2001

The Drew Carey Show

Cover of the script

The highlight of the trip was that evening we went to see a taping of the Drew Carey Show.  We arrived at one of the large studio buildings, went inside where the set for the TV show was setup. There were four or five rooms used on the show all in a line next to each other, all open on one side. Each room was from a scene in the show, the office, Drew Carey’s living room, and kitchen, and the restaurant. Running about ten feet across the length of the sets were bleachers for the live audience. We had seats in the middle of the bleachers about three rows up giving us a great view of the two rooms directly in front of us. I had watched the show a number of times, so I was familiar with the overall plot and characters but wasn’t a big fan of the show. Even still it was exciting to see Drew Carey in person standing some ten feet in front of us.  It was quite fascinating to watch the show, the actors would all get in position, there would be the count, action, and they would go though the scene. Above the rooms was a sign that would light up and say things like, “Laugh” or “Clap”. There would be pauses, or interruptions if something wasn’t right or just wasn’t all that good and they generally start the scene over but sometimes would pick up where they stopped. Some scenes went smoothly with only a couple of reshoots, but most took many. There would twenty to thirty minute waits between scenes for the actors to change clothes and get ready for the next scene.  During these waits a standup comedian would walk up and down the aisle in front of the bleachers and entertain the audience telling jokes, juggling balls and interacting with the audience. For some reason the comedian selected me and asked where I was from and after telling him made some joke about it. I played along with it and during the breaks over the next two hours he kept coming back to me asking me questions and kidding me about things. Thought it was great fun. Since it started at 6 PM, no one had had dinner so about three hours into it they brought pizza and water bottles out for the entire audience.  It was finally all wrapped up some four and a half hours later and as we were walking down the aisle, the comedian walked up to me and slaps me in lightly in the chest with a rolled up piece of paper and sort of pushes it on me making me take it. I unrolled it and find it to be an official copy of the script.   I made sure I watched the episode “Kate and her new boyfriend” which showed a couple weeks later on March 21, 2001.

Opening Script Page

Anusara Yoga