"Mike & Molly" & Me

On Wednesday night, Christina and I did a very "tourist-in-LA" thing, driving out to Burbank to see a taping of a sitcom.

Having already done "Jeopardy!" and "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson," I was interested in how a sitcom is put together. The answer is "somewhat haphazardly, but very carefully."

We arrived at Warner Brothers as requested just after 5 p.m., and within an hour we were being seated with about 200 other people at Stage 14, which was home to "Friends" before "Mike & Molly" began to tape there in 2010.

The warmup guy was OK, although Christina and I both said we liked Chunky B from the Ferguson show better. Of course, Chunky gives everyone candy, tells a few bad jokes and then the taping begins, and both times we saw Ferguson they pretty much kept the cameras rolling and were done in little more than the time it takes to watch the show at home.

For "Mike & Molly" the warmup guy had to keep us entertained for about 3 1/2 hours. The first half hour we watched an old episode to get into the right mood for that night's show. Then came the time for the cast introduction. While they were getting ready to film live scenes, we watched two pieces of the show that had been taped earlier so they could record the audience's laughter.

The first of the live scenes took place in the restaurant that Mike and Carl always hang out in. They get a surprise visit from their captain, who was played by special guest Gerald McRaney. The scene was funny and went off flawlessly, although the warmup guy said they would do it a second time just to make sure they had a copy in case something went wrong in post-production. While it was tough to laugh as much the second time, hearing and seeing the same stuff, the audience did its best.

After they moved to the other side of the stage, they did a second scene in the kitchen of Molly's house. That created a little more difficultly. After the first take went flawlessly, the writers spent a few minutes working on new lines, which ended up being funnier, but also required several takes because Swoosie Kurtz and Katy Mixon had a little trouble with them. It was the kind of stuff you'd see on a bloopers show, and at one time Billy Gardell (Mike) even exclaimed, "We DO have rehearsal."

Eventually that scene was done and they moved on to another live scene at Mike's mother's house. After similar line-changing and several takes, the actors were able to complete the scene and the audience was fed (a slice of pizza and a bottle of water).

All the while, the warmup guy tried to keep the audience distracted with bad jokes, magic tricks and getting people to dance, or perform odd talents or talk about where they were from. He also gave out a ton of gift bags and mugs, trying to get the audience to compete for them.

Christina and I were more interested in watching the action on the set, with all of the production people going about their jobs and new lines were tried out. In a way, the rewriting helped, because when the audience thought it had heard everything, some new line caught us off-guard and actually made the scene better.

Following the pizza break, things went a little more smoothly, with a live scene, a taped piece and two more live scenes presented in their proper order so the audience could follow the story. The final bit was also taped, and after the laughter was recorded, the cast did a curtain call and we were on our way.

The total time commitment was close to five hours, so I couldn't see this being a regular thing, but I'm sure I'd go again with someone visiting from out of town, or if there is a sitcom we just HAVE to see in person.

The episode, by the way, is titled "Mike's Boss," and is scheduled to air on CBS at 9:30 p.m. Eastern and Pacific on Monday, Oct. 29. I'm sure Christina and I will watch with particular attention to see how everything is sewed together.