10 The "Later" Experience (Greg Kinnear)
Description
This article is from the Greg Kinnear FAQ, by Chris Clark crclark@dreamscape.com with numerous contributions by others.
10 The "Later" Experience (Greg Kinnear)
(by Jennifer Auletto)
Having attended six (yes, you read right--6!) tapings of "Later with Greg
Kinnear," I consider myself somewhat experienced when it comes to this
subject. Here is what basically happens at each taping.
When you first arrive at NBC in beautiful downtown Burbank, you park and
walk about 10 miles to get to the front of the building where you have to
wait. How long you wait really depends on when you get there. I found that
it really doesn't matter where in the line you are standing for where you
sit. I've been in the front of the line and ended up in the back row, and
vice versa. After waiting for what seems like forever, the friendly (ha!)
NBC pages come out and round every body up like cattle. You then go INSIDE
to wait, which isn't bad if you're there during the summer and you're
dying of a heat stroke. Inside, you wait from a half-hour to an hour,
depending on how long it takes for Greg to rehearse.
OK, now you're IN! Greg wasn't lying when he said Studio 5 was
closet-size. There are about 100 seats for the audience and the stage is
pretty small. Everything looks A LOT bigger on TV. While the pages
cattleprod you to your seats, there is music playing, and I must admit, it
IS pretty exciting. If you get lucky, you could end up seeing a celebrity
or two (besides Greg, of course) while you're there. For example, for the
Bob Saget (of "Full House") show, my friend and I ended up sitting behind
Candace Cameron, also of "Full House" fame. While everyone's waiting for
Greg to come out, Bob, audience entertainer extraordinare, comes out to
warm-up the audience. He basically picks on people and gives away free NBC
T-shirts, "Later" hats, and more goodies.
Finally, Greg comes out onto the stage to talk. He basically gives the
same speech every time-- his experiences and so on. He USED to talk about
"Talk Soup," but we all know what happened to THAT. After he talks, he
asks if anyone has any questions for him. The most common ones are, "Are
you married?"; "When is your birthday?"; "Where are you from?" He answers
them in his roundabout way, then goes in the back until it's time for the
show to start.
Now the guest comes out and they tape the show. It really is "live on
tape"--they show the commercials where the commercials are supposed to go.
During commercials, they just play music and Greg's hair and make-up
people swoop down and make sure everything is just right. Sometimes Bob
will come out and talk to the audience some more, too.
When the show is over, Greg goes into the control room to watch the show
and make sure everything came out all right. The fun thing is when they've
messed up and have to re-shoot certain segments. On the show with Helen
Slater (from the movie "Lassie), Lassie was on and was supposed to do some
trick. She (or is it he?) messed up and at the end of the show they had to
re-shoot the trick, but it never did come out right. They just gave up
after a while.
If they don't mess up, well, you have to go home. Don't bother asking if
Greg will come out to talk to the audience--they say he will, but he never
does. The Pages run you out of the studio with no time to look back.
Here's a hint--while you're walking out, if you look to your left down the
hallway right before you go through the exit, you may see Greg talking to
one of his producers or somebody else. It's probably best not to bother
him though.
Now it's over, and all you can do is go home and dream about your "Later"
experience!
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