This Saturday I was the 'warmup' comic for a local TV show involving the MD Lottery. For those of you who are unfamiliar with what a 'warmup' comic does, my job was to get the crowd excited so when they start taping the actual show there is some energy coming from the studio audience. When I was asked to do this I told them that they needed to define what type of comedy I would need to do. They told me it would be a rated PG show, but that they didn't want me doing 'jokes'. They wanted me in the audience, talking to them. So I took the gig.
No problem.
I received an actual contract describing what was expected of me. I was to do ½ hour before taping (1:30-2:00), then I would work the breaks while they changed the sets.
Again, no problem.
I bought stuff to give away (I spent $18.90 at the dollar store) and the people there provided me with a couple hundred scratch-offs along with an assistant to help me out.
Can this get any easier?
The first half hour was a blast. Little did I know that each 'set change' would take a minimum of 30 minutes. However, the taping itself would only take 5-10 minutes per segment. So with 7 different segments being taped from 1:30 to 5:15 there was about 3 HOURS left of me talking to a room full of regular lottery players.