When there’s a pandemic, it’s tough for people to get around. Stores close, and public gatherings are canceled. This has the potential to make your day-to-day life difficult. Randy Douthit, an Emmy award-winning television executive producer, wasn’t an exception when COVID-19 hit. He had to adjust for a pandemic, and there’s no doubt that he did it well.
Having to deal with COVID-19 and its difficulties is a life experience for Randy Douthit, who’s been working on Judge Judy for over two decades. They had to make some tough decisions for the show and came out of it with a better understanding of dealing with disruptive events.
According to Randy Douthit, the most challenging part of dealing with the pandemic was ensuring that production personnel was vaccinated and not exposed to the virus. This meant that many people who normally worked on the show were temporarily off their job. He also stated, “When I was working on Judge Judy, we decided to put a ban on all non-essential staff in the Judge Judy Production office, which meant that everyone had to be vaccinated and have proof. The good news is that no one in our production office came down with the virus. The positive side of this is that we believe we have done a good job of keeping the pandemic away from everyone in our office. Everyone was vaccinated and they are all clear now.”
Another challenge was that they sometimes had to adapt to working remotely. Douthit stated, “Judge Judy had to adapt and work remotely for a couple of weeks, which was so much fun for me. We were all really happy to be able to stay in the office, but it was a challenge.”
The virus hit harder than originally predicted. It hit harder than they were expecting. This caused many problems, but they managed to deal with it well, in their opinion. Douthit stated, “We had to shoot outdoors in indoor locations for a couple of days, which was quite difficult. I think we did a great job though, and I give all the credit to my crew. They have been such a huge help.”