By Scott Calzolaio Daily News Staff

FRANKLIN - Okay, sound check. Everybody go around and count to 10, said cameraman and video editor Chris Flynn on set at Franklin TV headquarters.

Each member of the "Life of Reilly and Friends" crew and their special guests did their sound check before diving into the interviews they had scheduled. Host and self-declared doctor of kidology Reilly DeForge, 13, prepped himself by joking around with his friends and practicing his formal introduction to the show.

The "Life of Reilly and Friends" is a public access TV show as well as a YouTube channel. On his show, Reilly keeps the company of his friend Tyler Afonso, 13-year-old doctor of snackology, and the minions, Reillys sister, Lily DeForge, 11, and her friend Meghan Norton, 11. Together, they explore themes such as books, charities, and other organizations. On their debut episode, Reilly interviewed the author the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, Jeff Kinney.

The audience in mind is small children, Reilly said. Older people are welcome to watch, but its not geared towards them because the idea is to interest the younger kids.

A typical episode runs anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour and can be viewed by searching Life of Reilly in Franklin on Google or YouTube.

The show features a regular snack-time segment in between interviews, hosted by snackologist Afonso.

A lot of the snacks are actually really good, Reilly said. I look at the recipes and Im like eh, I dont know, but its always really good.

Chef Afonso, who mostly uses YouTube as his cookbook, said his recipes are always a mixture of things.

My recipes are mostly just random stuff, said the Gordon Ramsey fan. And now Im the star of the show, everybody likes me better, he laughed.

Sure they do, Reillys sister said sarcastically, also laughing.

During one segment, they made slime using melted gummy bears, adding red food dye to fit the episodes blood drive theme. The messy, delicious concoction was a highlight for the crew.

It was sticky and messy and disgusting, but it was so good, said Lily.

When asked what her favorite part of being on the show was, Lily replied Eating, thats pretty much all I do, she laughed.

Lily is a taste-tester for the snack segment, as well as a judge in other segments. She does her fair share of interviewing as well, when Reilly gets stuck, she said.

With his eyes on the prize, Reilly said that the goal is to build a good standing to get into college.

I think personally that its great college credit, he said. Ive been thinking about that for a while now. Im trying to do everything I can to get into college.

Reilly said that his mom, Tracy, had sparked the idea to make a show.

She was thinking originally a YouTube channel, which we do have in addition to the show, Reilly said.

He said that he already knew he was good with people from a young age, and that he is using the show as a learning experience.

I noticed Im already doing it, but Ive always found that public speaking and talking with people comes very naturally to me, he said. I think this experience of interviewing and getting interviewed has given me a whole new respect for talking in general. A lot of the greatest people out there are amazingly eloquent speakers.

A Jimmy Fallon fan and science lover at heart, the outgoing teenager hopes to someday find a job in that field while still maintaining his vivid personality.

I love the sciences. I love physics, Im particularly into astro-physics and molecular physics, the way that atoms work and the way the universe in general works, he said. We did a whole experiments episode and it did not work out great. There were big studio lights and it was a glow-in-the-dark experiment, and it did not work out well.

Not discouraged, he said he would attempt to incorporate science into his program as much as he could.

Reillys mom said that shes very grateful Franklin TV has allowed her children this opportunity.

Im in the media business and have been for some time, she said. I know that local stations struggle to get good content. You know that yourself as youre clicking through, you say Oh, theres town hall meeting again.

Tracy said that the station records, produces, and broadcasts the show for free, and that is had been a learning experience to work in local TV.

This is our second season, she said. We did a lot of learning our first season. Like, what does it take? How many episodes can we get in? So, weve done a lot of learning and were hoping to pick it up a little bit.

Tracy said that her son has the personality it takes for TV, and that she hopes to see him incorporate what he has learned from this experience in his future endeavors.

He loves to talk to people, and hes very charming. So, he definitely can put it on, she said.

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Franklin TV showcases teenager, snackologist - Milford Daily News