ABC Studios

The second installment of Myke’s vicarious weekend through the eyes of Larry Hampton had me waking up early on Saturday morning and heading down the ABC studios in Hollywood. Vocal phenom Rie Sinclair was doing a talkshow gig and she needed a hired gun, so my brother-in-law Larry fit the bill nicely.

The moment one walks onto a studio, it’s like stepping into the embassy of a foreign country: you step out of reality into surrealand. The ambassador of surrealand is any celebrity you happen to run into.

Well, the façade of the General Hospital set was right outside the parking lot, which was interesting. The inner studio was the same soundstage where Dick Clark’s “American Bandstand” was filmed for years. Julie Andrews also had a variety show there, and we passed her former heli-pad on the way in. Strange.

Well, Larry and Rie got set up and filmed the show. Rie had a short interview afterwards and that was that. But it was kinda fun to hang out at the ABC studios for a bit. We checked out some editing suites, and I can see that the digital/analogue debate rages on in TV-land, too. But the editing suites were pretty, er, sweet. They were small, dorm-sized rooms with editing software and flat-screen monitors. There were pro-tools HD systems throughout, and a nifty screening room. Fun times.

After all that, Larry and I stepped back into America and went home.