebody coming down the tunnel, and at first you're looking like you don't know who it is, then you recognize them and go crazy!"

Yeah, reality TV is great.