AMY SALISBURY
PRIDE STAFF WRITER

Dec. 12, 2011 will be quite a day for me. No, I won’t be finished with finals. No, I won’t be going on a tropical vacation. Actually, I’m going to the Ellen DeGeneres Show for her Twelve Days of Giveaways. So far, it’s looking way better than a trip to Hawaii.

If you think you just show up at Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank on the day of the show’s taping, you would be wrong. Attending the Ellen show is a process which must be followed to the letter. Those who attend the Twelve Days of Giveaways must be invited by Ellen herself, a treat I received back in April of 2011.

My mom—a die-hard Ellen fan—scored tickets to a taping of the Ellen show on April 20 and, of course, invited yours truly. Fortunately, the guest packet mailed prior to the show outlines the dos and don’ts of an Ellen audience member. If you’re late, you’re out. If you’re without ID, you’re out. If you’re a convicted criminal, you’re out (seriously— the Ellen show conducts pre-show background checks on its audience).

Once you find yourself on the Ellen soundstage, chances are, you’re there to stay. Before you go into the studio, you have to walk through what Ellen calls the “riff raff” room. This is where the stand-by people who show up the day of the show go if there were no cancellations or open seats in the audience. It is actually Ellen’s very beautiful and well appointed gift shop, outfitted with memorabilia and several large HD TVs for remote viewing of the live show.

The riff raff room leads the audience into the set as you see on TV. If you wear bright colors, you’re more likely to get a seat toward the front of the stage as per the direction of the audience managers. Also, I sure did see a lot of blondes in the front row. Not that I’m insinuating the Ellen show likes blondes better than brunettes or anything.

Anyway, once you’re seated, fun, hilarious people warm-up the audience pre-show and get you dancing—a lot. I’m talking out-of- breath, sweaty, spastic, spontaneous dancing for a half hour before the show even begins.

Then, Ellen finally emerges. The crowd screams and cheers with what energy they have remaining as Ellen dances up and down the aisles. Before we knew it, the audience receives a $100 gift card to Rite Aid (score!). Then we got to see Reese Witherspoon talk about her movie “Water for Elephants,” Paul Walker discuss something related to his career (all I recall is getting an advanced screening of a cologne commercial he was starring in) and a young Justin Bieber wanna be called Jackson Guthy perform a song that is still stuck in my head: L-O-V-I-N-G. Overall, it was a pretty entertaining group.

Throughout the whole show, Ellen kept teasing us with iPad stories. Every single person thought we were going to get an iPad by the end of the show. When Ellen started wrapping up, she said she started thinking about what kind of gift we would like to have. The tease seemed endless. Suddenly, she announced that each audience member was getting a guaranteed ticket to one of her Twelve Days of Giveaways shows in December. The audience exploded with applause, and my family and I talked about what would happen at that December taping for months on end.

As an experienced Ellen show attendee, I’d like to offer a few tips to consider during your pre-show preparation if you are the next lucky winner of Ellen tickets. First, don’t wear dark colors. If you must, wear a black sweater and perhaps a bright scarf with it. Second, practice your dance moves, and don’t be tempted to use all your energy during the audience warm-up. Keep your movements controlled. Flailing around on TV does not translate well. You may think you are dancing “cute,” but big, unchoreographed moves, can look alarmingly like a seizure.