Canned Laughter

Last Friday night, I was invited by a schoolmate who had tickets to the taping of a new Fox sitcom, "The Return of Jezebel James", which stars indie queen Parker Posey (she was in "Superman Returns"), Lauren Ambrose and other bo-mia actors, at the Kaufman Astoria Studio in Queens (apparently the only sitcom taped in NYC. The rest are done in Hollywood of course). It's not quite "Friends" or "Seinfeld", but hey, still worth a look, I thought.

It was interesting to see everything in action, I suppose, like how the sets were so fluid and small parts of it like a panel of wall could be wheeled around. The actors were pretty good with their lines. I think no one flubbed his/her lines except for star Posey, ironically.

Also, we're supposed to laugh, and laugh loudly if possible, so the mics around can catch our laughter. After you see one scene done 5-6 times though, it gets old. And it doesn't help that I didn't think it was that funny. Guess that's why it's on Fox, the network who cancelled Arrested Development and produces 'balanced' news shows like the O'Reily Factor. I bet "Jezelbel James" gets cancelled within half a year.

The best part of the experience? Free pizza! Heh. Yeah, we were each served a slice of plain cheese pizza in the middle of taping, which was a [insert deity]send because everyone was so hungry, and the shoot was looonnnggg. So long, in fact, that we left not too long after we finished our pizza.

Lesson learnt then: Attend tapings of 'live' shows such as SNL or Letterman (hopefully I'll get an opportunity to do so!), unless you have hours to spare and are prepared to go hungry.