What I Did Over My Summer Vacation Part I

This past summer was beautiful but I admit that I’ve been a bit remiss at chronicling my adventures.  I'd rather not forget these little moments of splendor though so I thought I'd do a little "Best of" list. Over the next few days I'll be posting about my favorite memories from the past few months. It might not mean a lot to anyone but me and those friends who were there for the ride, but there you go; a little insight into why this summer will go down as one of the best in recent memory.

In Which Joel McHale is Really Tall 

In June some of my friends and I had the opportunity to attend a taping of The Soup with Joel McHale. Ever since my new-found infatuation with Community I’ve had a bit of a crush on Mr. McHale so needless to say, I was nervous/excited at the chance to meet him.

Fortunately, the experience lived up to, nay, exceeded expectation. The studio that the show is taped in is so tiny and there are only about thirty people in the audience. It was pretty cool to get a glimpse into the taping of a show like this and of course, it’s completely different than sitting on the couch and watching at home. For example: it's only a half an hour show but we were there for about three hours. Every time Joel messed up a punchline (or if a joke completely bombed) they would have to replay the clip and then re-do the joke. This means then that there were some clips we saw at least four or five times. There was a particular clip from SYTYCD that we saw maybe forty-seven times (I might be exaggerating a slight bit) and by the end of it the studio laughter was completely strained and unnatural.

Please know though that this is not a complaint. Joel kept us plenty entertained. He talked with the audience in between breaks, telling stories about his kids and his recent trip to Europe. His sense of humor is really dry and sarcastic and I loved hearing his take on the whole reality TV phenomenon. Dude, is not a fan. (Which only endears him to me more). After the show he stayed behind and took pictures. We were the last ones in lines and it was almost 11:00pm so they started kicking us out and we were afraid we weren't going to get to talk to him. But he followed us out to this little side hallway and even though you could tell he was exhausted he stayed and took pictures (and even stuck with us when a couple of the pictures were blurry and needed to be retaken). Really cool guy. Oh, yeah, and tall. So tall. Loved it.

In Which That Naked Guy from the Hangover Hugs Me

A few weeks later there was an invitation on the Community Facebook page for a screening of the show in L.A. with Joel and Ken Jeong. It sounded fun, like we would just be watching a couple of episodes and Ken and Joel would be there for a Q&A type thing. My friend Mary and I decided "what the heck, let's take the day off and do it." So we drove down there early in the morning, thinking that there would be a long line. Turns out, we were the first people there which was kind of weird but turned out to only lead to good things. While we were waiting there in line Kevin Bacon drove up to the lot and flashed us the peace sign. This was exciting... but we had no idea how much better the day was about to get.

While we were waiting a guy with a headset came and pulled ten random people out of line. Mary and I were part of this group and they led us, secret-service style, through the lot all-the-while calling us "The Ten" like we were survivors of Oceanic 815. When we finally got to the theater Joel and Ken were sitting at the front in director's chairs looking over scripts. Of course, we had already met Joel so we were like "yawn, whatevs" (OR NOT). We were directed to sit in the front row, dead center. As it turned out we weren't just going to be watching episodes. Oh no. This was a promo shoot for the Community marathon that was going to be airing the next week. The technical term is "wrap-around" but what we got out of it was, "We're going to be on NBC? The hell?"


This was a hard enough fact to absorb. Add that to the fact that we were in a room with Joel McHale and Ken Jeong for five hours and it was basically five hours of free comedy entertainment. By the end of the day my cheeks actually hurt from smiling and laughing all day. There were scripts that they were supposed to be following but in all honesty, the scripts sucked and Ken and Joel seemed to know this and it turned into a complete improv session - imagine two hilarious people trying to crack each other up. Unfortunately, some of the best moments would never have made it past NBC sensors. This includes a moment where Ken came out into the audience and sat on Mary's lap. He started doing these crazy hand motions and making these noises and seriously, how people work and act and keep straight faces around him is unimaginable to me. Shooting this one thirty-second clip took about forty-five minutes and afterward he hugged and thanked both of us. (Apparently my reactions to him were impressive - GO ME. ACTING).  He was just so sweet and genuine and a huge part of what made this such an awesome day. Mary and I have even dubbed it The Day of Awesome. The video above is a somewhat poor quality version of some of the outtakes. And yes, there I am front and center laughing like a lunatic.

In Which I Almost Get Into a Spazzy Twitter Related Car Accident

After said Day of Awesome  Mary and I decided to head over to IHOP to reminisce about the day and just generally freak out together. We were in the middle of Hollywood and I really didn’t have much of a clue where I was going (although, thank you GPS) but I was trying to navigate the streets during rush hour when suddenly… I almost crash the damn car. Why? Because in the middle of our “Oh, wasn’t that a lovely day?” Joel McHale tweeted a picture of us. Cue lots of "we're too old for this but who even cares" kind of screaming.

This guy has somewhere upward of a million followers and he tweeted a picture of US. CRAZY. I SAY AGAIN, CRAZY. Needless to say, we kind of had a mini meltdown and it was a bit of a miracle that we arrived at IHOP in one place. We ended up staying there for about three hours just rambling incoherently about the day and how much we love this show (because has being a fan of a television show ever paid off in such a huge way? I used to love Dawson's Creek but I never got to hang out with Joshua Jackson for the day. Although, THAT would still send me into fits of tween-like squeeing). 

Now as I write all this I realize that I should have titled this section, "How Community and Joel McHale Made My Summer Fan-Freaking-Tastic." But that's kind of implied.

I also realize that I sound like a twelve year old. But hey, at least I don't have Beiber Fever.