Monkeyboy’s “Joey” taping experience (contains spoilers)

Episode 2.07 - Joey and the Poker
Taping date: October 14th, 2005
Airdate - November 3rd, 2005

I arrived at the outdoor parking lot off a small San Fernando Valley street called Screenland, in scenic but smoggy Burbank California with my Internet ticket in hand, and joined a surprisingly small line of people, and then was bussed into the Warner Brothers parking structure. I was forced to wait with the other studio audience people for a very long time. It felt like at least an hour but I wasn’t sure. They said that it was because they weren’t ready for us to enter the studio at 4 so we had to go at 4:30. I think they were still rehearsing or something. This one guy brought a book and I wished I had brought one too. I scoped the area for “hot looking girls” and found a few but was too shy to talk to them. On the walk to the studio I looked around the immense Warner Brothers lot for celebrities. (Hey it sometimes works!) I actually saw the guy who played Rachel’s boss Mr. Zelner, on Friends and who was also on The Joe Schmoe Show. He was the guy that Joey accused of wanting to “Buy Rachel’s Baby” if you remember that episode. I think his name was Steve. Actually it was, I just looked it up, “Steve Ireland.” He looked like he was caked up in makeup like a weird circus freak. I wondered what movie or TV show had hired him. After going through a metal detector, I entered the studio and was nicely greeted by an usher with the phrase “Welcome to Joey.” I took my seat and awaited the show’s start. We were presented with “Joey and the ESL” (the next Thursday’s episode) on the monitors above, before the show started so we could know what was going on better.

After that was over, the cast was finally announced and when Paulo Costanzo’s name was called, he did a weird dance move moving his hands in a circular motion. He looked, dare I say it, “cool.” It was weird to see him as himself and not as the dorky character Michael. It made me appreciate his acting abilities a lot more.

In one of the breaks, the DJ Guy played this sweet old song called “Dancing in the Moonlight”. Andrea Anders could be seen grooving to the music on that one. She was sitting at the table at Joey’s apartment and moving her arms and body with the music. It was weird seeing her break character and not looking like the uptight wench she plays on TV. I wish I could find the MP3 of that song but it isn’t available anywhere.

I saw some well connected young girls who appeared to know a big producer on the show or someone else in power. They were seated in the front row, and when chocolate passing time came, unlike the rest of us they got to have a handful and without having to catch it from the cool DJ guy.

I noticed a new set on the left side of the stage, with a pool table, board games, and a TV playing cartoons. It was Zack’s rec center place. Several kids from that scene had their parents seated in the front row. The kids were mostly good actors, but at one point a kid missed his line because of a love of TV. “He is really into the cartoons,” said Miguel Nunez Jr., when the kid missed his cue and just stayed glued to the tube. Another time during that scene, another kid said his line, but they had to reshoot it again because the audience laughed over it. LeBlanc whispered something to the kid after it was over and the next time they got it right. The opening of the scene featured a kid hitting a pool ball, but he kept missing it time after time, and they had to keep redoing that scene. While mean audience members taunted the kid saying things like “NICE SHOT!” I felt really bad for the kid. I wanted to bitch-slap the people who were laughing at him and tell them that he’s just a little kid and shouldn’t be criticized for missing that.

Jim Bentley was the warm up guy once again. He says that he has been working on that stage for 10 years, and that he lives there. He played Barney Papadopoulos on an episode of “Growing Pains” was in a few episodes of Friends, and he also does magic and jokes.

At every Joey taping the same question is always asked to him. “Are any of the FRIENDS going to guest star?” This question seems to upset Bentley whenever it’s asked for some reason, so if you go to a taping I would recommend not asking it. “We get asked that question at every show,” he quickly replied. “And none of us know if that will happen.”

Michael finally lost the big V on the episode, which was a shock. When Abby walked out of his room, and then the apartment the next “morning”, and was outside of the front door, I could see her sitting on the floor and laughing her beautiful ass off. I figured that was the actress Paula Cale having a good time after taking Michael’s virginity, and not Abby in an actual scene of the show but wasn’t completely sure.

The show finished surprisingly early (less than 7 hours) the cast took their bows, we applauded and we went back outside. I kept thinking that the plot for the episode was pretty stupid, but when Alan Thicke chased Joey around the apartment for the last scene it made it worthwhile. Jim Bentley tried to get his attention, by saying, “Remember Me? I played Barney!” But Thicke didn’t look at the audience. Bentley assumed that he just left the lot as soon as his scene was over. We waited in a huge line outside the studio, in the California darkness as other people picked up their cell phones from the door people and then we walked across the street to the Warner Brothers parking garage with Audience Unlimited ushers guiding us.