I was killing time waiting for an evening plane out of LA last spring when some guy came along passing out free audience tickets to a new show. It turned out to be the first episodes of "The Test" and I said, what the hell, and went. I got to sit in the front row of the audience, where we were cued to clap and laugh no matter how lame it was.
Jillian, the host, was a fine-looking woman up-close. In the episode I watched, she had a pair of clear, high-heeled sandals on that gave us an excellent view of her feet. Between takes, Jillian and the guests did talk about the raunchy questions and their answers. I was surprised that it wasn't, in fact, scripted at all. They didn't know what the questions would be and they had to think up their answers on the spot. They only shot one take of most sections, with a few retakes going into and out of commercials.
Sadly, there was no discussion that even went close to tickling. Jillian did say that she was in a long-term committed relationship and she seemed pretty conservative in her off-air comments. I wish I could tell you that she hinted at her membership in some secret celeb cabal where tickle torture was the initiation test, but no such luck. Mainly she seemed like a career-oriented woman who knew she was using her looks and fairly quick wit to get on TV as much as possible.
The show was pretty stupid and didn't last. I think they made the mistake of being middle of the road. If they had asked legit questions, they could have been a sexual Politically Incorrect. Or, they could have asked questions that would really have probed sexual issues and been cutting edge. Instead, the show was just mildly smutty and dependent on the quests being able to turn them into witty zingers. But, not many celebs can do that without scripts, so it was mostly just lame.
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