The Price is (Almost) Right

Today was a day I've been awaiting for many years - my first Price is Right taping!  My mom and I woke up nice and early this morning to hit the road for CBS Television City.  Once we found the studio, it took us a while to figure out parking.  Thankfully, we made our way to the entrance just before 8:30, the time listed on our priority tickets.  We presented our tickets and our IDs, and then we got our contestant numbers.  After that, the waiting began.  The process of attending a taping of The Price is Right is very long and involved, so I would recommend doing it only if you're seriously committed to doing it.  My mom and I found our place in the long line of potential contestants getting their pictures taken.  We were #186 and #187!  After we waited patiently to get our nametags on and our pictures taken, we moved on to the second phase of waiting.  We sat in a long line of people going through contestant interviews!  They called us up in large groups where we got a quick interview.  It was so cool to be in the presence of Stan Blits, who has been the main contestant coordinator for The Price is Right for many years!  He was so great at his job!  He started out by asking the whole group if we wanted to win a car so he could see our excitement.  Then he went down the line and asked everyone a few basic questions.  He's funny and very smooth!  I think being a contestant coordinator would be a wonderful job!  After the interviews, we entered the third and final phase of waiting.  We gave up our cell phones and went through the metal detectors, and then we just waited until it was time to file into the studio.  We had some lunch right there outside the studio!  They sell pizza, burgers, and quesadillas named after pricing games!  I don't remember what the burgers and quesadillas were called, but my mom and I had the Plinko Pizza!  After our lunch, it was just a short wait to get into the studio.  Once we got in the studio, it wasn't long before the show started!  That was a refreshing change from the Let's Make a Deal taping I attended in July 2013!  The announcer, George Gray, came onto the stage to warm us up, and soon enough the show began!  I won't try to build up any suspense or keep you wondering - I wasn't on the show!  My name wasn't called, and that's that!  However, the experience of being there was great!  As usual, I learned that the studio is much smaller than it looks like on TV!  One surprising thing about the taping was that it was hard to hear just about anything!  It was okay in the moments when George was announcing and the audience was silent, but most of the time it was hard to hear what Drew Carey or the contestants were saying!  Whenever George called someone to "Come on down!", they held up a card with the person's name on it.  Those cards were definitely necessary!  Other than that problem and the fact that we had crappy seats (in terms of what we could see), it was a fun time!  It was great to see people win prizes, play games, and spin the big wheel!  However, my favorite parts of the taping were the commercial breaks!  During the commercial breaks, Drew would interact with the audience and just chat!  George often jumped in, too!  It was really neat!  Drew actually read the back of my t-shirt, too!  (He and George probably noticed me because I was one of the only people standing up.)  They liked it!  Another neat thing was that the showcase winner came from the row in front of us!  The episode airs April 9, just in case anyone wants to look out for me and my mom in the audience.  After the show was done taping, they did a neat thing where they put all the contestant numbers in a big basket and drew a random number.  That person got their own "Come on down!", and they got to run onstage and collect $100.  The sad part:  I was #186, and the guy drew #185!  So close!  After everything was done, I stopped to talk to George for a little bit, and he signed my shirt!  He's such a cool guy!  Then my mom and I drove to downtown Hollywood for a stroll down the Walk of Fame!  I took way too many pictures, but I also feel like I didn't take enough!  There are just so many cool celebrities on there!  I obviously didn't see every star, but I'm going back there later to see more!  After that, we went out for dinner and a big grocery shopping trip.  I'm set for a while!  Today was another long day, but it was all very worth it!  Tomorrow we'll be figuring out public transportation and seeing a taping of Jeopardy!!