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When I first moved to Chicago I saw a Judge Mathis booth at a street festival taking applications for studio audience guests! Of course I signed up for that, what with being a grad student who has lots of available mornings and early afternoons. Security in the NBC Tower is steep. They collected all our cell phones and gave us claim tickets to get them back on the way out. We were led to a waiting room with free donuts and daytime TV and couldn't go anywhere without an escort. On our way into the stage courtroom, one of the producers instructed everyone where to sit in order to make the audience look as diverse as possible, even though it's mostly the people that don't work day jobs (retired, students, stay at home moms, etc.). He also explained where everyone was entering and exiting from, told us to laugh at all of Mathis's jokes (he really feeds off of the audience) and really exaggerate our reactions to make the audience sound bigger than we really were--there were maybe 30 of us? So if you get on the show and everyone's booing and gasping at you, don't take it personally because they're following orders. We spent 4 hours there while they did ten cases, or a few episodes' worth. Every couple cases the producer would rearrange our spots in the audience so the viewers at home don't catch on to the fact that it's all the same people in the background over multiple shows. Some of the cases were somewhat unremarkable (I don't think you'd be reviled, per se, but it is Chicago and people here are touchy about guns) but others--the family slapfight dramas you mentioned--inspired me to call my parents afterward and thank each of them for not raising me to be a monstrous fuckup like one case involving an aunt and niece fighting over the mom's estate after dying of cancer.
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Apr 27, 2015 16:29
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Nope, we just sat there in total silence while the cameraman zooms in on each person for ~30 seconds. We learned about the details of each case as they were explained later.
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Apr 28, 2015 01:45
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