What I Learned at NBC…
Last weekend I went to visit Melissa in NYC. We promised a new podcast. We didn’t deliver. However, we did go visit the NBC studios…and it was glorious.
Everyone kept welcoming us to NYC and asking where we were from. I proudly answered North Carolina, but Melissa was too embarrassed to say “Upper Eastside.” Apparently, NY residents don’t go on the NBC studio tour.
Sure, it was the ultimate touristy activity, but it was also TELEVISION. How could we not go? For PCY’s sake…
We arrived to a TV wonderland, thousands of square feet of pop culture goodness, displayed by show. We decided we needed it all. I needed a Saturday Night Live travel mug, “You can’t fire me. I don’t work in this van!” t-shirt from The Office, and a 30 Rock key chain. Melissa convinced herself she needed a Trainer-Bob-Blue-Team t-shirt from The Biggest Loser and multiple TV-DVD collections.
And we both couldn’t leave the building without matching 33 Riggins jerseys from Friday Night Lights.
But, fortunately we did. We somehow snapped out of our television coma in time to not make it to the register.
The tour starts with a cheesy “History of NBC” (not the exact title) introductory film. It was narrated by Matt and Meredith on the Today Show set. It was full of dramatic montages, TV clips, inspiring tunes, and TV-would-be-nothing-without-NBC historic headlines.
It was awesome.
Once the tour began, Melissa and I found ourselves at the front of the tour group, eager to obtain all the NBC knowledge we possibly could. First we got to go to the studio where they shoot Nightly News. We saw Brian Williams’ desk. There was some blond woman we didn’t know reporting in the adjacent studio.
Next, we saw the set of Saturday Night Live. It was so much tinier than it looks on TV. When we walked in, this family tried to start quoting various SNL skits. They said, “Name any skit and we can quote it!” Melissa and I exchanged glances that acknowledged that we thought they were lame. In actuality, I want to yell. “OK, let’s do this! Bring it on!” We totally could’ve taken them in an SNL skit battle.
Then, we went to a fake news studio where we took our picture behind a fake news desk (which they later tried to sell to us for $17…the picture, not the desk). They asked for volunteers to read the news in a simulated news broadcast and weather report. I really wanted to do it, but these kids raised their hands first.
Melissa and I would’ve rocked that newscast.
The kids did a pretty good job though. Melissa had the brilliant idea that we should’ve memorized the script, practiced, gone back on another tour, and then volunteered. They would then be amazed at our natural newscasting skills, call Brian Williams in to see the miraculous wonder of Lindsay and Melissa reading teleprompters and take notes, and offer us jobs on the spot.
Maybe next time.
Overall, the NBC studio was everything I’d imagined and more. At the end Melissa tried to befriend one of our NBC Page Tour Guides so that she could be invited NBC events. Not really, but that would’ve been a nice bonus to tour. Too bad he thought she was visiting from North Carolina, just taking a nice little 2 year vacation.
(We later saw that same Page on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.)
PCY, we did you proud.
Posted on March 9th, 2009 by Lindsay
Filed under: Uncategorized
Leave a Reply