“Women aren’t funny.”

Say that cliché or imply it in any way and -HEY-OH- I hate you.

I’m not joking.

You know funny women, I know funny women. We are everywhere. Everywhere, I say! Until you look at a writers room, a comedy club, or the late night television circuit. It’s 2016 and there are so few women in those places, it’s not even funny. At all.

When I learned the first late night news show hosted by a woman was filming in NYC I said, FUCK YES! I MUST SUPPORT THIS! As both a millennial and a New York cliché, I obviously do not have cable. Thus I couldn’t just watch Full Frontal with Samantha Bee on air every Monday night at 10:30pm on TBS. So I did something that wasn’t quite as easy as punching a remote while lying in bed, but was still pretty easy and even more fun!

I attended a live taping of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee!

Getting Tickets to a Live Taping in NYC

It’s daunting to get tickets to many shows that film in NYC. David Letterman used to have interns run around Times Square handing out pairs of free tickets to people who could answer a trivia question. If you couldn’t answer the question, they’d look at you like a loser and refuse you the tickets- I know because it happened to me! For Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert, you have to sign up months in advance and get really lucky. Because Full Frontal is so new, it’s easy to get tickets. I filled out the form online- you can find it here– and got an email a few days later that tickets were mine for that very Monday.

Don’t Be Late for Bee

Full Frontal shares a studio block with Last Week Tonight super far west on 57th Street. They tell you to arrive between 4:15PM and 4:40PM so of course I arrived at 4:41PM. It was raining and a 2.5 long block walk from the subway: obvious conditions for lateness. I certainly wasn’t the last person there and all us late assholes were punished for our tardiness when being seated. If you want good seats, get there early. Also if you want swag, get there early. They had a t-shirt gun and aim very much favored those in the prime, on-camera seating.

Journey to the Full Frontal Studio

If you’ve never been to a taping of a live show, the whole process of being seated is pretty crazy. You’re led down halls, kept in tiny holding rooms, packed into elevators, and made to stand in lines long before you ever see the studio. This makes it feel like an incredible journey, like you’ve accomplished a lot by the time you’re finally seated under the cluster of studio lights.

You’ll cheer extra loud when the producer tells you to because you went through a lot for this.

I probably waited less than 15 minutes to get into the studio. Which really is nothing. But it felt like a long time because I didn’t know what was coming next and there were so many different places to wait! Plus, I’m a New Yorker and we absolutely hate waiting.

But don’t worry, it was worth it!

Samantha Bee Is Awesome (#girlcrush #funnyAF)

Samantha Bee is even more adorable, goofy, and charming in person than on TV. I loved watching her pump herself up before the cameras started rolling and how she kept her energy up. It was fucking magical watching a woman whose priority wasn’t to look beautiful on camera. No, the priority here was all about making us laugh. She certainly succeeded, no producer needed to tell us to cheer, we were all about this sharp as hell and witty woman.

What Does Full Frontal Feature?

Samantha Bee loves going out into the field to get a story. She holds the title of Longest Running Correspondent on The Daily Show. Her show features this strength and one of the highlights of the show I attended was Bee hosting a party for Trump supporters. Not the ones sucker punching people but that huge, terrifying percentage of well-educated, politically informed voters whose support for Trump BOGGLES THE MIND. The resulting video is hilarious (and slightly scary, as are all things Trump these days, at least to me).

“With every passing Trump ragefest, it gets harder and harder to treat his supporters like actual adults—but Samantha gives it a shot.”

The show is short, it only has a half hour slot. It doesn’t feature celebrity guests like many other late night shows. But Monday March 14th, the night I attended, was only the 6th episode! I can’t wait to watch this show evolve as TV gets more comfortable with ladies in late night. Because that is finally happening, at long, long last. Here’s hoping for the day we look back on that Vanity Fair cover (you remember the one) and laugh, “Oh it’s so olde-timey with all those white men!”

Check out Full Frontal With Samantha Bee every Monday at 10:30PM on TBS. If you’re like me and don’t have a TV, there’s plenty to watch online and on youtube. If you’re in NYC here’s the link again to sign up for tickets, the show is currently taping through January 2017.