The Best TV Shows I’ve Been On

While living near LA for five years, I got the chance to go to a handful of TV show tapings. All of these tapings I got to go to for free and I originally found tickets on places like 1iota.com and then once I started attending more, production teams would reach out to me and invite us to attend a taping. So here are some of the top shows I have been to:

1. America’s Got Talent: THIS was a fun one. We brought our friend’s Sean and Melissa to this taping and waited forever in this really long line to get in (which is pretty typical). But when we got up to the door they gave us this special pass and told us to give it to a worker inside. We do that and they walk us up to the FRONT row of this enormous theater and we are seated directly behind the judges. A video from this taping also went viral and happened to feature me looking like an absolute idiot with my mouth hanging open and approximately 65 people messaged me asking if that was me and posting it and tagging me look stooopid (see 3:48). This was one of the few shows we were allowed to have our phones on us (most of them you can’t even have it on you). We just couldn’t use them while taping. But during a commercial break, I was like ‘ok I’m just gonna do it’ and I go “psst, Howie” and Howie Mandel turned around and I was like “Can I take a picture with you” and he said of course so I stood up and snapped with gem of a picture and fist-bumped him and felt pretty dang cool because not one other person in that theater got a picture with any of the judges. I mean, that’s just Howie do it….
   

   

   
2. Ellen: Okay first and foremost, getting a ticket to Ellen is HARD. They are always sold out so you just have to get lucky on the website. But they sat us down right on the edge of an aisle so we got to dance with Ellen up on the stairs. The day we went, Ice Cube and Drew Carrey were the guests and Ice Cube gave us all a copy of his new movie at the time, Ride Along. BUT LISTEN HERE! I was pulled aside before the taping while we were in the outdoor waiting area and brought to an Ellen trailer because they wanted to use either me or this other girl for a game on the show and they were going to “select one of us from the audience” to go down and play and win a trip to Cabo! So they needed me to fill out paperwork and release forms and then of course, she got picked -_- I think they probably figured I was too young because I think I was only 20 at the time. Or maybe she had a good story and deserved to go or something. Oh well, catch ya on the flipside, Cabo.
3. Whose Line Is It Anyways: I have never laughed so hard in my entire life. I have also never wanted to leave somewhere so badly my entire life. This taping was over 4 hours long for two 30 minute episodes. Once again, we got sat right behind Ayisha Tyler (I mean it’s Hollywood, they put the young fresh-faced people where the camera’s pick up the most faces) but that means you want to really be sitting up straight and smiling the whole time. These guys on this show were seriously soooo funny and I bet 70% of the bits didn’t even make it on the real show. But for the last hour of the taping, it was all just re-do’s. Like they would have them walk in from a different direction or pick up a glass a different way. And it was FREEZING in there and we were starving but it was still worth it!
4. Family Feud: Okay this was absolutely one of my all time faves. It was SO funny. We weren’t even allowed to have our phones in the building so I literally have zero pictures from this. We got to sit in the front row next to the producer which was really cool and we got to ask Steve Harvey questions during breaks. I was shocked at 1. how small the studio/ stage was and 2. How much dialogue doesn’t make it into the actual show! They filmed two 30 minute episodes but each taping was well over an hour just of Steve talking to the family forever. Then for about 20 minutes after they wrapped taping, no joke, Steve gave an entire sermon about how his life was changed when he found God and how God will answer your prayers and make you successful if you honor Him. For real.

   

5. Jimmy Kimmel: I have been on Jimmy Kimmel quite a few times. That one isn’t too difficult to get tickets to, you just have to know when to check (answer: often). One of Alec and I’s first dates was to go see Lil Wayne on Jimmy Kimmel. How LA is that? lol but I had never been to a taping before so I thought Alec was pretty dang cool for bringing me. I’ve seen Selena Gomez there, the Avengers, gosh I mean lots of people. We also went to a special Oscar’s Viewing/ After-Party with Jimmy Kimmel and they provided dinner and drinks and we had to be in full black-tie. They live-streamed it from across the street at the Dolby Theater where the Oscar’s take place.
   

   

   
6. Dancing With the Stars: We got placed right behind where all the stars sit on this show too which was so cool! This was the season with Bill Nye the Science Guy and Snooki on it. For real, all of these celebs are so much shorter and smaller in person than you would think. This was one of the few studios that was actually pretty large on the inside opposed to most that only look big on TV and are actually a shoe box. The power of Hollywood, people.
7. X Factor: I went to this one with three of my girlfriends and we got to sit in the front row behind the judges at this one, too! This is when Demi Lovato was a judge so I got this cute little selfie with her lol. 
8. Michael Buble Christmas Special: I LOVED this one. It was really a first come first served seating and this line was wrapped wayyyy past the building when we arrived. It was also filmed in like October but we had to dress Christmas-y. It was really cool because in between songs, Michael would just be chatting with us and being totally chill unlike an actual concert.
   

   

   
9. 2014 People’s Choice Awards: I went to this one with my college roommate and we had to wait outside forrrevvvver. Hours and hours in heat and heels. But we saw a bazillion celebs at this one. We were seat fillers so when a celeb got up or people moved around, we would go fill their seats so the crown always looked full. But at eh VMA’s we saw people like Zac Efron, Justin Timberlake, Ellen, Jennifer Aniston, Seth Rogan, Reese Witherspoon, blah blah name drop name drop…just a lot. But it was weird because they would come take their seat just before they were supposed to go up on stage. They didn’t just sit around the whole show.