Wednesday February 9th

After lunch, we mentally prepared ourselves for another freeway ride into L.A.

We tried an alternate route this time and surprisingly, it wasn't so bad.  In fact, it was a fairly nice ride through Simi Valley, past the Ronald Reagan Library and over the Santa Monica Mountains. 

This afternoon's destination is the Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, home of Looney Tunes, Two and a Half Men, and Ellen.  We had tickets to a taping of one of our favorite TV shows, CBS Television's" Mike and Molly".  The lead character, Mike, is played by Pittsburgher, Billy Gardell. 

Billy is a very funny guy.  Many Pittsburgh folks have gone to the Funny Bone comedy club to watch Billy's stand up act.  He still makes regular appearances on WDVE Radio's morning show. 

Billy isn't the only one on the show with a Pittsburgh connection.  Katy Mixon, who plays Molly's sister, Victoria, is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University's Drama School.  CMU's Alum includes a virtual Who's Who of Hollywood and Broadway.

Then there's Vince, the sleazy boyfriend of Molly's Mom played by Louis Mustillo.  Louis spent part of last summer in Pittsburgh filming "One for the Money".  A movie that Judy and I both worked on as Extras.

Having worked as Extras on more than a half dozen movies in Pittsburgh, we had some knowledge of how the process worked.  But watching the process in a TV studio is very different.  Unlike the movies, the show was done in sequence with four cameras set at different angles.  It was like watching a play with lots of intermissions and lots of re-takes.  Actually, the best part of the experience was seeing the mistakes and how they reacted to them. 

The very wide stage was sectioned off with different scenes.  On the far left was Molly's front porch, then her living room, the kitchen, Samuel's Diner, Mike's Mom's living room and finally Carl's Grandma's front porch on the far right.  Other scenes not used in this episode, can be rolled in and out as needed. 

Between scenes and takes, there was a comedian who entertained the audience and tried to keep the energy up.  They also passed out candy, and about half way through the evening, served pizza.  It took about two and a half hours to film the 30 minute episode.

This was a very interesting and fun evening.  If you haven't seen the show, take a look.