Get Paid To Watch Game Shows?

[OntarioQuizzer]

[quote name=\'fostergray82\' date=\'Feb 14 2005, 10:38 AM\']I remember from watching Scrabble, that Chuck would often mention that students from a local (junior) high school was in the audience, followed by a mix of cheers from the students and McKenzie. Would this be an example, or is this just simple a field trip to the NBC studios.

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The same thing happened on CBC's Smart Ask.

School classes were invited to fill the audiences in exchange for tours of the CBC's Toronto studios.

From my expericnes, though, high school classes did much better - as the middle-school classes tended to have problems keeping the answers to themselves...

[Johnissoevil]

[quote name=\'tvrandywest\' date=\'Feb 14 2005, 01:25 PM\']Paid audiences became standard practice in the early 1990s.

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I've been wondering for the last 14 and a half years how TTD '90 actually pulled off getting audiences to sit through numerous grueling tapings. :-D

[WhammyPower]

[quote name=\'Johnissoevil\' date=\'Feb 15 2005, 06:48 AM\'][quote name=\'tvrandywest\' date=\'Feb 14 2005, 01:25 PM\']Paid audiences became standard practice in the early 1990s.

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I've been wondering for the last 14 and a half years how TTD '90 actually pulled off getting audiences to sit through numerous grueling tapings. :-D

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Or the "country" version of Pyramid.  (Or would that be "rock n' roll?")

[Jumpondees]

You know...(While shaking my head and grinning in pure awe)

I come here and I do a lot of reading....a LOT of reading...to increase my trivial knowledge of TV and game shows in general (Hey, it's a hobby and it keeps me out of trouble).

It ALWAYS amazes me at how much a complete schmuck like me can learn about how things work in TV by reading Randy's posts.  

I hope this isn't taken as an insult, because I mean this in the most sincere and complementary way...To me, Randy West is the Game Show version of Mr. Wizard (You know, the science guy).  If Randy were to write a book tomorrow with all the stories, facts, and anecdotes I've read here , I'd buy it in a heartbeat!

I bow to your superior knowledge, sir!

[tvrandywest]

If Randy were to write a book tomorrow with all the stories, facts, and anecdotes I've read here , I'd buy it in a heartbeat!

Thanks!!
G, if only I culd reed n rite I culb b ritch!   ;-p

With all that said about paid audiences, I was reminded this past weekend that, with the possible exception of some prostitutes, you can't buy a totally believable and totally fulfilling faked interpersonal connection.  There is still nothing better than the magic in the air when folks from middle America who have never been in a studio before are professionally escorted to their seats by a page in a uniform, their eyes opened wide and their hearts and minds ready for a fun and special experience that they can tell their friends about. Then you step out, see the anticipatory smiles on their faces, and get your first laugh with a warm-up line that's over a quarter century old that you borrowed from the warm-up guy that first made you laugh on your own first visit to a taping. For me, there is no better feeling on the planet.

And among the people in the audience Saturday was a guy who totally understood all of that. There, smiling ear to ear and high-fiving me when I reached the back rows handing out candy, sat one of the nicest of the hired audience pros who's been on the circuit for at least a decade. With a laugh, in a brief moment, we shared so much about how time marches on but some things never change!


Randy
tvrandywest.com

[Desperado]

IWith all that said about paid audiences, I was reminded this past weekend that, with the possible exception of some prostitutes, you can't buy a totally believable and totally fulfilling faked interpersonal connection.

Funny, I was also reminded of that this weekend.

Only I wasn't in any TV audiences....

[chris319]

There is still nothing better than the magic in the air when folks from middle America who have never been in a studio before are professionally escorted to their seats by a page in a uniform, their eyes opened wide and their hearts and minds ready for a fun and special experience that they can tell their friends about.

I don't work with audiences but I'll bet there is one line that gives these people away:

"IT LOOKS MUCH BIGGER ON TELEVISION."

[chris319]

It is my theory that TV shows have used paid laughers since the beginning of time, a technique I suspect was brought over from radio. Watch any episode of I Love Lucy and you hear the same person howling every time there is a major sight gag. Randy, what can you tell us about this?

[tvrandywest]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Mar 28 2005, 03:57 PM\']Randy, what can you tell us about this?

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Only that it wasn't me! I'm not THAT old!!!

Paid audience vs paid laughers. That's a whole other thread for another day. Briefly, the latter is a little secret ingredient that was used on the last 3 seasons of "The Nanny" and a couple of other shows at the time. Similar to a looping or ADR session for a film, I was among eight looping artists paid to laugh on set while Fran Drescher and the cast pre-taped scenes from the show, usually the day before the audience taping. We helped the performers with their comedy timing, and gave the post production folks a guide to their sweetening.

These scenes were not performed in front of the live audience for one of a couple of logistical reasons, such as being shot on location outdoors, or being way too involved to stage live and shoot in real time (like her wedding episode, the scene when she falls out of the Maid of The Mist boat at Niagara Falls (my shoes are still wet), the hurricane scene on that tropic island, etc. etc.).

As to Lucy; somebody still has a lotta 'spainin' to do!

Listen to any old Milton Berle show and you can't miss the woman cackling. It's Miltie's mother. The BIG Berle says his mom came to every performance and would howl with laughter while elbowing the adjacent audience members to also laugh.

Listen to many of the game shows announced by Gene Wood and you can hear him clear as day going "aahhhh" or something similar to lead the audience's reactions.

A few other thoughts. Lucy was actually funny, and it was a massive hit. There'd be little reason to hire anyone to fill seats or to laugh. Unlike today when the audience is miked in stereo with as many as 20 mikes used for even coverage, audience shows at the time of Lucy only a used one, two or three mikes to cover the audience. One loud cackler anyplace close to a mike and they become very prominent in the ambient mix. Are you sure it's the same hysterical audience member on all those episodes you refer to?

As to the Lucy mystery, was it a relative or friend of a cast member at all those Lucy filmings? Was it a Desilu staffer? Or was it a young Gene Wood?!


Randy
tvrandywest.com

[vtown7]

the scene when she falls out of the Maid of The Mist boat at Niagara Falls (my shoes are still wet)

You were in Niagara Falls?  That's only a couple of hours away... I would have bought you a drink, eh? ;P

Ryan

[chris319]

One loud cackler anyplace close to a mike and they become very prominent in the ambient mix. Are you sure it's the same hysterical audience member on all those episodes you refer to?

As to the Lucy mystery, was it a relative or friend of a cast member at all those Lucy filmings? Was it a Desilu staffer? Or was it a young Gene Wood?!

It's a theory based more on observation and deduction than insider knowledge. You're a producer doing a live radio show, or a TV show live-to-film or live-to-tape. There is a big sight gag -- say it's Lucy staggering down steps in a giant headdress. You need a predictable, reliable, guaranteed audience reaction. One way to do it is to plant, say, three to six laughers in the audience near microphones, whom you know will react uproariously. Call it "laff insurance" if you will. It seems to me I always hear the same woman howling the same howl on I Love Lucy.

I seem to recall an article in TV Guide or somewhere, years and years ago, describing this basic technique as it was applied to the Tonight show.

[tvrandywest]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Mar 28 2005, 07:26 PM\']... It's a theory based more on observation and deduction than insider knowledge...

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I've never heard anything about it, but your theory makes more sense than the single bullet theory.

Randy
tvrandywest.com

[uncamark]

[quote name=\'chris319\' date=\'Mar 28 2005, 06:57 PM\']It is my theory that TV shows have used paid laughers since the beginning of time, a technique I suspect was brought over from radio. Watch any episode of I Love Lucy and you hear the same person howling every time there is a major sight gag. Randy, what can you tell us about this?

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Look to see if Desi's in the scene.  If he's not in the scene, he was usually in the front row of the audience, laughing uproariously.  Or so I've heard.  And it seems to me that almost all of the show's big sight gigs were never with Ricky in the same room as Lucy.

(In "Weird Al" Yankovic's "Ricky," a parody of Toni Basil's "Mickey" [with voice actress Tress MacNeille playing Lucy to Al's Ricky] he even ends the song with a Desi-ish laugh.)

[chris319]

Look to see if Desi's in the scene. If he's not in the scene, he was usually in the front row of the audience, laughing uproariously. Or so I've heard.

Desi is plainly audible in many episodes.

And it seems to me that almost all of the show's big sight gigs were never with Ricky in the same room as Lucy.

I'm not THAT big a fan of the show, but he was in the scene where Lucy sets her putty nose on fire.

[Mike Tennant]

To put all this to rest:

Yes, you can often hear Desi on the I Love Lucy audience track, but the most prominent laugh was indeed a relative, namely, DeDe Ball, Lucy's mother, who attended every taping of Lucy's various shows.  She's also the one heard to utter "uh-oh" when Lucy gets one of her bright ideas.

Apparently, as Uncle Miltie and Lucy found out, mothers are their children's biggest fans.  Who would doubt it?