Getting Tickets

To get tickets, I started checking tvtickets.com 31 days before the date of the taping I wanted to see.  I knew that Joey taped on Fridays and I checked the taping schedule on the site to see what dates they planned to tape.  I would check for tickets several times a day to see if they had yet been made available.  I was originally going to see a taping on the 15^th of October, but that one was canceled.  There was no taping scheduled for the 22^nd of October, so I picked up tickets for the taping on the 29^th and then the November 5^th one also as a backup in case the one on the 29^th was canceled.  Good thing I did because that taping on the 29^th was also canceled, giving the show a three week break from taping.  Normally I don’t think they want to tape just 13 days before airing an episode.  Most of the time they try to tape 4 to 5 weeks in advance, so I assume that at the October 8^th taping they taped part 2 of “Joey and the Dream Girl”.

Arriving

Arriving at the taping is different than it was 3 years ago when I saw Friends.  You no longer park at Warner Bros.  Instead you park across the street and line up there.  The actual taping was at 4pm so we talked with various people about what time to arrive and all said to get there very early.  Some people told us they got there at 10am and there were about 20 people lined up when they went.  Others said noon would be a good time to arrive.  We decided to get there at 10:30am since we had experienced how people lined up very early for Friends.  We ended up being the first in line.  About an hour later another man showed up and a few minutes after that a girl from Audiences Unlimited arrived to number our tickets and save our place in line.  At that time there were only 4 of us there total.  We went to lunch for an hour and came back at 1pm since they said they would check us in at that time and may bus us over soon after.  When we got back there at 1pm, and at that time there were only like 20-25 people in line, so not too bad and actually a bit surprising compared to how many people turned out for a Friends taping. 

We were then lined up by the numbers they marked on our tickets and then a security guard came by to check our IDs and stamp our hands with the WB symbol showing that we’ve been checked in.  Around 1:30 they loaded us on the bus and drove us over to a parking ramp across from the South entrance.  It’s the same parking ramp where people park to take the studio tour.  There they line you up and give you a speech about some of the rules and warn you to use the restrooms now cos it might be 3 hours before you get a chance to again.  Everyone of course made a mad dash for it and we were there for 15 minutes more.  This sorta ticked off one of the head Audiences Unlimited people, who one of the security guards called “the sergeant”.  Next they march you across the street into the South entrance where you go through metal detectors and they check you for the stamp on your hand.  Then we march (in single file) down the street within the studio between various sound stages towards the Friends stage.  During the walk, Sarah Michelle Gellar walked passed me going the other way and was only like 2 feet from me.  Unfortunately I didn’t notice until she had gone by and I didn’t want to yell her name out.  I probably should have.  :P 

At the end of the row of sound stages, on the left, is stage 24, better known as the Friends stage.  But for now they marched us right past it and around the corner where they made us sit on some steps of a government looking building.  For those of you who are Batman fans, I guess the building was used in the original TV show, where Batman would run up those steps to talk to the commissioner.  Across from that is a small park which we learned was used in Friends as Central Park when Phoebe and Rachel are out running.  And the backside of stage 24 looked like the outside of an apartment building and we learned that they used that for the scene in Friends where Elizabeth throws water balloons at Ross.  Unfortunately they don’t allow any cameras so I couldn’t take any pictures. But perhaps they allow you to take photos of that on the studio tour. 

Entering The Stage

After waiting on those steps for at least 45 minutes because the cast was still rehearsing inside, the lined us up again and marched us through another metal detector on our way into the stage.  Going through the door inside, I could see a small coffee place on my left and Bobbie’s office next to that.  We then walked up some stairs to the audience seating area.  There you have 4 sections of seats.  The two sections on the sides are 7 rows deep and 7 seats wide, the two middle sections are 7 rows deep and 14 seats across.  We sat in the 4^th row of the third section (second middle section).  In front of us were reserved seats for the VIPs.  There were probably only like 40 seats reserved for VIPs so that still left 250 or so for the general public.  So if you arrive at the taping and you are number 300, you may not get in right away.  People do leave throughout the taping though so it is possible you can get in after a few hours.  I’m not sure if they do that or not though. 

After sitting down I could no longer see the café or Bobbie’s office from these seats, and way off in the left corner next to Bobbie’s office was another small set which I later learned was the audition room that Joey would have his “big audition” in.  Next to that was just an open area filled with various props, and next to that was the front part of Alex’s apartment leading into the patio area and then the backdoor of Joey’s apartment leading to his kitchen.  That stuff was all directly in front of me and when Friends shot there, that used to be Monica and Chandler’s apartment.  Out the front door of that Joey’s apartment set was the hot tub set, which used to be the area where the Central Perk set was.  Around the right side of the audience bleachers was the inside of Alex’s apartment.  The stage is very big, and out of all of the sitcoms I’ve seen taped, I think it’s definitely the widest stage of them all.

Above the seats are microphones that record the audience’s laughter that you hear during the show.  And in front are a few TVs that the audience can look at it when you can’t see the actors.  It’s actually kind of hard to see the stage when you have people in front of you.  Each row is only raised about 6 inches above the row in front of it, and the actual stage is so far below you that you really can’t see much unless you are in the first two rows.  The stage is probably about 6 feet below the floor of the first row of seats, plus you have a low ceiling over the stage where some of the crew is positioned with microphones they hold over the actors to record their dialog.  If you can be on the aisle though, I recommend that because you can get a clear shot down the aisle of whatever set is in front of you.

Cast Intros

Around 3:30 pm everyone was seated and the warm up guy came down to start talking to us and get us excited for the taping.  I was actually really close to him since I had a seat on the aisle so I wasn’t able to hear his name clearly, but it’s the same guy who did Friends.  After welcoming us there, they ran next week’s episode, “Joey and the Dream Girl - Part 2”.  It was still a rough cut of it so it didn’t have music or the intro, and a time counter ran across the bottom of it.  When that was done, the warm up guy came back to get us excited for the start of the show and the cast intros.  He teased us with some of the prizes he’d be giving away throughout the night.  One of the first prizes he gave away was a red “Joey” t-shirt.  That actually went to this nice guy from Germany who sat right behind me.  But he had to jump up and dance with the warm up guy.  People all around then started dancing and wanted more prizes, at that point it was time to introduce the cast.  From the back of Joey’s apartment the cast came running out one at a time.  First Andrea, then Paulo, followed by Drea and finally Matt.  People really screamed when Matt appeared and he flashed a smile and waved a bit to the audience. 

Start Of The Taping

They quickly got setup and jumped right into taping.  The first scene took place in Joey’s apartment.  As they got set for the first scene, the director yelled out “have a good show everyone”.  The first scene dealt with Joey walking down stairs and Gina was in the kitchen.  Joey asks her if that’s her perfume he smells and she tells him no, then both turn and look at Michael who is sitting at the table eating breakfast.  He makes some comment about how the bottle says that it’s unisex.  Joey then starts to complain that since he’s moved to LA he hasn’t hit anything big and he wonders if it was a mistake to leave New York.  Joey comments that he hasn’t even made one best-dressed list.  Gina suggests that he should talk to his agent and get tough with her.  Joey also says that it’s harder for him to pickup girls when he can’t say he’s a star on “Days of Our Lives”.  Michael thinks it’s funny he’s having problems with women, and just then a hot girl walks down from the stairs and tells Joey thanks and that she’s gotta run.  Joey turns to Michael and tells him “I said it was hard, not impossible.” 

This first scene actually took a while to shoot.  While they were setting up to shoot it a second time, one guy from the audience asked the warm up guy if he could tell Drea that he loves her.  She actually heard this and turned to the audience and yelled up “I love you too”.  Now everyone wanted to start yelling out stuff to the cast.  Throughout the show some girls would yell out to Paulo all the time and he seemed to get a little embarrassed by it.  He would look up at the them and wave and smile. 

After they would shoot a scene all the way through, there would be like a 10 minute break where Matt would talk with the writers and the directors and they discussed changes to make to the scene to make it funnier before they shot it again.  When they started to shoot the first scene the second time, Joey came down the stairs and instead of asking Gina if it was her perfume he smelled, he said “is that your ass I smell?”  They all broke out laughing and he ran backup stairs so they could start over.  This time though when Matt was saying his lines in the kitchen, he messed up a bit and turned the audience and said something like “hey, there’s a lot of lines to remember”.  It was funny and Matt seemed very relaxed.  After one of the takes, Matt grabbed Paulo and they wrestled a bit even.  They shot that scene about 4 or 5 times, doing a few pickups of just certain parts here and there. 

After that scene Matt talked with people down on the stage who worked on the show and even hugged some of them.  Throughout the whole taping everyone seemed to be relaxed down there and no one yelled when someone made a mistake, it was all pretty friendly.  Between most scenes there would be a 30 minute break or so as they move cameras, change wardrobe and prepare for the next scene.  During that break, the warm up guy would do magic tricks or impressions of actors.  Plus he’d give away prizes like Joey shirts, key chains, pencils, autographed pictures, and more.  I helped him out with one magic skit, a fairly simple one that didn’t require me to make a fool out of myself, and I ended up with an autographed pic.  If you go to a taping and want to get something, it’s best to try early, cos towards the end you might have to do things like dance YMCA all around the audience.

Scene B took place in Bobbie’s Office.  Joey walks in to find Bobbie on the phone.  She hangs up and tells Joey she has great news, that she just got him the lead in a new industrial safety video.  Joey isn’t too happy about this and starts telling her that he needs to get some good parts or he will have to find another agent.  She calls him her hot Latin actor but he informs her that he’s Italian.  She says that Italians aren’t in right now, that Serbs are.  But later they re-shoot that part and instead of Serbs she tells him to use his boy band connection to get jobs.  Joey tells her that he was never in a boy band so she asks him if he has any Hollywood connections.  He tells her that she’s his only one, so she grabs him and hugs him and says “awww, I could slap a diaper on you and nurse you right here”.  It was really funny, and during the later takes of that scene Joey struggles more to get away from her when she is hugging him. 

Scene C has Joey walking out his kitchen door to the patio between his place and Alex’s.  There he finds Alex throwing a party for Northwestern University Alumni.  Joey notices that one guy looks familiar and finds out that he’s actually a big Hollywood producer, named Steve.  Alex introduces them to each other and then walks into her apartment so she can talk to this girl named Marianne that she’s now more successful than.  Steve tells Joey how a lot of people at this party are big in Hollywood and how they like to take care of their own, so Joey lies to him and tells him that he graduated from Northwestern in ’91.  Steve asks if he knows Lance Beckman and Joey tells him that he was in his wedding.  Steve offers to help Joey out by seeing if he can get him any parts and then takes him into Alex’s apartment so he can meet the rest of the “Mafia” group from Northwestern that is involved in Hollywood.

            During this scene, Andrea messed up her lines once and Matt nicely told her “it’s ok”.  Then a few minutes later the actor playing Steve messed up his lines and Matt gave him a hug.  But the actor playing Steve then asked Matt if he stole his wallet.  They restarted that part of the scene where Steve asks Joey if he knows Lance Beckman, but instead of the wedding response, Matt says “Yes, I slept with him”.  Everyone starts to laugh so they shot the scene again.  After they finished that, they did a pickup of Alex introducing Joey and Steve.  This time when Alex leaves to go talk to her friend Marianne, Steve turns to Joey and says “That Marianne is a bitch”.  So that gives you an idea of how relaxed it was on the set.

            Scene D then took place in Alex’s apartment, where Steve leads Joey in to meet the others.  They ask Joey what dorm he was in, and he says a different one every night.  They also ask him what he studied and he said he didn’t really study anything.  Then the NW fight song starts up and they ask him to sing it with them.  In one of the takes, Joey tries to sing along but it’s really bad and he’s even still mumbling stuff after it finishes. In another take, they ask him to sing and he says no and they all just kinda turn and look down and don’t sing it.  I’m not sure which version they will use, I’m guessing the first one. 

            Scene E took place in Joey’s apartment.  Joey comes down the stairs now wearing a purple Northwestern shirt.  Bobbie calls him to tell him that she just lined up a big audition for him for this new show called “Deep Powder”.  She describes it as Baywatch on skis and says that it’s so stupid, it’s definitely going to be huge.  She tells Joey she’ll fax over the script right away so Joey hangs up the phone tells Gina and Michael the good news.  Then the phone rings again and Joey answers it, but yells into the phone “stop calling me” and hangs up.  He says that every time he’s expecting an important fax this guy calls him and all he does is make this weird, high pitched sound.  Matt actually makes the sounds, but people were laughing so hard here you couldn’t hear it at all.  He made some really funny faces though.   

At the start of this scene they had some technical problems cos Matt was at the apartment set and Jennifer Coolidge was down at the office set.  When they were doing the phone scene, they had trouble hearing each other.  At one point, Matt leaned around the apartment set and yelled down to the office set “Bobbie are you there?”  They worked with the sound a bit and while they were testing it, Matt was saying “Bobby can you hear me?”  When she finally could, she said in a sexy voice “oh yes Joey”.  It was funny.

            Scenes F and G took place at the audition set.  Joey is seen walking down a hall to the room where the audition is held.  A girl walks out and notices his Northwestern shirt.  She mentions that she went to Purdue and that they are rivals.  She introduces herself as Katie and they flirt with each other and Joey says they should get together to get to the bottom of this rivalry, so he hands her a card with his number on it.  He then enters the room for the audition.  There he tells this woman about how he was born to play the part of Langdon Powder, but to his dismay he learns he’s actually there to read for the part of Langdon’s dad.  An interesting thing in this scene is that the woman running the audition is actress Mindy Sterling, who was in the Austin Powers movies.  During the break the warm up guy yelled down to her and said “yeah baby” and the DJ played some sounds from Austin Powers.  She seemed very nice.

            Scene H was back in Joey’s apartment, where Joey complained to Gina that he couldn’t play a dad.  Gina comforts him and tells him how he’s a good father figure for her son Michael.  Gina also tries to help Joey by playing the role of a daughter so Joey can practice as a dad, and she says to him “I’m pregnant daddy”.  Joey responds with “get out of my house!” 

            During one of the breaks in shooting this scene, a guy yelled down “Drea, how you doin’?” and she turned and yelled “how you doin’?” back to the audience.  The warm up guy also had all of the audience yell out to Matt “how you doin’?” and he replied to us with his famous line.  It was cool.

            The next scene takes place on the patio once again.  It starts off with Alex talking on the phone about contributing money to Northwestern.  Then Joey walks out his door and we see him on the phone and he’s trying to convince someone to donate money to Northwestern.  Turns out they were talking to each other.  But Joey didn’t catch on at first.  Alex asks him what he’s doing and he explains that it’s a favor for Steve.  She then asks him how he can lie like that.  In one take he mentions something about how he might have to host the next alumni dinner, and Alex says that she thought she was doing that, but Joey tells her that hers wasn’t that good.  In another take, Joey tries to distract her by breaking into the fight song.  And in the third take, he replies to Alex’s comment about lying by saying something like “isn’t doing anything to accomplish your goals the motto at Northwestern?”  She tells him no and he says “oh, then what is it?” 

            In the next scene, Joey walks out into the hot tub area and meets up with Howard.  Howard wants to help Joey prepare for his audition and tells Joey he can do it because he was once a Honeycomb kid.  But when Joey reads his lines, Howard just stares at him, stating he never wants this moment to end.  So Joey goes back into his apartment where he has Michael help him out instead.  Michael is to read the part of Joey’s daughter, and he asks Joey if he should read it in a high girly voice.  Joey tells him no, but Michael asks if he can anyways.  Howard walks in and sits behind Joey while he and Michael are reading.  It’s funny to hear Michael say lines like “look at me daddy, I’m a big girl now.”  Joey’s reading touches Howard so much that he said he would cry if he had functional tear ducts.  A few moments later there is a knock on Joey’s door and when he opens it there is a kid standing there that says he’s there for his Northwestern interview.  He slams the door on the kids face and the three guys try to think of what to do.  Joey opens the door again and invites the kid in.  The kid asks Joey all sorts of questions about Northwestern, but Joey basically just blows him off because he has to get to his audition and doesn’t know any of the answers.

The next scene takes place back at the audition room.  Joey walks in with Gina, who says she will go distract the competition by trying to get them to drink.  Joey sits down and just then Katie Harper, the Purdue girl he met in the hall, walks in wearing a sweater and they start flirting with each other.  They make plans to get together on the weekend for the Northwestern/Purdue game, but neither of them watches football.  Next the woman running the audition walks into the room from another room and says they are ready to start today’s readings.  She then notices Gina and says something like “I’m sorry, we’re not casting for the part of the angry prostitute today”.  Gina happily replies with “thanks, I’m not even an actress”.  The audition woman then turns and introduces Joey to Katie, and tells Joey that Katie has just been cast as his daughter so they want them to read together to see if they have any chemistry.  Joey turns to Gina and says with a worried look “I think we will.”  Joey walks into the next room with his back turned and is saying to himself “she’s your daughter” then he turns and sees her now without her sweater on, wearing a small, tight shirt, and says “you’re going to jail.”  They start reading then and Kate says to Joey in this little-girl-like voice “Hi daddy”.  Joey replies with his famous “how you doin’?”  At this point the whole audience laughed and cheered so much that he had to pause a long time before his next line, which was a normal “I mean, how are you doing?”  She tells Joey she’s not a little girl anymore and to look at her and Joey does, but he can’t stop thinking about sex.  He tries to say his line “bet your friends think your dad is pretty lame wanting to hold on to you so tight” but it come across sexual, and Katie has trouble holding back too and replies seductively with “I like it when you do that” and they both tell each other they love each other, and Joey says “now give your daddy a kiss” and they move in for a really big kiss.  At this point the woman running the audition interrupts and stops them and says that they’ve seen enough, and also mentions to Joey to never have a daughter. 

Joey then walks out into the room where Gina is waiting and explains to her that he can’t stop thinking about sex.  Gina grabs Joey and gives him a big kiss on the lips to gross him out so that he can go back in there and he won’t have his mind on sex. 

The next scene has Joey and Gina walking into his apartment.  Michael is there and turns and asks Joey how it went.  Joey says it went pretty good, but Michael obviously knows something more.  He asks Joey what the best news is he could get right now and Joey pipes up and says something like “oh, a new vending machine…no a pool table!….ooooh, Kool and the Gang got back together?”  Michael says no and tells Joey that he got the part of Langdon Powder’s dad, but Joey still doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but finally he catches on.  Joey turns to Gina and Gina once again gives him a really big kiss on the lips.  Joey just smiles and points at her, but he’s so happy about getting the part, he really doesn’t care and the three of them sort of hug.  In one take, the kid Joey was suppose to interview comes running from the back and jumps in the middle of their group.  The final take was the funniest though, after Gina kisses Joey, Joey turns around and kisses Michael the same way, and when Michael gives him this “what are doing” look, Joey says “hey, she started it!”  I have a feeling that’s the version they will go with.  This scene was really funny to watch because after Matt and Drea would kiss and the scene was over, they would wipe their lips off.  But after one of the kisses, Matt bent down and ran his lips across the back of the couch.  It was hilarious.  In fact, they went to shoot the kissing part again and when Matt turned to the part where Drea kisses him, she just broke out laughing at him instead. 

The final scene, called the tag, took place in the little coffee shop way off near the stage entrance on the left side.  This scene had Joey walking in and seeing Steve at the counter.  Steve tells Joey that he’s there with Lance Beckman, the man Joey said he knew at Northwestern.  Steve tells Lance to come on over, and Joey turns to him and says hey Lance Beckman, remember me?….I was in your wedding.  Lance says he doesn’t know who Joey is, and Joey just kinda laughs a bit and then turns to Steve and declares “this man is not Lance Beckman” and then storms out of the place. 

            They shot this scene a few times, and during the second try, the actor playing Steve forgot his lines so Matt goes “ah Steeeeeeeve!”.  The next try Matt walks in and Steve turns to him and goes “heeey….Chandler?”  Matt laughed pretty hard at that.  The next two tries at the scene were flawless. 

Final Curtain Call and Leaving

            At this point the actors prepared for their curtain call.  The warm up guy announced every one of the actors who had a part in the show.  Everyone stood and cheered them on and some of us left our seats to try and get near the front.  Matt swung by the front row quickly and signed 1, maybe 2 autographs before moving back towards the sets.  Unfortunately I didn’t get up there fast enough and as soon as the curtain call is over, the people from Audiences Unlimited try to get everyone to leave immediately.  They even stand at the bottom of the aisles so that people don’t come down there to the front.  Luckily the employee near me was nice and let a few us hang out there for a few minutes.  Matt stood in the distance talking with some people involved with the show, and Drea just disappeared.  Paulo was down to my right signing a few autographs for those up front but unfortunately he didn’t come down to the center where I was.  Jennifer Coolidge was a bit to my left signing autographs and had looked at me and saw I was waiting for her.  Unfortunately a stage hand then came by and told her that she was done and needed to move on so she moved towards me, and the stage hand went on to yell at one of the audience members who had just gotten her autograph, telling the guest that he needed to leave because he had already talked to her and gotten her autograph.  Jennifer looked him with a worried look and took my magazine and pen from me and quickly signed her name.  She then looked up at me and in the nicest way said “sorry”.  I told her it was ok, that I appreciate her autograph and that I love her in the movies.  She thanked me and smiled. She was very sweet.  As soon as I got her autograph though, I immediately headed for the exit even though there were still people around me.  I noticed about half way up the aisle a girl from Audiences Unlimited screaming at another guest that she needed to leave now.  And this is all within 5 minutes of the curtain call.  There was even still a line to get out the door since you have to go single file.  The way you are rushed out is really the only thing I didn’t like about the taping, but it’s something that happens at all of the tapings.  I just wish they didn’t rush you out so fast. 

            You basically leave the stage and studio the same way you came in.  Around 11:30pm we were finally back at our car and headed to our hotel.  Some 13 hours after getting there.  It’s a very long day, the taping itself was around 7 hours, but it was a lot of fun.  Your arms get a little warn out though cos they like you to clap whenever they aren’t shooting a scene, so you literally clap for hours.  Luckily they pass out candy and actually feed you pizza at the start of the show and again towards the end of the show, so you have plenty of energy.  Overall it was a great experience, and for those that never got to see a taping of Friends, I would definitely recommend checking it out.  If you do, be sure to send us your taping experience to post on the site. 

If you guys did make it this far in reading, I thank you for reading my experience.  I hope that I was able to give you a good detailed insight on what it’s like to attend a taping of Joey.  :)