Our late night television experience

Several months ago, I told Andy that I would love to be a part of a studio audience sometime, and that I’d really love to see Late Night with Jimmy Fallon live in New York.  Andy agreed, and we discussed that maybe when Liam was older, we could go on a trip just the two of us to the city, and try to score seats in the audience.  This was obviously going to be in the future, because we certainly aren’t leaving Liam anytime soon.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago when I was watching the show and Jimmy announced that the show was going on the road for the first time—to the Super Bowl!  Which just so happens to be in Indianapolis this year.  I applied for tickets twelve seconds later, then emailed Andy and told him.  Once we got confirmation that we had been selected for the audience, we asked my parents to come for the day to stay with Liam, and they gladly agreed.  So yesterday we got to have our television experience—and it was awesome.  We had a blast.

The ticket line was supposed to be open from 10-3.  Our paperwork said that just because we had been selected didn’t necessarily mean we were in, because they overbook the show to make sure all seats are filled.  We got to the theater at 10:30, and the line was around the corner and down the street.  We stood in line for an hour and a half to get our seats and the guy at the door said that they were down to their last few hundred seats at that point.  We went back to Andy’s parents house for a bit and hung out, and when we got back to the theater, people were lining up to get in.  We were there at 2:45, and the doors weren’t supposed to open until 3:45.  We had lunch and wandered around a little…sadly, we didn’t make it down the Super Bowl Village…we weren’t sure if we had enough time (we totally did).   They didn’t open the doors until 4:15…and they didn’t have enough metal detectors, so it took forever to get through.  We actually split up…Andy went through the express line (for those with no bags/purses) while I waited in the regular line.  Once we got in, we found out how great are seats were—we were on the aisle in the 9th row center on the main floor. 

Everything about the show was a blast.  There is a guy at the beginning who warms up the audience…he kind of tells you the few things they don’t want you to do, and has everyone practice cheering, and tells a few jokes.  Then the Roots came out and jammed for about 3-5 minutes…then on the monitor we could see Jimmy, and the show started.  They had to shoot last night’s opening twice because Deion Sanders was a bit off the first time.  But he rocked it the second time through.  Jimmy was super nice—he took a few minutes to talk to the audience between one of the segments to say how much he was enjoying Indy and how they loved the theater and it was so much bigger than their regular studio.  When they do things like Head Swap and the subs across America video, they play on the monitor and the audience gets to watch them that way…Jimmy sat at his desk and laughed through parts of them.  When they did the songs about people, he genuinely walked out into the crowd and chose three people at random…which makes me super impressed with Tariq, the singer from the Roots.  I suspect they know what type of music they are going to play…but Tariq totally freestyles the lyrics on the spot.  During that segment, my spazzy face was on camera through the whole first song.

The interviews were a lot of fun…Tracy Morgan talked for about twice as long as was shown.  Tim Tebow stayed out for a while longer too..Jimmy told him he should host SNL.  Then they filmed some promos for the episode to air before the show.  Then it took a little while to set up the studio, but the All American Rejects played, and they were great.  And then it was the end and show was over.  Andy got to give him a high five at the end…he said his hand was softer than Liam’s.  So we were finished, and got to leave and head on home.  It was a total blast.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside the theater, and I’m a rule follower, so I didn’t.  But here’s what I did take yesterday.

Our line in the morning…this was when we had about 30 minutes left to wait.

The huddle waiting to get in before the show and my wristband…you had to have your ticket and your wristband…they strapped the band on you in the morning when you got your tickets.