Duet: Brad and Wayne sing to Lassie
Yes, THE Lassie. As in Lassie the dog. Drew introduced Duet by saying that in honor of the salute to American Television they had brought in a famous TV person. Still thinking that Sid Caesar was playing Dubbing, I was confused by the introduction. And when Lassie came out, I was even more confused. Not surprisingly, Lassie is remarkably well trained. But I doubt his training totally prepared him to have two men singing to him while three hundred plus people clapped along. There were a few times when Lassie lost his focus on his trainer and wanted to wander off to see all the other people clapping at him. So Brad and Wayne incorporated that into the song. After the song ended and Lassie left, Wayne and Brad called the wardrobe lady over to brush off the dog hair from their pants. Ryan and Colin both got up and tried to get her to rub their legs as well, but it didn't work.

When you watch this game (I'm sure it will air) be sure to keep an eye on Ryan. Ryan was absolutely enthralled with Lassie. If you watch The Drew Carey Show, do you remember the expression on Ryan's face in the episode where King Gus is christened? The scene where Lewis picks up the baby? The expression on Ryan's face in that episode is very similar to how Ryan looked every time Lassie was on stage. During the credit readings, Lassie came out again and did a credit reading where she was telling all four about Timmy being trapped in the well. Normally, Ryan hangs back during the credit readings. But this time, he was right there. The first one down by the dog. He and Wayne held Lassie and petted him while the reading took place. When the reading was done, Lassie trotted off and out. Ryan's eyes followed him the entire time. Lassie was the only thing Ryan was watching right then. He even walked across the stage in order to keep the dog in view for as long as possible. And I don't blame him. Lassie is even more beautiful in person than on TV. Lassie's groomers must put something on his coat to make it shine. After the duet, Brad sniffed his hands and commented that he smelled like Lassie. After Lassie left the credit reading, I noticed that Ryan was sniffing his hand as well. As we were filing out after the taping, I overheard a production lady saying that she had had a chance to play with Lassie during the taping. And now, she smelled like Lassie, too. Three different people at three different times. So Lassie definitely had a unique smell.

Dubbing: Colin = a jungle explorer; Ryan = Tarzan; Rachel (audience member) = Jane; Brad = Jane's voice
This was the game that I thought Sid Caesar was going to play. But instead it turned out to be an audience member named Rachel. Colin was marching through the jungle when he stumbles upon "Jane". Remember how Dan told the audience that if we were picked to play Dubbing, we needed to remember to move our mouth? Well, Rachel didn't always remember to move her mouth. But she did MOVE! Rachel didn't just stand there. She would act out all of Brad's words. Admittedly, her pantomime style was reminiscent of the High School style from Film and Theater Styles but it was great to see an audience member really get into the spirit of things and participate. When Brad realized that Rachel would follow physical instructions, he started saying things that would cause her to move about the stage. At one point, "Jane" announced that she was going to recite Tarzan's favorite love poem to him while she danced out the stanzas. So Brad is making up a poem while Rachel is dancing across the stage. After the poem, Ryan says that he will step aside to allow "Jane" to say goodbye to the explorer in private. Colin said that he loved her but that he understood she wanted to stay with Tarzan. However, could he have a goodbye kiss? "Jane" agreed. So Colin grabs Rachel, dips her in a deep backbend, and kisses her. After Rachel returned to her set, Drew asked her what she did (I believe). Rachel said that she was a student at Lutheran Something_Or_Other. Whatever the second word was, it sounded as if it was a high school. Colin started looking very worried given the rather dramatic kiss he had given her during the game. Rachel and her friends started yelling, "No! No! It's a college!" Colin melodramatically wiped his brow in relief while Ryan reached over and patted his shoulder. Then the college students started waving their arms with their hands in the Devil's Horns gesture. Drew and Ryan started joking that it was the new gesture used by Lutheran college students. Ryan, in particular, seemed amused that students attending a religious-based college would make the Devil's Horns gesture. This game will definitely air. They did two pickups for it. One coming from a commercial and one going into a commercial. During the pickups, Colin said in all sincerity that he thought Rachel was the best person that they had ever had play that game and led a round of applause for her. Brad commented, "Well what about that man?" Colin responded that he didn't get to kiss the man. Ryan added, "I did" rather unhappily. So there's another good game of Dubbing sitting in the vaults that I hope we get to see someday too.

Press Conference: Colin = Batman announcing that he's coming out of the closet; Brad, Ryan, and Wayne = reporters
I don't care for Press Conference as a game. I much prefer Newsflash. There's only one Press Conference that I like. (Colin having Clive's love child.) Now, there's two. This game was great. Lots of innuendoes. Some intentional, some not. The most outrageous exchange was between Brad and Colin. I don't remember exactly what Brad asked but it was related to children somehow i.e. a question dealing with Robin. From a literal standpoint, Colin's response was perfectly innocuous. He did not saying anything that couldn't be said in a respectable conversation. Except that given what we knew about Colin's quirk, his response nearly bordered on pedophilia. The audience went crazy, and Colin knew he had come close to if not actually crossed the censorship line. Colin: "I think I might want to rephrase that later." Brad: "You might want to rephrase that right now." And so he did. But I hope the original phrase airs anyway. Later, Brad begins his question with "Isn't it a marvel...". My immediate reaction was clever, but wrong. Batman isn't a Marvel comic; it's a D.C. comic. Colin got this confused look on his face at Brad's question. But he chose to ignore the comment. Colin guessed the quirk exactly right down to the phrasing. After the game, Drew chastised Brad for the Marvel / D.C. mistake and Colin commented that the mistake actually confused him a bit. That's when I remembered that Colin grew up reading comic books so he would have known the difference.

Infomercial: facelift products; Ryan and Colin sell
When Drew picked the facelift topic, I physically winced. It seemed so Californian and so familiar. I was so wrong. This was the funniest game of Infomercial that I've seen yet. I hadn't counted on Ryan and Colin using their incredibly scrunchy faces to help depict what they're selling. Colin started off by pulling a face tightener from the box. Attaching it to one of Ryan's nipples, he twisted the nipple to tighten Ryan's face. As Colin is turning the gadget, Ryan's face scrunches up while the excess skin is pulled away. Colin almost forgot to untwist Ryan's nipple until Ryan reminded him. Next, Ryan pulls out a device that lifts up those sagging chins. Placing the device on top of Colin's head, Ryan used the suction pump action to suck up Colin's chin and face which Colin hilariously demonstrated. Afterwards, Colin grabbed a clump of hair from the device that had been pulled off his head and stuck it back on. Colin pulled out a pair of plastic feet, but they didn't have anything to do with facelifts, so he threw them aside. Ryan pulled out a children's toy. Two foam cylinders were at one end. The other end had a section that slid inside the other. When Ryan pushed the sliding section in (he was playing with the toy trying to figure out how it worked), the foam cylinders popped off the end and flew a little ways off the stage. The camera swooped around and filmed the fallen cylinders. Ryan was genuinely surprised that they flew off commenting, "If I'd known they were going to do that, I would have pushed harder." Then Ryan pulls out a metal object that looked like a kitchen whisk only bigger. Plus the tongs didn't wrap and bend around. Instead they just stopped so that they were like spikes. Ryan announced that it was a head gauge. He then reaches over to Colin with the whisk, pointy ends towards Colin's face. Ryan bends the prongs and starts putting them all over Colin's face and head. I quickly glanced up at the monitor during this, and Colin's eyes were about the size of saucers. When Ryan finally got all the spikes around Colin's head, Colin looked like some psycho movie killer. Ryan announced that Colin's head was about the size of a melon. Colin added that if they had time and if the whisk were a little bigger they could find out how big Ryan's nose was. The audience went "Awwwww".

Next Colin pulled out gelatinous goo from a container. If you've seen the Robin Williams' version of Flubber, you have a pretty good idea of what the goo looked like except that it was orange instead of blue-green. Colin starts kneading and tossing the goo while giving his spiel — you put the goo on your face, it pulls the wrinkles from your face, and you keep it for when you're older and you don't care about the wrinkles any more. The audience is going crazy in anticipation. Ryan suggests that Colin demonstrate the product. Colin: "Alright." Then Ryan realizes that he's just set himself up and hurriedly adds, "On yourself." So Colin does. He covers his entire face with that stuff. And lickety-split, Ryan reaches into the box and brings out a net (like a Ping-Pong table net) and wraps it around the goo covering Colin's face pulling the goo tight into Colin's face. When they get back to their chairs, Ryan announces that Colin has no makeup left. And I can believe it. Colin comments that he couldn't breathe with the goo on his face and he was starting to get dizzy. And I can believe it. Drew asked Colin if he was scared when the spikes came towards his eyes. Colin said that he was. And I can believe it. Then Colin adds that Ryan got in two bald jokes plus a melon reference, but when Colin makes one nose joke, the audience all goes "Awwww" in sympathy. And he's right; we did.

Foreign Film Dub: the French action spy film, "Escargot"; Sid Caesar (translated by Colin) and Drew (translated by Ryan) = spies; Wayne = provides languages
I don't like Foreign Film Dub as a game. (I like it even less than Press Conference.) But this one was great. Looking frail but very nattily dressed, Sid came in slowly walking with a cane. Keith prompted us for a standing ovation, which annoyed me a little. Because of Sid's walking problems, he and Drew played the game seated at a restaurant table. So Drew didn't feel compelled to overact as he sometimes does to make up for not speaking English. Drew asked for a French action spy film. For some reason, I yelled out "Lost in the Trenches". I don't know why that came to mind — something about the Maginot Line from Friday, I expect. Obviously, Drew didn't take my suggestion, but you might hear some idiot woman yell it on the broadcast. If so, you'll know that the idiot woman was me. They played Foreign Film Dub a little differently this time. Wayne stood on the Party Quirks step with a list of languages. You might not see the list on the broadcast because it was sitting on Laura's piano. Every so often, Wayne would call out a new language, and Sid and Drew would switch to that language. The languages I remember were French, German, Italian, Arabic, and Russian. Normally, when Ryan translates for Drew (or anyone), he'll insult or go off on some long descriptive rant. But not this time. Ryan kept Drew's translations short and in keeping with the story. He knew that now was not the time for him to star. It was Sid's time. And star Sid did.

Sid's gibberish was flawlessly perfect. He had each language's rhythms. He would throw in words from each language that were commonly known. He would throw in Americanizations of words from each language. There was no hesitation. No pauses while he thought of the next thing to say. I felt as if I could truly understand what he was saying if only I had an English to whatever the language was dictionary to look up the words. And Sid didn't just speak one or two sentences each time. He could go on and on and on. As a result, there was a secondary bonus. Sid's gibberish gave Colin a lot of material to work with. During the German language, Ryan had translated Drew's gibberish into something that said, "Where did you get this information?" Wayne switched the language to Italian. In the midst of his Italian, Sid threw in the word "garlic". When Colin started translating, he turned the translation into directions on how to prepare the snails for eating. Culminating with the statement that he got the information from The Garlic Press. Everyone died laughing. Ryan doubled over. And the gibberish master himself nodded his approval at the translation. Drew ended the game by announcing that he couldn't possibly follow Sid's Russian, so he wasn't going to try. The audience gave Sid a standing ovation without Keith's prompting this time. And I was quite happy to be one of the earliest people standing. As the cast milled around for a bit applauding and complimenting Sid, Ryan said, "I can't believe he [Drew] has two shows." Thoroughly happy with his lot in life, Drew added, "I can't believe it either." The day before the taping was Sid's 79^th birthday, so Laura and the band brought out a cake and we sang "Happy Birthday" to him. Then they filmed a credit reading with Sid doing the credits in whatever gibberish language he chose. After Sid left, Drew realized that he forgot to plug Sid's website. I think it was a contractual obligation. So there was a pickup of Drew announcing the web address leading into singing "Happy Birthday". We sang the first line of "Happy Birthday" before Keith stopped us. Ryan looked at us and said that we all sounded as if we were drunk.

Hoedown: TV stars; Wayne, Drew, Colin, and Ryan
The hoedowns were tied to the salute to American television theme — the TV star hoedown. This was very hard for them to do. In fact, early on Colin just sat down on the step for a while. Wayne ended up doing one about not being on UPN and how WLiiA had made him a star, but not as big a star as Drew. I don't remember what Drew's hoedown was about, it took him a while to come up with it. I do remember that I liked it a lot though. Colin came up with one about what did Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, and WLiiA have in common? Bald men were critical to their success. Ryan's hoedown was going really good. And he hit the final line, but before the others could repeat it, he told them to not to sing it. Then he said, "I don't know why I did that. I don't have anything else." Then Ryan sang a hoedown wondering why after Sid's game were they even bothering with singing a hoedown? And he had a point. Everyone knew that Sid's game was going to be the Drew game, so why do a hoedown tied to the special theme? Afterwards, Colin was forced to redo his hoedown. So all four of them are standing up there while Colin struggles to come up with another hoedown. He finally does one about how he's the Whose Line version of Morey Amsterdam. Don't worry, it was funnier than I made it sound. Ryan follows Colin's hoedown with one of his own — "Penis, penis, penis, penis, penis" — all in time to the music.

Greatest Hits: Songs of the TV Detective; Ryan and Colin sell; Wayne and Brad sing
This was another game that was tied to the special theme. And it's the last game I have to report. I've saved this game for last because this game contains my tip-top favorite moment. Not just my favorite moment of this taping, but of all three tapings. Ryan begins by announcing that he is a child of the fifties. Through the banter, we discover that even though Ryan actually only lived one year in the fifties, he still considers himself to be a child of the fifties. Colin is not completely convinced. The banter is convoluted, confusing, and completely delightful. They had to redo the opening banter during the pickups. But it wasn't nearly as enjoyable. The only really good moment during the pickup was when Ryan went to announce the song name, he blanked. Colin teased him, "You don't remember the name, do you?" Wayne and Brad actually did another fifties number with the same name — once Ryan remembered it, that is. But I really hope the original banter is what airs. I liked it better. It might air because both Ryan and Colin played the pickup banter stiffly — on purpose, I think. After the pickup, Ryan asked sarcastically, "Was that natural enough?" I don't remember too many of the styles or the titles themselves. I remember the topics though. There was a song about Kojack, a burlesque number about Starsky and Hutch (renamed Sisky and Hutch for some reason), a song about Columbo with Brad doing a funky face to simulate Peter Falk's glass eye, and one about Dragnet entitled "Just the facts". Towards the end, Colin announces that they have a song by the Rolling Stones. Ryan: "Oh! I love them because they're older than me!" Colin: "They're older than most stones." (Sound familiar?) Then Colin goes to name the Rolling Stones' TV Detective song. And stops. Not a dramatic pause. This is a full-blown, I can't think of a title, stop. Ryan starts to look at Colin in amused anticipation when inspiration strikes.

Colin: "Hey You! Get off of McCloud!"

Genius. Sheer genius. And Ryan loses it. He starts laughing. But because the music has started, Ryan can't make a sound. So he tries not to be heard. And that cause him to laugh so more. So he turns to the Drew area. And laughs even harder. Still silently, but harder. By now, I'm laughing at Ryan; Drew's laughing at Ryan. I glance at Wayne and Brad — still singing — but in between words, they're laughing at Ryan. Colin glances back over his shoulder. And he chuckles at Ryan. Ryan turns back forward, sees that everyone in the audience is laughing at him, and doubles over laughing some more. He barely manages to stop laughing by the time the song ends. And takes the first line coming out of the song. Or tries to anyway. Ryan's voice comes out about two octaves higher than normal with next to no breath behind his words. He gives up after only one sentence. Colin: "I love it when your voice sounds like that." I have wanted to see a full-on complete Ryan Stiles breakdown live since I first started watching WLiiA. And I am thrilled to say that I finally have. It was worth every penny of my trip to California. I kept repeating over and over, "Melanie's going to kill herself that she missed this."

© LKK