A Visit To "The Tonight Show"
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A Visit To "The Tonight Show"

What You Don't See On TV

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A Visit To "The Tonight Show"
Brittany Becker

If you live in the New York area, going to a live taping of "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" is something I would recommend doing. In February 2014, Jimmy Fallon took over NBC's "Tonight Show" after Jay Leno left. As of today, 313 episodes have aired on NBC and been taped in front of a live studio audience. Tickets for his show are usually gone within minutes of being released, but luckily, I can say I was able to attend two shows, and would recommend going at least once for the experience.

Approximately a month in advance, NBC studios releases tickets online and you are able to pick the day you would like to go. You can reserve up to four tickets; there are only 240 seats in studio 6-B, so obtaining tickets for "The Tonight Show" is luck. The best part is that the tickets are completely free!

If you are lucky enough to obtain tickets for a live taping, you are instructed to show up to two hours before the show is set to film. Filming starts at 5:30 p.m. on the dot. It takes about a half-hour to get the lucky 240 people through security and into the studio. There are no assigned seats, it is completely random. Someone working for the studio will tell you where to sit for the show, and once everyone is seated, the band called The Roots, sets up on the side of the stage and the tech crew sets the stage for filming.

Before you know it, filming starts and Jimmy Fallon is standing about 10 feet away from you. Filming takes about an hour to an hour and a half. There are stops between "scenes" for commercials, which is timed with the commercials you would see on television. If there is a mistake, or something the producer does not like, everyone goes back and redoes it, which is really cool to see because everything is perfect when it airs.

After each show, Jimmy runs through his audience, high-fiving everyone (so if you are sitting on the end of an aisle, you are lucky)! Both times I went, I was lucky enough to be able to high-five him at the end of the show. As soon as he is done high-fiving people, he waves goodbye and disappears backstage. Filming stops and that is the end of the show.

By 11:30 p.m. ET, the show you just watched being filmed airs (without the mistakes and any curses his guests might have said). Though you just watched the same show a few hours before live, watching the edited version is fun because it shows just how much extra material is filmed and not used, and what jokes made it on air.

Both times I have seen "The Tonight Show," I was not disappointed. As kind-hearted as he seems on television, is exactly how Jimmy is in person. The first time I went was May 2014. That night, Jimmy had guests from the NFL draft, Guy Fieri, Zach Efron and Sarah McLachlan. Guy Fieri made hot dogs for Jimmy to try (and he did not share with the audience ... bummer) and talked about the new cookbook he published. After the show ended, I actually wound up meeting him outside by accident and shook his hand. Zac Efron talked about his new movie, "Neighbors." They had to redo some of it, which was fun to watch because when it aired that night, all of his curses were bleeped out. The fun part of listening and watching live is that nothing is bleeped, so hearing what Zac was saying, against what was bleeped on television was funny.

Sarah McLachlan performed a song off what was her new album, which was fun to listen to live. At the end of the show when Jimmy ran around to high-five everyone, I wound up not only getting a high-five, but I got his autograph as well (a security guard had told me earlier that day if I asked him, he would be more than happy to give it to me). The whole thing was caught on camera and on television that night, which was really cool to see!

The second time I saw "The Tonight Show" was in December 2014. They had to film some of the guests and the musical performance to an empty audience. I'm not sure why, but something with timing did not work for the guests and Jimmy. The show I saw had Martin Freeman. who's new movie "The Hobbit" was coming to theaters. He talked about his movie a bit, then he and Jimmy played reindeer ring toss. They had to wear helmets with antlers on them and toss rings onto the antlers for points. Megan Mullally and musical guest Yusuf were not filmed when I was there, but when I watched the whole show that night on television, Megan Mullally talked about her performance in the Broadway show "It's Only a Play," and Yusuf performed one of his songs off his album. Since Yusuf was the "closing act," but was not performing for our live audience, the producer asked us to clap and cheer for an empty stage so they could record us and the sounds, which seemed really creepy at the time, since we were clapping for nothing. When the show aired, it was interesting to see how they pulled the audio and visual from the audience to fit into the show after Yusuf performed, and I am sure if you were watching the show and were not in the audience when it was taped, you would never know.

Seeing "The Tonight Show" live was one of the best and coolest things I have ever experienced. I hope I can go again at some point, and I hope everyone can experience it as well!

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This article has not been reviewed by Odyssey HQ and solely reflects the ideas and opinions of the creator.
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