Randy Douthit is an American television producer who got his start directing “How Come” for “KGW” in 1970. His two driving mottos have been “do whatever it takes to air” and “build your career out of things you love doing.”

Randy Douthit had his first major job change by getting involved with CNN during its formative years, covering feature stories from New York and talk shows in Atlanta and Washington, D.C. Indeed, Douthit also became the executive producer of “Crossfire.” Crossfire brought together political figures from the left and right and had them discuss various topics. Douthit was also responsible for a weekly news program titled “Capital Gang.”

Since then, he has produced less “dry” television programming, including: “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “Jenny Jones,” “Judge Joe Brown,” and “Judge Judy” and “Judy Justice.”

Pandemic-Era Filming

He shared that all the extra testing and safety measures involved added more time to every shoot and all of that extra time contributed more money to each show’s production costs. When it came to filming during the pandemic, Douthit admitted that it took extra effort and costs that ultimately paid off.

He also expressed that caution became more prevalent during shoots. Everyone on set became aware of the need for masks, vaccinations, social distancing, etc. Even after precautions became de rigueur, he admitted that most crew never became complacent. Arguably, the biggest adjustment to most shows was filming without paid extras in the audience.

Judy Justice

When filming the successor show to Judge Judy for “IMDbTV” (now “Amazon Freevee”), cases were handled remotely in a manner similar to many genuine court proceedings. Judge Sheindlin would sign in from the East Coast, seated in front of a reproduction of the Judge Judy background, and case evidence would be fed to her via a monitor. When Douthit and Sheindlin were looking for a service to fund their show, the initial request was for 120 episodes over the span of three months. Douthit confessed that Judy Justice’s production was a crunched endeavor that instilled a lot of camaraderie among the crew, which ultimately paid off.