Since 1996 or thereabouts I have attended a mess of television show tapings. “Late Night With Conan O’Brien”, “Donahue”, “Sally Jesse Raphael”, “The Price Is Right”, “Late Show With David Letterman”, “The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson”, “Family Feud”, “The Arsenio Hall Show” (reboot) and “Jimmy Kimmel Live”. I might be missing one or two there.
What I have never experienced is the shooting of a situation comedy. And at this point I likely never will, since very few of them record in front of a live audience anymore, and those that do I have zero interest in seeing. I do know that the experience of seeing a show like “Late Night” or “Price Is Right” get taped is vastly different from the experience of attending a sitcom taping.
For talk and game shows, which are typically done “live-on-tape” as much as possible, the audience warmup happens 100% before the show begins. You as an audience member are told what to expect, what is expected of you, what not to do, and so on. Once the show starts the audience is generally left to, as they say on the airplane, observe all lighted signs and placards. On the plane they say “FASTEN SEAT BELT” or “NO SMOKING”. In the studio they say “APPLAUSE”.
“The Warmup Guy”, by Bob Perlow, is the autobiography of a fellow who did audience warmup for a bevy of well-known sitcoms. And this thin but entertaining volume offers some dishy gossip while explaining the process of doing sitcom warmup. An episode of “Who’s The Boss?” or “Newhart”, you see, can take up to 5 hours to shoot. Costumes have to be changed. Sets have to be changed out. Actors make mistakes. There are technical problems. Jokes fall flat so writers quickly revise the scene.
Perlow describes the variety of techniques he used to keep 300 tourists in the seats and in a laughing mood. His earliest brainstorm: people like free t-shirts. He gave away hundreds of them over his 25-plus years as an in-demand warmup guy. Perlow also did lip-sync contests, prank called audience members’ parents, all kinds of mood lighteners to keep folks from getting bored or irritable. Perlow discusses other keys to audience warmup victory:
-The cast should acknowledge the studio audience’s existence Perlow tells the story of how Bob Newhart came out and did a short monologue and Q&A session with the crowd before “Newhart” tapings, and that simple gesture put the crowd on his (and the cast’s) side for the duration of the shooting.
–Don’t Hand Out Candy. Garry Marshall gave Perlow his start in audience warmup with gigs at “Laverne and Shirley”, “Mork and Mindy” and the barely-remembered “Angie”. Marshall was fond of chucking mini Snickers bars to the audience but Perlow found that candy gave the audience members a short sugar spike, followed by the inevitable sugar crash. The wrappers also caused sound problems. (When my pals and I saw the Craig Ferguson show their warmup guy threw mini Snickers at us. I became immediately much more interested in grabbing candy bars than listening to the warmup guy. But I do love me the mini Snickers.)
-Don’t Keep People There Eight Hours. Eight hours!?!? Can you imagine? “Friends” was so notorious for deathly long taping sessions I’d read about it before hearing Perlow’s testimony in the book; he was the “Friends” warmup guy for the first two seasons and tells stories about writers stopping tapings for upwards of 30 minutes to rework scenes. Sitcom tapings in general have gotten longer…Perlow accurately notes that “Lucy” and “The Honeymooners”, though shot on film, went through each week’s shooting as close to live as possible. That’s how you get classic moments like this one from “The Honeymooners”…Jackie Gleason’s tumble against the rickety wall of kitchen props was not part of the plan. But Gleason and Carney just kept going, it stayed in and it’s a classic moment.
Perlow tells stories from behind the scenes of “Night Court”, “Full House”, “Coach”, “Cheers” and several other classic sitcoms. He also details some non-warmup projects from his career including stints as an on-camera accomplice for “Candid Camera” stunts. The book is written in a breezy, comedic style one would expect from a professional warmup comic. And yes, there are some interesting tidbits that sort of come out of nowhere:
-Craig T. Nelson and Jerry Van Dyke (the two leads on “Coach”) hated each other. Like, weekly shouting matches.
-The actress who played the court clerk on the first season of “Night Court” physically attacked Harry Anderson and had to be taken off the set forcibly.
-Dave Coulier, lovable Joey of TV’s “Full House”, had a chronic flatulence problem. One wonders if that was a contributing factor in his breakup with Alanis Morissette.
There’s more to each of these stories, and many more stories like these. If you dig looking behind the camera into the rarely seen or discussed elements of television production, “The Warmup Guy” is a great read.
And now, since you’ve been such a great audience: “Everybody Loves Raymond” bloopers!