"Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience" is the first episode of the American television miniseries WandaVision, based on Marvel Comics featuring the characters Wanda Maximoff / Scarlet Witch and Vision.

Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany reprise their respective roles as Wanda Maximoff and Vision from the film series, with Debra Jo Rupp, Fred Melamed, and Kathryn Hahn also starring.

[15] Of all the sitcom styles that the series pays homage to, Schaeffer found the 1950s era to be one of the most challenging to write because of the "patter-patter" dialogue of the time, which she attempted to replicate in this episode.

Schaeffer hoped to do this with an entertaining start for the episode, and an early discovery for her in writing the scene was a "cutesy back and forth" between Maximoff and Vision that was inspired by the relationships between couples in 1950s and 1960s sitcoms.

She also described Maximoff as "full Donna Reed" in the episode, with Agnes inspired by "sex-starved but forever rebuffed middle-aged neighbor" women such as Ethel on I Love Lucy, Mrs. Roper on Three's Company, and Mona on Who's the Boss?.

She decided that Mr. Hart would choke on his food during the dinner scene and almost die, which she felt was a simple solution but something that would stand out as an uncomfortable and confusing moment within the sitcom experience.

[20][21] The toaster oven has a blinking red light which is the first time color is introduced to the series, and it has a sound effect reminiscent of Tony Stark's Iron Man repulsors.

[21] Including a Stark Industries product points to Tony, who manufactured the weapons used to bomb Sokovia and kill Maximoff's parents as revealed in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).

[23] His colleague Savannah Salazar saw the commercial's slogan as a reference to Maximoff letting go of her anger towards Stark when she joined the Avengers, and agreed with Riseman about the toaster being a metaphor for Vision.

[25][26]: 23:37–23:56  Also appearing as residents of Westview are Asif Ali as Norm, David Lengel as Phil Jones, and Amos Glick as Dennis the mailman.

The graphics for the opening titles were inspired by those in The Dick Van Dyke Show, and Perception also made the episode's closing card featuring Maximoff and Vision in an I Love Lucy-style frame.

Shakman used lenses, lighting, and sound design to change the mood for this, inspired by The Twilight Zone, and felt the transition from the multi-camera sitcom scenes was "very dramatic".

Bettany wore a bald cap and face makeup on set to match Vision's color, as well as tracking markers for the visual effects teams to reference.

[51] Complex 3D and digital makeup techniques were then used to create the character, with sections of Bettany's face replaced with CGI on a shot-by-shot basis; the actor's eyes, nose, and mouth were usually the only elements retained.

[51] MARZ was first asked to remake a shot of Vision from Age of Ultron as a test, and was hired to work on WandaVision when Marvel liked the results.

[52] MARZ effects supervisor Ryan Freer said the episode provided additional challenges compared to their first test shot since it was the first time that Vision had been seen in black-and-white and doing slapstick comedy.

[52] They did additional tests on early footage from the series to ensure that they could preserve Bettany's performance, which involved a lot of "these incredible '50s sitcom expressions with cheek puffs and all".

Shots of Vision changing between his human and synthezoid forms and using his abilities were also designed to mimic period-appropriate effects, with "puffs of smoke and starry glitter" added by MARZ.

Marvel felt the result was too seamless for a 1950s sitcom, so MARZ digitally adjusted the actors' hands in the shots to make the jump cut more obvious.

[57] "A Newlywed Couple", the episode's theme song composed by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez, was meant to evoke the "dawn of television".

They included "an optimistic group of voices singing jazzily" about the love between Maximoff and Vision, and were thrilled to use words like "gal" and "hubby" as well as a "big musical pratfall" in the middle of the song.

[60] Beck's score for the choking scene transitions from the period style to a "tension piece" inspired by the music that Bernard Herrmann composed for Alfred Hitchcock's films.

[20][61] A soundtrack album for the episode was released digitally by Marvel Music and Hollywood Records on January 22, 2021, featuring Beck's score.

[63] Charles Pulliam-Moore from io9 noted that the 1950s poster was "modest enough at first glance", depicting an "unassuming living room" from the decade, but the "wallpaper peeling to reveal a static-y reality lurking just beneath the surface was conveying that as WandaVision progresses, things are going to get even weirder".

[66] In February 2021, Marvel partnered with chef Justin Warner to release a recipe for Lobster Thermidor based on the one that Agnes gives to Maximoff in the episode.

WandaVision had a 9.3 percent share of the engagement on Reelgood, an online streaming guide with more than 2 million U.S. users, for its premiere weekend of January 15–17, making it the most-streamed series during that time according to their data.

The site's critical consensus reads, "'Filmed Before a Live Studio Audience' taps into the strange side of the MCU and gives Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany plenty of room to flex their comedic muscles.

"[74] Roxana Hadadi at RogerEbert.com said Olsen and Bettany had excellent chemistry in the episode, and felt their work elevated the "fairly recognizable plot about a dinner party gone wrong".

[61] Writing for Vulture, Abraham Riesman gave the episode 3 out of 5 stars, saying it was "nice to see an MCU thing where people are allowed to act.

He did wish more of the show's premise had been kept a secret from the marketing campaign since "the abrupt depositing of the audience into a genre and format completely antithetical to those they had known before would have been a much-needed shock to the system for a viewer used to the MCU's tropes".