This was back in 1995. I think October. They told us at school that we could go to a field trip to a taping of a tv show. The only problem was that it was being taped in the afternoon after school. The funny thing was that nobody really knew what we were going to a taping of. A teacher told us we were gong to a taping of the Mike and Maty show. This was not a mandatory field trip we had to sign up if you wanted to go. The funny thing was a lot of the students who were going brought outfits to change into. There were a lot of short skirts and thigh highs. (this was 1995 and the "Clueless" look was rampant). I was really excited because I thought I was going to a taping of the Mike and Maty Show. Back then I would switch between watching their show and The Price is Right. I use to enjoy watching both shows. I wanted to see "celebrities". I also wanted to get autographs. I brought a note pad and some pens; I didn't think of bringing food. There was no indication that we were allowed to or not. My friend brought a bag of baloney sandwiches.
Nobody else knew anything about the Mike and Maty show or had even seen it before. They kept asking me all these questions about it. I remember telling them something about Vinny the dog. If I remember correctly I think it had 3 legs. I'm pretty sure it was a rescue dog too. I think they even wanted me to sing the theme song. The trip was long. The studio was in like Glendale or Burbank, and we went there during rush hour.
When we got to the studio there was like a lobby/office area.
Before we could go to the taping of Wild Animal Games we had to wait on the set of The Family Challenge. We were sitting in the bleachers that the audience sat in. I think they asked us if we watched that show. Anyway while we were waiting on that set there was a vat of "gunk". It was right by where we were siting too. So we are there with the vat. I'm pretty sure we were unsupervised too. The girl next to me scooped a little bit out she said it smelled, and it did; like dirt. It sort of reminded me of jello. It was not entirely a liquid or a solid. So then the girl dared me to stick my foot in the vat. I just stuck my sole in the vat because I was wearing Vans.
The episode we were on was about snakes. The show was like a mix of Double Dare with some type of educational show about animals. There was a segment with live animals. There was/were snake(s) with some trainers. They were in a terrarium.The warm up people had a hard time relating to us. We were a group of students who were about 11-13 years old. They kept asking us questions like "Who watched The Big Help?" and "Who watches Gladiators 2000? (which was the other game show Seacrest hosted at the time)" It was funny they seemed awkward with us. I use to enjoy watching Gladiators 2000. Actually the only reason I use to watch the show was because I was a big fan of American Gladiators. That was back when I use to get teased about my height. I thought I was going to be really tall like at least 6 feet. The kids at school use to tell me I'd be so tall I'd have to live in a special house and drive a special car. I aspired to be an American Gladiator. I figured that would have been one of the few jobs I would have gotten with my freakish height. I should at least be 4 inches taller than I am now. What happened to me? :/
When they were telling us about the game show we were asked if we had any questions me being 11 and stupid at the time asked if they gave away canned hams to the audience. When I asked that question everybody in my group got mad and gave me dirty looks. The people working on the show told me it was not Letterman.
I was upset because I wasn't old enough to participate as a contestant. You had to be 12, and I was only 3 months shy of being 12. After they chose the contestants from the eligible pool of students. I moved down the bleachers to get a better seat. There was some space after they left.
They came out in sweat pants and a shirt. They were wearing the same shoes they came to the show in. One girl played the game in some pretty fancy shoes. Her shoes looked like a mix of these.
One of my favorite quotes from the trip was from one of the warm up people who were telling us (the audience) how to act on camera. We were instructed to applaud as a group when we noticed the camera was on us. "No waving! This isn't The Price is Right!"
Here was the game they played. I'll describe this as best I can. There was this giant prop snake head. It had to be about 8-10 feet tall. There was a stagehand inside the head(that wasn't supposed to be seen) who threw "eggs" (which were really balloons filled with pancake batter). The student had to catch the "eggs" in a large bowl, and then hand them off to the teacher who was wearing plastic Halloween fangs. They had to bite the "eggs" and collect the "venom" inside into a bucket.
To keep us in good spirits they played music. They must have had the Animaniacs soundtrack. They played it a lot though. At first it was fun; second time we were still singing along. After that we were bored with it. To keep us hyper they gave us a snack 1 small candy bar (not bit size) and a capri sun. They let you choose the candy bar from a large basket of candy bars.
The funny thing was that they must have shot the game being played a few times. I think they shot it at least 3 times.
After awhile we forgot what they told us, or maybe we were just ignoring them. We started waving in the camera. The funny thing was nobody told us to stop it.
Right before it was over they had a raffle and gave out prizes. I didn't win anything though. My ticket was just one number off...When the taping was over they let a few kids from the audience to look at the snakes. I didn't get to see them though. After the taping was over we were ready to leave. That's when my 2 friends and I ran into Seacrest and he sunbbed us!
The funny thing was a few months later one of the teachers who went on the trip told us that episode we went to was going to be shown on tv later that day. I think the show came on at like 4PM or something. They wanted somebody to tape it so we could all watch it. I remembered it was on, but I didn't get the channel it was shown on. Nobody remembered or taped it.
No comments:
Post a Comment