I didn't do it that often, because frankly, TV show tapings are boring and time-consuming. You stand around outside waiting and waiting, and once you're inside you wait some more.
There's usually some idiot doing a "warm-up" and coaching you on how to applaud: "Do it again...come on, I can't hear you..."
There might be technical delays (an "America's Got Talent" stretched to three hours before I literally escaped...they had GUARDS on the doors).
I can't say BEING a guest is that much better. I don't get nervous (I never got to Dave's show but I did turn up opposite Bill O'Reilly) but it's a good amount of stress to figure out what to wear, deal with the make-up room, and then sit and wait to go on. Oh yes, and then to be ignored after the show is over in some kind of odd anti-climax. After all, the staffers do this every day, you do it yourself now and then, and the big deal of being on TV is no big deal at all.
Seeing the Letterman show from the "Green Room" was a little more amusing. It was kind of fun to see how different stars reacted to the upcoming challenge. One actress was prancing and fretting back and forth, asking me (and everyone) if her dress was ok, and if her hair looked good. I also got a thrill when one of the guests shook hands and introduced himself. He was a pitcher for the L.A. Dodgers and I didn't recognize him till he said his name. What a nice, humble guy, but I had to explain that, no, I was NOT a guest, I was just a friend of Brother Theodore, who was in make-up and would be arriving soon.
As to the image below. It references one of the times I was actually in the studio audience.
It was the infamous night (well, afternoon) Farrah Fawcett was allegedly drunk or high.
First off, when you tape around 5pm, you're not likely to be loaded. People get the idea the show is taped late at night, and the guests have been having nightcaps all evening.
What happened, and I was surprised Dave didn't pick up on it, was that Farrah was being distracted by inappropriate campy laughter from a pair of gays seated somewhere near the band. As soon as she sat down, coltish and a little nervous, they began to giggle. Oh that dizzy Farrah, ha ha. Anything she said, and they over-reacted with more guffaws.
Even in the best of times, Farrah, like Goldie Hawn, had that "naturally high" aura about her. Like many who work from a script, Farrah was not always quick with a sharp ad-lib, and if she wasn't focused on questions gone over in advance, she might struggle to express herself.
But here, any natural nerves or confusion was heightened by these two assholes chortling at every word she said. I couldn't quite understand why Dave, just a desk-length away from Farrah, couldn't hear the laughter too, or notice the obvious way Farrah was looking over to her right. She was distracted, not "high," and sudden inappropriate laughter instantly had her looking away from Dave in confusion. A Don Rickles would've shot an insult, while a Meryl Streep might've been poised enough to concentrate and ignore the problem. Farrah was something else.
Dave instinctively went into comic-attack mode, and his wisecracks and clowning produced waves of laughter from the audience. It only made Farrah even more flustered and desperate. Her attempts to change topics or say something brilliant didn't exactly work. The inappropriate snickers from the campy gays were by now drowned out by the reaction now greeting everything she and Dave said.
I felt badly for her, and wrote her a sympathetic letter, which I said she was welcome to share with anyone, including some doubtful booker of a subsequent talk show. I also sent her some rare pix of herself from my files. She returned this one, with a reference to being glad SOMEONE knew the truth of what happened that night.
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