The Maury Show!!

Oh man. What a day.

When Mandy and I first moved to New York, we decided we would try to be in the studio audience for as many shows as we could go to. I went to see Conan with some friends. A larger group of us (including Mandy) later saw The Colbert Report.

We were scheduled to go see a taping of Letterman, but something got canceled along the way and it was rescheduled to a time that Mandy couldn't go to. I decided to bail on that instead of going by myself.

So apparently while bored one day, I applied for tickets to the Maury Show. I basically forgot all about this until about two weeks ago when I got an email informing me that I had two tickets for a Wednesday taping.

We showed up at around 8am to the studio (which is located near Penn Station). We actually got to line up inside (better situation than the Colbert Report which was outside). They then lets us into a waiting room where we got to sit down and watch... The Maury Show!!! Well, it was just airing on the local channel here.

Eventually, they led us into the studio. Mandy and I were then placed in the front row. Not bad seats, except that a PA or someone of the sort sat right in front of us. Their job was to write prompts on big cue cards for the guests (gotta stick to the script right?). They also prompted the audience for reactions to whatever the guests were saying. This was a large step up from the dude at the Colbert Report who would come around during commercial breaks yelling, "YOU HAVE TO LAUGH LOUDER!!!! LAUGH LOUDER!!!!!" Very pleasant fellow.

Before Maury came out, the producer came on stage and asked if anyone wanted to dance on stage. This prompted about 20 girls to get up and do their thing to that terrible Beyonce song that has her singing about all the single ladies. When Maury finally came in, he proceeded to dance with the ladies. Good times.

During commercial breaks, Maury would pose with people on stage. Quite a show.

We were in the audience for two show tapings. The first was "I Suspect My Significant Other is Cheating" or something like that. There were "lie detector" tests involved. The second taping was all paternity tests.

One of the men subject to the paternity test had been on the show for three prior babies. He had been proven to not be the father in those three cases. When this test also came back negative, he ran around the audience with four fingers held up in each hand yelling "Four for Four!!! Four for Four!!!" high-fiving people as he went around. Very amusing.

For the second taping, a group of five clearly drunk people showed up with "Maury" spelled across their faces (i.e., one had "M", another "A", etc.). They were made to take the marker off their face. Very sad. The "M" continued to make a commotion, yelling out random comments during taping. The director eventually threw him and his friends out. It was welcomed by the audience.

Overally, it was a pretty decent experience. I'd say the two tapings were a little overboard, one would've been enough quality entertainment for one day.