Have any of you ever been in the audience of a late night talk show?

I went to a few Leno shows years ago. From what I can remember, they had the big blinking sign telling you when to cheer. Some laughs are very genuine thou.

Saw Conan back when he was with NBC. Probably the hardest I have ever laughed. He had a comedian come out and warm up the crowd, then he comes out and meets everyone and warms them up more. By the time he gets to his monologue everyone is in a good mood and the right mind set and laughing.

Twice actually (back to back days) I sat in the Dog Pound at the Arsenio Hall show and saw the Tonight Show about 2 month's after Jay Leno took over. At that time for Leno you could just show up before the taping and get in, for Arsenio we had tp get there early in the AM to get tickets and come back. They flash "Applause" signs when coming back from commercial but it is a live audience.

I went to Letterman in 2010. I was told by someone who interned there to order tickets months in advance and I did. We had 2nd row aisle seats and were about 10-15 feet from Paul and the band. They were incredible, by far the highlight of the show. They did a cover of Al Green "Let's Stay Together" was off the charts good. They put on a classic Dave bit (Taco Bell Drive Thru) then a warm up comedian came out. I found myself laughing at jokes I'd never even smile at while at home, they had the crowd so jacked and up and energetic it was almost like you were hypnotized to laugh. They had no applause signs and made mentioned that it was a point of pride.

The Ed Sullivan theater is so so much smaller than it looks on tv, i couldn't get over how intimate it was. By the time you get done though you were wiped, all the cheering, and music, plus there were no bathroom breaks and you had to get there like 2hrs in advance. It was like leaving s 3 hr concert.

Funny but I barely remember the content of the interviews of monologue, Hugh Laurie was the guest and some no name actress. Dave also announced that he had gotten married over the weekend and nobody knew of he was serious or not, turned out he was. Every time they went to commercial he would throw off his jacket and go talk to the warm up comedian/Head writer (Bill Sheft). That's the only person he seemed to interact with at all. During the musical act I don't even know if he was on the set, he disappeared.

It was a surreal experience and glad we got to see him before he retired even though he wasn't in his prime anymore. Oh and also to answer the Original Posts question, yes Fallon uses a live audience with applause signs, always has. You can sometimes see it before it goes off when they show crowd shots after a commercial.

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I went to Letterman in 2010. I was told by someone who interned there to order tickets months in advance and I did. We had 2nd row aisle seats and were about 10-15 feet from Paul and the band. They were incredible, by far the highlight of the show. They did a cover of Al Green "Let's Stay Together" was off the charts good. They put on a classic Dave bit (Taco Bell Drive Thru) then a warm up comedian came out. I found myself laughing at jokes I'd never even smile at while at home, they had the crowd so jacked and up and energetic it was almost like you were hypnotized to laugh. They had no applause signs and made mentioned that it was a point of pride.

The Ed Sullivan theater is so so much smaller than it looks on tv, i couldn't get over how intimate it was. By the time you get done though you were wiped, all the cheering, and music, plus there were no bathroom breaks and you had to get there like 2hrs in advance. It was like leaving s 3 hr concert.

Funny but I barely remember the content of the interviews of monologue, Hugh Laurie was the guest and some no name actress. Dave also announced that he had gotten married over the weekend and nobody knew of he was serious or not, turned out he was. Every time they went to commercial he would throw off his jacket and go talk to the warm up comedian/Head writer (Bill Sheft). That's the only person he seemed to interact with at all. During the musical act I don't even know if he was on the set, he disappeared.

It was a surreal experience and glad we got to see him before he retired even though he wasn't in his prime anymore. Oh and also to answer the Original Posts question, yes Fallon uses a live audience with applause signs, always has. You can sometimes see it before it goes off when they show crowd shots after a commercial.

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I went around 2007, and my experience was exactly like yours. We ordered tickets months in advance, got a call the day before asking us a trivia question about the show (the name of the Hello Deli), and were told to get there early. We were in the second row, middle section on the aisle.

Like you said, Paul and the CBS Orchestra were phenomenal and had the place rocking. However, it was definitely one of those late era "lazy" Letterman performances. I remember that the interns jacked everyone up prior to entering the ES theater (which was jaw-droppingly small), but I the warm up comic wasn't very funny, and Dave wasn't funny at all when he came out and addressed the crowd prior to the show, so that sort of took the air out of the crowd.

During the monologue and some of the pre-guest content, I remember looking over at the sides of the theater where all the interns were standing and one of them looking at me and mouthing "laugh."

I noticed, like you did, that during the breaks, Dave would remove his coat and either walk out of the theater altogether or talk only to his head writer. Jennifer Aniston was the guest and her spot spanned a commercial break, and I remember how weird it was that when they went to break Dave just got up and left without saying a word to her.

Definitely glad we did it, but it'll be our last time to get tickets to a talk show.

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Watching Jimmy Fallon and I was wondering if all the laughter you hear is genuine or if they add it after recording.

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Probably fake laughter.

Yeah, in the early 90's.

As what everyone else is saying happened, they have not only big blinking signs telling you to laugh, they have some crazy yelling dude who is like the hype-man...sort of cheerleader and he's running around in the front back and forth trying to pump up the crowd and really put effort into our fake laughs.

We also went to sitcoms in LA because they paid you $10 and that was beer money for us back then.

Every show does the same thing...and it's contagious, you are in this weird setting and once most people laugh, everyone just sort of does it. It's not really real. You're getting paid.

Johnny Carson in the 70's. There was an applause sign but they did not add canned laughter. Mostly what I remember was Shelley Winters being an attention whore and pissing everyone off.

cool - I found it:

LINK

Holy crap. I didn't even remember Shelly Winters pouring the drink over Oliver Reed's head. Just her being a stupid count.

This is by far one of the most interesting and insightful threads I have read on this board in awhile. It's really interesting to hear the experiences of people who have been to, what I consider, a rare event for most Americans.

Interested in some more Fallon experiences if there are any out there. He seems to be far and away the most popular late night host ATM