We have been home from vacation for over a week now, and I still haven’t scratched the surface as far as writing about our trip. Darn chores.  While we were in the Los Angeles area, we were fortunate enough to stay with Mr. P’s cousin and her family.  This was awesome because A) they are great people, and B) staying with locals means you get inside info on how to best navigate through the world’s worst traffic, and C) the wife of Mr. P’s cousin works in the prop department of Ellen and she generously showed us around the studio on an off day.

I have been a fan of Ellen since it started.  It’s simply a great talk show and Ellen seems like a truly amazing woman.  I was beyond excited to see the set.  Like The Price is Right, it was smaller than I had imagined, though much larger than the game show.

These chairs look quite comfy.  I might have a hard time getting up to clap when the host is dancing around the aisles.  I was informed that the audience is told to dance alongside Ellen when she comes through, but don’t touch her.  That’s understandable.  I am sure it would hold up the show.  If I ever have a talk show I will make that a rule as well.  I will also add a rule where I never have to dance.  Dancing makes me quite uncomfortable.

However, if you are a guest on the show and dancing is your thing, this is the star you are supposed to look for to begin your cha-cha, or tango, or whatever dance will fill you with joy.   I was told the camera has a difficult time following guests if they begin dancing immediately after coming out from back stage, so the celebratory dance cannot begin until you pass the star.

I look totally giddy here.  This was fun.  I would not be this happy sitting in Leno’s chair.

Here is The Max, pretending to be Tony.

After looking backstage at some of the props used on the show, we then moved over to the prop library.  I want to live in the prop library.  I wouldn’t even need to pack.  I just want to grab my toothbrush and stay there until I see every weird and wonderful thing it contains.  This place was phenomenal.  Every item anyone could want to use as a prop was shelved and listed somewhere so that if something is needed for a show or movie it can be found lickity-split.  What kind of items?  Everything.  It was as though I was standing in the coolest thrift store of all time.  And this is what our tour guide does for a living, she plays with all the props!  (OK, I am sure there is a lot of work involved, but in my mind there’s lots of playing with props as well).

Say you need to look as though you are lying in a pool of your own blood, you can do that in the prop room.  Need to jump out of a giant cake? Smash someone over the head with a bottle and not harm them? You can do all this in the prop room.

For the guided tours, there were displays of props used in well known movies.  Pirates of the Caribbean seems to have the most for viewing.  After drooling all over the place we were let into a room that seemed to have the most security.  And holy cow this was cool:

Yes, we are in Central Perk.  The retired set is part of the NBC studios tour, and we got to go in without an official guide and peek around.  We also were allowed to sit on the couch for a brief moment to snap a picture.  I could have spent a few hours in here looking at the set of one of my favorite TV shows ever, but the room is in high demand for visiting so we scurried out to allow others to see the famous coffee shop.

So there’s my visit to Ellen.  I have now been on the set of three different television shows.  I’m basically a show biz expert now. 😉