After attending dozens of “Whose Line is it Anyway?” tapings vicariously through Michelle, this was the first time that I experienced the joy firsthand. I was more excited than anyone can imagine. I got to the studio at about 1:30. There were two people at one door, and a woman in a wheelchair at the other. The two people were named Laura and “Bubba”, and they had flown out from Alabama just for one day to see the show. My mother and I sat behind them and we got to know each other. Laura coined the phrase, “You’re either a whoser…or a loser!” which I wrote down in my notebook. The woman in the wheelchair was Barbara. My mother befriended her and she came to sit with us. Oh, if only I had time to warn my mother before she struck up a conversation. Oh well. Anyway, after switching the lines around over and over again, and after meeting Michelle, Laura, Quink, and Dawn, the pages let us into the studio. I was number 5. I walked into the studio and nearly passed out from excitement of simply seeing the stage! After watching Whose Line so much, seeing the set was almost like I was looking at my living room. It was all so familiar. We got good seats in the middle section. Before the filming started, Laura and Michelle and Christina (who were sitting in the back row), called me up and told me that if Greg came out to do Superheroes to yell out, “Not hot, spiiiiicy man!” (From his stand up routine, which I know all too well.) The show started with Dan Patterson coming out and giving a speech, which I found to be quite humourous. Then he introduced Drew Carey, who came out and clamped his hand over his heart, pretending to have another heart attack. He took some audience questions and then introduced Greg (who I was thrilled to see! He’s one of my favourite fourth seaters!), Wayne, Colin, and Ryan. Greg was wearing a suit with an orange shirt underneath, Wayne was wearing a red shirt, Colin was wearing a turquoise shirt (finally! Some good taste in clothes for Colin!), and Ryan was in plaid. Then the show began:
This was a special “Halloween” episode, so there were many references to the Halloween theme. Drew gave out candy instead of points. He said that the audience would get candy later, but we didn’t, possibly because of what happened during Weird Newscasters later. But I’m getting ahead of myself…
Superheroes: World crisis: No shaving cream. The whosers and I were extremely happy that they started with this game, as we were well prepared with our suggestions! Drew asked for a superhero name for Greg, and we all yelled out “Not hot, spiiiiicy man,” but he didn’t hear us the first time. We yelled it a few more times, and eventually he heard us and took our suggestion! It was hilarious! Of course, Greg was all I had hoped for. I enjoyed his random line of shock, “Great leaping tree shrews!” Ryan was “Ridicules people behind their back boy,” which he did fabulously well. Colin was “Captain Panic” (perfect!), and then he named Wayne “Malfunctioning Robot Doctor,” which was funny, but reminded me of a previous superhero (Malfunctioning Robot with an Attitude Boy). I hope they air this one, despite the similarities in superhero names.
Hollywood Director: Colin was the director, and the others performed a Count Dracula (Or as Colin renamed it, Count CRAP-ula!) type of scene. Wayne was a woman showering, and Ryan came in as a bat who turned into Dracula. I don’t remember much of what Greg did. I think he was a priest (?). For a change, I noticed that Colin didn’t use the slips of paper for suggestions of how to “improve” the scene. He made them up, which I found even funnier. He had them do it as a soap opera, near sighted, and as river dancers with hiccups.
Let’s Make a Date: I can’t believe how long these quirks are getting! I’ll write what I can remember about them, but they were so long that they won’t be verbatim. Greg was the contestant. Wayne was a fitness guru who was teaching his video “How to tighten your buns in two minutes.” Colin was a flight attendant whose anger management thong tightens when he loses his temper. This one was too funny. Colin’s face was wonderful! Ryan was a glamourous female Russian spy who was using big brother bullying techniques to get information from the others. Ryan had to read this one several times. He did it well, but had a lot of trouble with his accent. Of course, Greg made fun of him for that. When Greg was unable to guess exactly what each of them were, he said, “I didn’t know they were going to be essay guesses!” Ryan also made fun of the lengthiness of the quirks. “Remember when it would just say, ‘a cow?’”
Sound Effects with Audience Members: Ryan and Colin were an army sent to destroy godzilla who was terrorizing New York. I didn’t write down much about this game.
Song Styles: Drew asked for something to replace the word “Monster” in “Monster Mash.” Someone suggested “Goat Mash”, and Drew took it. Somebody stopped them before Wayne could begin and told them that they couldn’t use it. I thought he said something about West Side Story. Maybe someone can enlighten me on this one. Anyway, they had to get a new suggestion, and they ended up doing “Pig” instead. The others acted like pigs in the background. It was pretty funny.
Song Styles: That’s not a typo, they did this game twice. For the second time, Drew brought out a special guest named Jane (I forgot her last name). She was a female body builder. Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a woman with muscles like that in my life. The guys looked terrified. Greg hid behind his chair, and Ryan got up and tried to hide as well. Wayne sang to her, and she ended up picking him up. I think he was a little surprised by that!
Make a Monster: This was a new game. Colin was Doctor Frankenstein and Greg was Igor. They were creating monsters (Ryan and Wayne), from various assorted body parts. Then Ryan and Wayne had to serenade each other. Ryan was given the head of John Wayne, one leg of a soccer player, one leg of a radio city rockette, and the body of the robot from “Lost in Space.” Wayne (the bride) was given the head of Sammy Davis Jr, chicken legs, one arm of Mohammed Ali and one arm of a woman. I thought it was very funny. It’s amazing how they kept all of those traits going throughout the scene! That’s a lot to concentrate on!
After this game, Ryan dropped a lollipop into Colin’s water. He seemed to get a lot of pleasure out of that. Almost as much pleasure as he got out of having his microphone fixed. I loved Colin’s double take after he saw Ryan’s expression while his mike was getting readjusted. I also liked when the sound guys lifted up Wayne’s shirt to fix his microphone, he lifted up their shirts too. It’s so much fun to see all of this background action that nobody sees on TV!
Weird Newscasters: Colin was the host (He named himself “Murray with a fringe on top”). Greg (Randy Always) was a politician running a campaign against Drew. Wayne was a frat boy doing stunts to impress his drinking buddies in the front row. Ryan (Rocky Doody) was the rise and fall of a 1940’s boxer. Greg was wonderful. He makes a fabulous politician, and he came up with some really funny dirt about his opponent. Wayne was wild. He grabbed Drew’s bucket of candy and stuffed about 20 pieces of various candy in his mouth. He ended up turning the entire bucket over his head. There were pieces of candy all over the place. Ryan later commented that it looked like Walt Disney threw up. Drew gave a thousand points to Wayne’s dentist. I don’t think Ryan quite knew how to portray the rise and fall of a 1940’s boxer, so he started acting like a dog. A boxer dog. Very clever!
Hey, you down there!: I was so happy to see a return of this game. It was about training to be a fireman. I’ve seen it done better before, but I still enjoyed it.
Scene to rap: Drew asked for the name of a big Blockbuster hit movie. He didn’t take my suggestion, which was “Gepetto,” but a few of the audience members seemed to enjoy it :) He used Jurassic Park. I was excited about this one, because I was hoping that Colin would do his dino impression, but he didn’t. Ryan’s was about being buried in “dinosaur poo.” I don’t know if they’ll air this one. I’ve seen better Scenes to Rap.
Film dub: This one was about “Trouble brewing in Mexico.” Colin did the voice of a big scorpion, which was pretty funny. At the very end, Ryan couldn’t think of a line for his character and just started laughing before the film was stopped. Drew made fun of him for that.
Scenes From a Hat: I didn’t take notes on this game, since it goes by so quickly and I wanted to give it my full attention. All I remember was that they got a lot out of the suggestion, “Unusual welcome signs when you enter different states” or something like that.
Greatest Hits: Songs of Halloween (of course!). Colin stated at the beginning, “We’ve got artists ranging from everyone to…everyone else.” Classic. Ryan introduced a Merengay (sp?!) song (of course followed by a joke about the sugary stuff on top of pies) entitled, “Close the door & give me your bag.” Ryan and Colin had a bit of a banter about Ryan not knowing about Lil Bow Wow, the rapper. Colin introduced his rap song entitled, “Damn, I got some coal.” After Wayne sang this song, Ryan said, “Oh! That Lil Bow Wow!” A cameraman said, “Hold on,” to which Colin immediately replied, “No, you hold on!” They fixed some problems with Wayne’s microphone (of which there were many!), and continued from “Oh, that Lil Bow Wow.” Ryan said something about the fact that he was 42 years old, and a woman in the front laughed. Ryan gave her quite a look. For the rest of the game, there was a running joke about the age of 42. He introduced the Patriotic War song, “The lights are off, nobody’s home.” Colin’s musical styles are getting very strange. His next one was his drunk Aunt Matilda, singing “The holes in my ghost sheet are in the wrong place.” Wayne also sang a Ray Charles song entitled, “Cowboys and Goblins” before they had to stop again. There were a lot of stops and starts during this game, during which Greg took part in some banters with Drew. Greg was absolutely hilarious. I wish they would let him do more on the show. They even joked about that. I wish I could write everything Greg said and did during the breaks, but I can’t remember them. I know he said something about, “Who doesn’t love Gregorian chants?” and, “Back when I started doing Whose Line during the war…” Eventually they went back to the game. The rest of the songs/styles were as follows: South Park: “This trick is your treat, baby,” French ballad: “Still trick or treating at 42,” Fame: “I’ve just been TP’d.” I saw someone hold up a sign that said “END” and Drew buzzed the game over. Wayne’s songs seemed a little bit off tonight. I’ve seen him do much better.
Hats: Ah, yes. Hats. That was…interesting. The guys had a lot of trouble with this one. They didn’t get very much out of the game. One of the highlights was Colin holding up a striped shirt and stating, “This is not a hat!” Greg was also funny, but most of it was not broadcastable. For the rest of the show, the failure of the hats game was a running joke. Ryan would sit in his seat and quietly chant, “More hats! More hats!” He got his wish later. But I’m getting ahead of myself again…
There were some more jokes about Ryan’s age, to which he replied, “If you don’t believe me, you can cut me in half and count my rings!”
Newsflash: Colin went to his T mark and stood in front of a screen of dinosaurs. Sometimes they would start ripping apart an ape or something. Greg mentioned that it looked a little bit fake, and Colin retorted, “If that’s fake, then I’m bald!” I don’t know how, but he managed to guess what was behind him. Unfortunately, he didn’t go into his impression.
Two Line Vocabulary: This is becoming a favorite game of mine. Wayne’s lines were, “Is that what I think it is?” and “I don’t think so.” Ryan’s lines were, “You remind me of my mother when you do that” and “You want a piece of this?” Colin could say anything he wanted. The scene was three soldiers. It started off with Ryan eating a doughnut and offering Colin “a piece of this.” It was a pretty funny game, if I remember correctly.
Party Quirks: Greg was the host. Wayne was sexy photos from the new Whose Line is it Anyway calendar, Colin’s quirk had something to do with Jurassic Park raptors looking for prey, and Ryan was a high school boy who discovers that the cameras are windows to girls’ showers. At one point during Wayne’s quirk, he posed as if he was fishing. I don’t think many people got that. He really didn’t do anything sexy like the quirk said. It took Greg a long time to guess him. It got to the point where he was making it blatantly obvious, by posing with different cast and crew members and yelling out the names of months. I was thrilled that I finally got to see Colin do his dinosaur impression! Too bad I don’t remember all of the quirk. As soon as Ryan entered and stuck his face in the camera, all of the attention was diverted to him. Greg came and looked into the camera with him, ignoring Wayne and Colin. They weren’t quite sure what to do, so they randomly started playing cards in the background. I don’t know if you’ll be able to see that part if it airs since Greg and Ryan had their faces in the camera, but it was hilarious. Greg, on the whole, seemed to have a particularly difficult time guessing.
Show Stopping Number: This one took place at the hairdresser’s. I think Ryan made a joke about being 42 during this game (I could be wrong. I didn’t write much about this one). When Colin got buzzed into song, he started singing in Tibetan. It was hilarious, even though he went into a nonsense language the last time I saw this game played. Wayne got buzzed to sing on the line, “It uncrimped my crimp and cramped it,” referring to the weather in Tibet. Colin’s Tibetan also became a running joke of the show.
Next came the Drew games:
Winner: Wayne
Helping Hands: This one set Ryan as a witch, Colin as Ryan’s hands, and Drew as someone coming to the witch for a spell. They gave Ryan a big witches hat and a cape. They also gave Colin a cape (“Why do I need a costume? I’m just the hands!”). There were a lot of strange substances on the table, which Ryan mixed together in a cauldron and drank in the end. The game lacked energy, which is too bad, since it had a lot of potential.
Winner: Greg
Foreign Film Dub: The language was Swahili, the title was, “I think the mountain moved” (suggested by the woman behind me). This was one of the best Foreign Film Dubs I’ve seen in a long time.
Winner: Wayne
Sportscasters: I was so excited to see a return of this game! I loved it on the British version! This one featured Drew and Greg as commentators, and Colin and Ryan as female college roommates getting ready for a date. I don’t know how to describe this game to someone who has never seen it. Basically, they have to move in slow motion, like a sporting event replay.
The next game was a hoedown. Greg and Wayne were arguing about who should sit out. Wayne said that Greg would have to do the hoedown.
Wayne: It’s a mandate from…the guys upstairs.
Greg: I don’t care how many men you’ve dated!
He is so quick! I wish I could see more of him! He also declared to Wayne, “You were born to sing, I was born to be snide.” In the end, it turned out that Greg was the winner and Wayne had to do the hoedown.
Hoedown: Greg read the card as, “Something that scares you in the middle of the night.” So Drew asked the audience for suggestions of things that scared us in the middle of the night. Greg interrupted and told him that the hoedown topic actually was just that: Something that scares you in the middle of the night. Wayne did his, and it was ok. Drew took forever! The first time he sang about being scared of Ryan. The second time I think he sang about having another heart attack. Wayne motioned that he had another idea and to come back to him later. Unfortunately, Colin took his idea, which was to say something about the woman with “muscles bigger than me!” They had to do this one a few times, and we all know how much Ryan loves that (“Let’s do 12 more hoedowns!”). He sang at one point about his fear being that he’d have to do another hoedown. Colin redid his and sang about being scared of seeing someone who was 42. Someone talked to Colin about his hoedown and he said, “Oh, I have to do something funny?” They made him redo it. He made it end in Tibetan, which caused Ryan to literally fall over laughing. Eventually Colin got one out that made some sense. I don’t remember what it was. Ryan then ended with a string of curse words. His final verse ended with, “Hey, is that a vagina lying on the floor?”
Credits:
Everyone as trick or treaters.
Everyone as high school boys looking in a girls shower window
Colin as a flight attendant whose anger management thong tightens when he loses his temper.
Ryan as a witch casting spells with the witch hat. After the music stopped, he yelled, “I HATE THIS F*CKING HAT!!”
Everyone and the body builder as competing body builders.
Everyone as monsters
Greg as the high school valedictorian giving a speech while the others made fun of him in the background.
These credits were different. Instead of having the camera come on with the winner already standing by the monitor, it was more like the British version. Drew announced the winner(s), and then he/they came up to the monitor as he called them. Dan rectified this on Saturday.
Opening credits.
They reshot parts of Weird Newscasters. Colin’s intro/story ended with, “Now the snakes don’t even have a pit to hiss in.” His names for his characters were Snidely Wipley (for Wayne- or was it Greg?) and Curtis Interruptus for himself.
They also reshot the beginning of Greatest Hits.
Colin: Hi, we’ll be right back to our alternative Shakespearean production of “Romeo and Julio” in just second…
They reshot Hats, which I found funny, since Ryan had been complaining about the hats game so much. This time, it went much better. They got some really clever stuff in. There were still some parts that were unbroadcastable, but they might be able to get a whole game out of it. One of my favorites was Ryan coming out in an alien hat and saying, “You won’t date me? Well then UFO!”
After the show was over, I went outside and talked with the whosers that I had met earlier, as well as some that I had not met before, such as Melanie, Sarah, and LKK. What a wonderful group, and what a wonderful night!