Ok kids. I went and saw our man Norm on Friday, November 19. First of all let me just say it was totally cool. I even made some contact with Norm. I will get to that later.

I can't give you any spoilers, because the show I saw taped, aired this past Wednesday, "Norm vs. Denby." I was really surprised how fast that happened. I thought it was usually about two or three weeks. So now you will get to hear my take on the whole experience.

We got to the studio around 6:30, which I thought was fairly early. The taping starts at 7:00. I was wrong. We were some of the last people in there and we had what I thought, were the worst seats. We were in the very top row, very last seats. We could still see everything that was going on but I would have preferred to be closer to the front.

The show was much more organized than I expected it to be. I thought once they started shooting that they would do a couple of lines and then stop, but they would do entire scenes all at once. They do each scene twice and sometimes change a couple of things. They decide later which one to use. Of course there were the times they had to do a scene over again or pick up from a certain part because someone screwed up. Most of the time it was Norm. You can tell he ad-libs a little bit and he gets kinda carried away to the point where he forgets what he was even saying to begin with. It is really funny.

None of them interacted with the audience, except for Artie. He came up and was talking to some old ladies. He wasn't really in this episode that much, so he mostly wandered around.

Norm seemed a little standoffish. I think more than anything he is shy. Of course, I was watching his every move. He totally reminds me of a little boy. In between almost every scene he was eating something. He must have a high metabolism or something. After one scene he was walking around eating a pear. After he was done he threw it in the trash and then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. I was cracking up. Then the hair stylist came over and was fixing his hair and he just stood there with his hands at his side, looking straight ahead. It reminded me of a little boy having his hair brushed by his Mom. Too funny.

After the show was done taping, they had everyone come out while they played the theme song (which I got to hear in full). I figured Norm was going to bolt out of there but he stayed down on the stage. Having the crappiest seats ended up being a benefit. We were the last of the audience to get out, so we had no one behind us and we could kinda take our time.

As I walked along the rail Norm was facing my direction and looked up at me. Of course I was all excited, though playing it cool. I thought, "That rocks! Norm looked at me." I noticed he wasn't talking to anyone in the audience, not even a, "Hi." I don't know if it was by choice or if no one was making an attempt. I was feeling like I wasn't going to be able to make contact with him at all. Then he walked over and started talking to a small group of people. At that point he had his back to me and I was almost to where he was standing. I thought, "Crap! That's it. I lost any chance I had." But just then he turned around and totally locked eyes with me. I couldn't stop looking at him and then I thought, "Norm is staring at me! What do I do now?" So, all cute like, I said, "Hi!" and then he smiled, raised his hand and did this goofy little wave thing and said "Hi!" I was in heaven. My man had talked to me. And it wasn't one of those token "hi-get-the-hell-away-from-me-you-freak" Hi's. He seemed really sweet.

I am going to go and see him again soon. It's kinda hard cause I live in Vegas, but I will make time. He is awesome and so is the show.