Ellen De"Generous"

Our last day in California was completely dedicated to Ellen and being a part of her studio audience. Things have definitely changed since my last visit to her show, 5 years ago. The last time I went they gave us instructions to show up at 9am to pick up our tickets. After doing some research on the internet we soon found that they give out more tickets than what the studio can hold in order to guarantee that it was filled for the show taping. As to avoid ending up in the "riff raff room" watching the show tape on big screen televisions as opposed to inside the studio, we arrived at 4am to get a good spot in line. We were so glad we did! We were numbers 8-11 in line. At 9am they handed us our numbers and we were free to leave until they were ready for us again at 1pm. At that point they would call is in by number.

This time when I got my letter stating that we were to arrive at the studio at 1pm for check in, I knew better (or so I thought). The show did change their policies. People travelling from out of town have guaranteed tickets. The overflow are considered stand-by and may or may not end up inside the studio for taping. Even so, I wasn't about to get there right at 1pm to fight the masses for a good spot in line. We arrived at 10am thinking that we'd probably be amongst a big crowd. Not so much. We were the only ones there. There was a studio rep there to greet us and she told us we were free to leave until the check-in time.

I was not sure how everything worked so we ended up sticking around anyway to wait it out. We really didn't have to because they weren't lying when they said that they wouldn't start until 1 but I'm glad we stayed because we were sitting right by the start of the line so when they did start lining people up we were up front. We were 10th and 11th in line. I was really relieved when we finally got our numbers. Yes, we were guaranteed tickets regardless of where we were in line, but being 10 and 11 means that we were the 10th and 11th to be seated.....leaving a much greater chance for a spot near the front and in the aisle.

After a very long day of waiting, we finally got to go inside and take our seats at 3pm. Sure enough, we were seated in the 3rd row, aisle seats. The staff pumps up the crowd with dance-offs and loud music until the show starts. It really happens without warning. One minute you're dancing and the next the Ellen theme song comes on and you hear "Ladies and gentleman, Ellen DeGeneres".....and out she walks!

Our guests were Jerry O'Connell and a 4-year-old expert on presidents. We had such a blast and Ellen ended up giving away HD digital video cameras that day so that was an added bonus. It all went by really fast and before we knew it we were leaving and headed back to the hotel. We had to grab our bags and make our way to the airport to catch our 11pm flight.

Before we even made it to the airport I got an email from a friend to say that she had seen a picture of Kevin & I on Ellen's Facebook Fan page.

(I am in the bottom left!)

We flew in at 5am on Friday morning and from there it was a mad dash to prepare for our annual Mardi Gras party happening the next day. We did take a break long enough to watch the episode of Ellen. We saw ourselves several times! Here are some (terrible quality) screen shots:














Here she is dancing right next to us:

That's us in the middle on the right:

We're totally famous!

Yesterday I was watching and was shocked to see my big fat mug on TV again! They must have used footage from our taping for Monday's episode: