Rehearsal's with Jimmy Fallon

I'm really not sure if there's a nicer, more talented, funnier guy in the entertainment business than Jimmy Fallon. Which is why it is impossibly hard to get the free tickets to his show. Tickets to the actual recordings of Jimmy's show are released monthly (all free), for the next month of shows. They announce when the tickets are up via their Twitter account, but every month, without fail, the tickets are gone within 10 minutes of the tweet being sent into the twitterverse. So what's a Jimmy fan to do, to see his jokes in person? Monologue Rehearsal! Each day there's a recording, Jimmy rehearses his opening monologue in front of a small studio audience to guage what jokes work and which don't. A few weeks ago, Dani, Talita and I were lucky enough to attend one of these sessions. Firstly, you need to book these tickets through this website: http://1iota.com You should do this a few weeks in advance. In most cases, you will be placed on a waitlist, and then tickets will be issued to you as they free up (you'll get an email when you've been assigned tickets). Best to apply for a few different dates to ensure you do get tickets. All the timing information is provided when you get your tickets, but they're a little unclear on the where's and what's of it all. You need to check in by certain time, but it's not where all the other show tapings check in (ie. above the NBC store) - it's outside the store, in the arcade outside the TUMI store. Here, you will show a representative from 1iota your confirmation, and you will receive a pink ticket. You have about 30 minutes between the check in deadline and when you need to be back to go upstairs.

Photo Credit: The Lovely Dani Delilo

Just to note - no big bags or luggage or anything like that is allowed up. They no longer have an area to leave this stuff, so make arrangements. Dani and Talita had to lug their newly purchased suitcases a few blocks in the rain to Iven's work in the half hour we had to spare! When you get back, you line up where you checked in - outside TUMI. From here, you will be taken upstairs for a short security briefing, and then you will be taken through metal detectors before taking the elevator upstairs. Once upstairs, one of the shows writers gives you an intro on the show, the work that goes into creating it and what to do/expect of the rehearsal. Essentially - the message was laugh. Laugh lots, laugh hard and laugh loudly. We were then ushered into the studio and there was Jimmy! He runs through pages and pages of jokes that he and his writers have prepared, jotting down notes as he goes. It appears that for a lot of the jokes, it's the first time he has seen them, so I guess everybody just kind of thinks of jokes with/without Jimmy and then they are all compiled into a document for him each day. Obviously, they're incredibly topical jokes - so if you're not familiar with US politics/current events - quite a lot will go over your head. During our session, Jimmy also rehearsed a Pros and Cons section - of Donald Trump running for president, which was hilarious! This is what made it to air:

To top it all off, the Roots were there...Questlove and Black Thought acted out a scene from the previous nights episode of 'The Bachelor' which was hilarious. While I'd still love to see a complete taping of Jimmy Fallon, this was a great experience....and quite interesting as you get a little more of an idea of how the show is produced and just how much work goes into creating it each night. And best of all....completely free!!