I am not necessarily listing the games in the correct playing order. But the first game played was definitely Superheroes.

Superheroes: crisis = no more shaving cream; Greg = Not Hot But Spicy Man; Ryan = Ridicules People Behind Their Backs Boy; Colin = Captain Panic; Wayne = Malfunctioning Robot Doctor
When Drew asked for Greg's Superheroes name, we immediately started shouting the name we had planned to suggest. With seven people simultaneously shouting the same thing, we were hard to ignore. Drew stopped the rest of the audience so that he could hear what we were saying. It took a couple of tries to get the name across to Drew, and a couple of people including me dropped out so that he could understand better, but we finally got Not Hot But Spicy Man across. Greg's face lit up when he recognized the phrase from his stand up act. He knew he was going to have fun, and he did. If you've ever seen Greg's special on Comedy Central where he talks about how the waiters in LA describe the entrees, you have a pretty good idea of how Greg sounded. If you haven't seen the special, you'll know what his stand up routine sounds like after the game airs. The word "spicy" has about a dozen letter I's in it for example. Greg was fantastic. Unfortunately, the other superheroes weren't as good. Mostly because they were reminiscent of previous superheroes. I remember Ryan standing behind the group making large gestures while the others talked, but that's about it. This game will probably air and ought to simply because of Greg's performance. But I don't think it will be part of the Halloween show because Drew didn't tie it to the theme when he introduced the game.

In honor of the Halloween theme, Drew passed out candy instead of points. He had the candy in a black bucket on his desk. To me it looked like a decorative cauldron, but I couldn't be sure at that distance. When Drew sat down at the desk, he pointed out that the jellybeans inside were more appropriate for Easter than Halloween, and the water lady brought in a bag of real Halloween candy.

Director: Wayne = college student taking a shower in her dorm; Ryan = Count Dracula; Greg = vampire hunter; Colin = director
Drew didn't hand Colin slips of paper for a change; Colin made up the styles himself. Wayne began the scene showering. Ryan "flew" in using his hands to indicate that he was a bat, then he transformed into Count Dracula. I don't remember either one playing up the fact that since Wayne was showering, "she" would have been nude which surprised me because I expected that Ryan would at least. After Greg came in, Colin stopped the scene and started giving the styles. The only one I remember was that the actors were near-sighted. Every one made a point of squinting and looking away from each other. It was funny watching three men move about the stage trying not to look at each other.

Let's Make a Date: Greg = contestant; Wayne = doing a fitness tape for tightening the buttocks; Colin = flight attendant whose anger management thong tightens when he's angry; Ryan = female Russian spy doing something
I don't remember too much about Wayne's quirk other than he was trying to get Colin involved in the exercises. Colin didn't want to join in. He had more pressing problems, so to speak. Using Wayne as an unruly passenger (since Wayne was bothering him), Colin tried to get him to calm down. Every time he did, Colin's thong would tighten. First, we saw the event in the immediate vicinity of the thong. Then as the thong tightened, we saw the pain on Colin's face as well. By the end of the game, the pain had crept down from his face, up and down from his crotch, and out to his arms and legs so that Colin's entire body was cramped. It was very funny. (I think we got a reprise of Colin's anger management thong during one of the credit readings.) If you're a fan of Ryan's wandering accent, you'll love this playing. I don't remember what it was Ryan was supposed to be doing. I was having too much fun identifying which language his "Russian" accent was coming from. He nailed the Russian accent at the beginning, but true to form, it started drifting. The accent visited Sweden for a while. By the second round of questions, Ryan was red-faced — either from laughing at himself or from the idea of having to do another round of Russian. Greg had some problems guessing the quirks. Not surprising since they were fairly complex. (After the game, Ryan asked Greg, "Remember when it used to say 'a cow'?") But I liked how he teased Ryan about the accent by mentioning the various countries it visited while trying to guess the quirk.

Let's Make a Date was my introduction to one of the oddest behind the scene aspects of the taping I saw. I hadn't read about this anywhere, so I was totally surprised when it happened. When Drew started to introduce Let's Make a Date, two stagehands wearing the traditional black of theater stagehands rushed out from behind the curtains to set up the stools, bending over at the waist so that they won't appear on camera. Then Drew stopped the introduction while they finished getting the stools in place. After they were done and back behind the curtains, Drew started the introduction again from the beginning with the stools in place. At first, I assumed that Drew had messed up somehow, but no one in the cast or crew acted as if the actions were abnormal. This procedure happened every time a game needed some physical item. Drew would begin the introduction; the bent-over stagehands — always dressed in black — would rush out; Drew would stop, pause, and then start over at the beginning. Every game; every taping. Why? Why bother with the first sentence of the introduction if Drew starts all over again? Why have the stagehands hunch over to be off camera if there's a pause in the taping? And why the traditional theatrical black clothing if the stagehands aren't going to be on the show at all? Those are the kind of bizarre questions that keep me awake at night, I'm sad to say.

Sound Effects: Ryan and Colin go to New York to fight Godzilla
I don't remember much about this game. Only three items. During Dan's spiel, he told us that if we were picked for Sound Effects, our most important responsibility was to not fall backwards off the Superheroes step. To help prevent that, something new was added to the game. Nothing affecting the game though. A rail system is built (by the black-clad stagehands during the audience participant's selection) on the back of the step. A vertical rail at the three corners of the stage step with a cross-rail between each pole making an L shape. I remember that Drew picked two older women who weren't very good at making sounds. And finally, as the women went back to their seats, the men in black rushed out and disassembled the railings. Right after they were done, Greg threw himself out of his seat and off the stage as if he had fallen because the rails weren't there. I don't think Greg's little display will air. Too bad because it was funny.

Song Styles: the Piggy Monster Mash; Wayne = sings; Greg, Colin, and Ryan = pigs behind him
Drew brought all four down and said they were going to do the Monster Mash in honor of Halloween. But instead of the normal Monster Mash, the song was going to be about a barnyard animal. I started yelling, "Pig! Pig!" Realizing that Drew couldn't hear me on the top row, I gave up, and Drew picked goat instead. While Drew was giving his final instructions, Keith stopped him and said that they had already done a goat so they couldn't use it again. So Drew asked for another suggestion, some man suggested pig and that's what the song became out. I think it's ironic that my suggestion was used in the end even though I hadn't actually made the suggestion. Sorry to say, pig wasn't such a great idea after all. I don't remember Wayne's song; I was watching the others. Colin swirled his finger around to represent a curly tail. But that's all I remember as impressing me. This will probably air in the Halloween show so I hope it's my memory that's lacking and not the song.

Song Styles: Wayne sings to Jane, a professional body-builder competitor
Drew brought Wayne down for the Song Styles introduction, and then announced a special guest — Jane the professional body-builder. Jane walked in wearing a bikini and with muscle sizes that no woman would naturally have. (I apologize if I offend anyone, but I really do not like the body-builder competitor physique.) Greg, Colin, and Ryan all jumped from their chairs and started hiding behind them. Ryan nearly left the stage in fright. I don't remember much of Wayne's song to her. At the end, Jane picked him up and carried him a little ways. After the game, Wayne started asking her questions — how much could she bench press, etc. I think she might have damaged his male pride a bit. Just a little. Jane came back for a credits reading at the end of the night. She impressed Wayne enough that he was still talking about her during one of the breaks at the Saturday taping as well.

Build a Monster: Colin = Dr. Frankenstein; Greg = Igor; Ryan = Frankenstein's monster; Wayne = the monster's bride
This is a new game. Ryan and Wayne were monsters standing motionless at the sides of the stage. Colin was Dr. Frankenstein, and acting more like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Greg was Igor. They were assembling the monsters' body parts — head, two arms, and two legs each. For each body part, Colin or Greg would announce who was the original owner of the body part. For example, Colin said that Ryan's head came from John Wayne. Greg gave Wayne Bill Cosby's head. They worked their way through the body parts leaving only one leg left for Ryan. Colin blanked and paused then ended up giving Ryan "the leg of a ..... woman". Then the monsters came to life and sang a love song to each other all the while displaying the physical traits of the body parts they were given. I really loved this game; it was great. Later during one of the breaks, Dan came out and asked how we liked the show so far. He specifically asked if we liked Build a Monster. I'm enthusiastically nodding yes when a woman a few rows down yelled out, "NO!"

I could have smacked her.

Build a Monster isn't just a good playing; it's a well-designed game. Everyone had a quirky role to play. Dr. Frankenstein and Igor had to think up creative and fascinating body parts while the monsters had to be able to incorporate the various suggestions into a single body while singing a love song on the spot. As an additional bonus, Build a Monster is a four person scene game that avoids the dangers inherent in scene games with more than two persons. Namely, the confusion of the actors stepping on each other's lines and long pauses as the actors debate who is going to act next. Build a Monster avoids this by playing as if it were two two-person games back to back. At the beginning, Colin and Greg have the stage alone while the others stand motionless. Once the monsters came alive, Colin and Greg stepped back to let Ryan and Wayne have the stage. Like I said, a well-designed scene game. But if Build a Monster doesn't air, or even if it airs but we never see it again, I hold that woman personally responsible.

Weird Newscasters: Colin = anchor; Greg = politician running against Drew; Wayne = frat boy trying to impress his friends in the front row; Ryan = rise and fall of a 1940s boxer
I don't remember what Colin did for his opening story. Greg thoroughly enjoyed his role as a politician running against Drew. It was right up his alley. Greg destroyed Drew's character quite well. He used a lot of 5-cent words in his speech, and I heard Ryan complaining (in jest, I assume) after the game that he couldn't understand what Greg was saying about Drew. (Greg got to do a credits reading as his politician; he was that good.) Greg made an interesting mistake after he finished his quirk. Traditionally when the co-anchor is done, the anchor introduces the sports reader. But Greg handled Wayne's introduction much to Colin's surprise. And then when Wayne was finished, Greg once again took the introductions away from Colin by introducing Ryan. I guess Greg is so accustomed to playing the anchor that the responsibilities are second nature to him. More than any other game, Wayne has a tendency to overplay when doing Weird Newscasters. And I felt he did it here, as well. Somehow, his "friends" in the front row challenged Wayne to eat some of the Halloween candy. So Wayne grabbed the caldron and puts some candy pieces in his mouth. Then he went that one step further and tipped the cauldron pouring all the candy into his mouth. Candy fell everywhere. In his mouth, on his clothing, on the floor. He emptied the cauldron. To borrow a phrase from Ryan, Wayne looked like Walt Disney threw up. After the game, Wayne commented that he was experiencing a major sugar rush from all the candy. Drew made some comment about not having any more candy to give out because Wayne had just wasted it all, but during the next break, the water lady came out and refilled the cauldron. I started focusing on Ryan during Greg's introduction to the weather. I'm glad I did because I saw something I doubt you will see on TV. The birth of a brilliant idea. Ryan was standing calmly during the introduction when all of a sudden he had a brainstorm. I could see it on his face. If Ryan had been a cartoon, a light bulb would have lit up above his head. (Melanie saw this too, so I wasn't imaging it.) When Greg threw the game over to Ryan, he walked back to the World's Worst step and got down on all fours. Then he came forward as .... A boxer. Not the fighting kind that everyone had expected, but the canine kind. It took a moment or two for us to figure out the pun, but when we got it, we laughed louder than at any time in the game. Fantastic.

Hey You Down There: Greg = narrator; Ryan and Colin = firemen
I don't remember anything about the game itself. What I remember is the introduction. Drew brought the three actors down and said they were going to play a great game. Then he wondered if they had ever played this before. I would almost swear he said something like "on the American show" or "here in America". Ryan piped up and said that they had played during the first season. I thought the little exchange interesting because I hadn't expected to hear the cast discussing past shows for some reason. Foolish me, as it turned out.

Scene to Rap: all four
Another game where I don't remember the game but I do remember the introduction. Wayne and Greg are at center stage as usual while Ryan and Colin are on the Superheroes step. Ryan put his arm around Colin's shoulder. It took Colin a few moments to realize that Ryan's arm was there. When he did, Colin did that slow motion "why are you doing that?" look to Ryan that he does so well. Ryan played along and tried to nonchalantly withdraw his arm while looking thoroughly embarrassed about being caught. The one game detail I do remember is that unlike every other playing of this game that I have seen, Colin came in before Ryan this time. I have no idea why the switch was made.

Film Dub: all four
No real memories. Greg and Ryan took the lead roles as usual. Colin and Wayne provided additional voices. I don't think I even glanced at the film, I wanted to watch the actors.

Scenes from a Hat: all four
I only remember one scene suggestion. Signs you won't see while driving across a state line. Or something like that. This suggestion was really popular with the guys. Greg especially loved it; he would come down, do a state, go back, then come down and do another state. One after the other. There's no way all the states will be broadcast because there were so many of them. For a moment, I thought we were going to get a sign for all fifty states. I remember New York was one state; New Jersey was another. Wayne did one about San Francisco. Drew pointed out that San Francisco wasn't a state. My two favorite were from Ryan and Colin. Colin: "Welcome to Rhode Island Thank you for visiting Rhode Island." Ryan: "Welcome to Hawaii. How did you get here by car?"

© LKK