Greatest Hits: Songs of Halloween; Ryan and Colin = sell; Wayne = sings
Drew didn't take suggestions for the game; he read it off the card in honor of the theme. I don't remember any of the song styles or titles except one. Colin introduced a song that his drunken Aunt Maltida liked to sing at family gatherings. Wayne just stared and stared and stared at Colin right up until he had to start singing. Wayne did an excellent job of sounding like a drunken woman who couldn't sing trying to sing at the top of her lungs. One Ryan and Colin banter sequence that I remember was that Colin was having some trouble at one point and looked to Ryan for help. Ryan impishly failed to provide any. Later on it was Ryan's turn to need help and Colin failed to deliver as payback for the earlier time. Ryan: "By the way, don't expect help from me ever again." Colin: "Don't worry; I never do." What I remember most from this game though is that stuff you won't see. This game must have had a Halloween curse on it or something. The microphones had been problematic all night long. Everyone had the microphone batteries changed at least once. Wayne's microphone was the worst of the lot. After about three or four songs, Keith put a hold on the game while the technicians replace the batteries in Wayne's microphone again. This break didn't take too long, and everyone was fairly quiet during it. The cast did a few more songs when Keith called a hold again. Clearly, the problem wasn't with the batteries. While the technicians are fiddling some more, Ryan turns around and asks Greg if he's okay still back there. Greg starts commenting that maybe Greatest Hits should be about songs of Thanksgiving because the taping is taking so long. Ryan asks Greg if he remembers what they used to do on the old UK version then Ryan started leaning his body back and forth indicating how they would shift in their chairs in order to remain visible during the games. I don't remember how they got on the topic, but Greg said something about how he started on the show back during World War II. Then Drew and Greg started discussing what life would be like if the Germans had won the war. Greg said that the show's name would have been "Whose Maginot Line Is It Anyway?" which made Drew and me burst out laughing. Drew and Greg really got into the "If the German's Had Won the War" discussion, and they continued it very quietly even after the taping resumed the third time. During this last section, Ryan started his banter by announcing that he was 42 years old. Some woman in the far right section snort-laughed loudly. I don't know if she thought he was older than 42, younger than 42, or what. But everyone on stage turned and looked at her. After a brief pause, Ryan continued, "Yes. I'm 42 ..." said in this really annoyed tone. Ryan's age become part of the next song title. After Greatest Hits finally ended, Wayne looked over at the woman and asked, "Why did you laugh at 42?" I don't know if he got a response. Then he turned to us and continued, "I mean, she wasn't just laughing. She was like LAUGHING."

Hats: all four
A very long game. Three moments remain in my memory. Colin picked up a shirt, displayed it to the production people, and plainly announced "This is not a hat." Greg had a skull mask that fully engulfed his face and neck. He kept trying to get out his punch line but the mask was covering his microphone. Drew suggested that he lift up the edge of the mask, but it was so tight that Greg couldn't lift it without taking the mask off. Finally, Greg managed to get something out, but the fun was in watching the problem not the punch line. At the very end of the game, Ryan was holding a kilt to his waist trying to decide if he could use it for a joke. You haven't lived until you've seen a 6'6" tall man dressed in an orange plaid shirt holding a red plaid kilt to his waist trying it on for size. It's a visual that will stick with me till my dying day. Ryan never got a chance to use the kilt, sad to say. I'd be hard pressed to say which cast member hates Hats more. But I'd go with Colin if I had to make a choice. He seemed to do the fewest entries and was the least enthused about the game. The phrase "Let's do some more hats!" became the expression of disgust for the rest of the night.

Newsflash: Greg and Ryan = anchors; Colin = field reporter in front of fakey dinosaur video
I glanced at the monitor long enough to see what the film was about, but other than that I watched Greg and Ryan since I knew I could see the video when the game aired. Greg and Ryan had a hard time thinking of clues for Colin. They spent a lot of time just watching the TV monitor. Based on the audience's non-reactions, the video wasn't very funny. Colin eventually got the gist of the video, but he had to work his way around to it. I don't think this game will air. If it does air and the audience is laughing hysterically, then it wasn't the same audience that I was a part of.

Two Line Vocabulary: Wayne, Colin, and Ryan as soldiers
I don't remember much about this game other than Colin was the one with the free vocabulary.

Party Quirks: Greg = host; Wayne = photos from the Whose Line calendar; Colin = raptors looking for prey; Ryan = high school boy who discovers that the camera is a window into the girls' shower
Wayne comes in and starts silently adopting calendar poses. Greg is confused. Colin comes in as a dinosaur. I don't remember if Greg started guessing right away or pretended that he didn't know or if he did start guessing and Drew was being a stickler about the full quirk. Either way, Greg hadn't guessed either person before Ryan came in. Ryan chose the camera that focuses on Wayne during Weird Newscasters as his "window" into the girls' shower. He goes over to it and starts looking into it effectively splitting the game's playing area into two arenas. Wayne and Colin up on the stage with Ryan down on the main floor with the camera. Greg is bouncing between the two arenas trying to guess someone. I think it was here that Drew became a stickler about Colin's quirk. Ryan starts peeping in at the girls' shower and eventually calls Greg over to look as well. Greg obliges leaving Wayne and Colin alone in center stage. Assuming that I could watch Ryan and Greg during the broadcast, I kept my attention on the other two. Wayne and Colin started exchanging "what do we do now?" looks. There was no point in elaborating demonstrating their quirks because Greg had his back to them. But they had to do something. So Wayne mimes pulling out a deck of cards, and the two start playing cards on the stage. In character. Of course, Wayne is a Whose Line model so he looked pretty normal. But Colin was still playing the raptor. If you've ever seen the UK Animals game where Mike McShane, Ryan and Colin are all dinosaurs, you have a pretty good idea of what Colin's card-playing raptor looked like. Think back to where Mike complains about having little hands. That's the best image I can use to describe Colin. While they were playing cards, I glanced up at the overhead monitors just to see what Ryan and Greg looked like. I could see Wayne and Colin in the distance over their shoulders. I think Ryan heard the audience reacting to Wayne and Colin because all of a sudden, Ryan announces, "They've spotted us! Quick hide!" and the two break off from the camera leaving Colin and Wayne unaware that they're in full camera view. I suspect that's how the sequence will air as well. Eventually, Greg figured out what Ryan was. Then he started working on Wayne. Because Greg couldn't quite grasp the calendar concept, Wayne started announcing the months just before he posed. Eventually, Greg got the idea, so he started working on Colin. Greg never got the second part of Colin's quirk right (Drew eventually told him) but he had the raptor part easily. After the game, Greg pointed out that Colin has been playing velociraptors for years; according to Greg, Colin was the one who taught the dinosaurs.

Show Stopping Number: Ryan, Colin and Wayne working in a hairdressing salon
This game had three highlights all centered on the songs. Ryan ended his song by bringing back the 42 years old reference from Greatest Hits. Colin announced that he was going to go to Tibet, so Drew buzzed him on that. Colin sang his song in Tibetan that reminded me a lot of his HORWARD at 240 beats per second song from the 100^th episode. Wayne accidentally set himself up for a tongue twister of a song about crimping the cramp in his curls or something like that. I could see Wayne start to say the phrase, stop momentarily as if debating whether or not to say it knowing that Drew would likely buzz in, and then deciding to go for it anyway. I'm glad he did even though he tripped a little over the tongue twister. I hope this game airs; I liked it.

Dubbing: Colin = man on a date at Make Out point; Female Audience member = Colin's date who is also a werewolf; Ryan = policeman and former boyfriend; Wayne = audience member's voice
I found myself wishing that Greg had been the girl's voice instead of Wayne. Not because Wayne was doing badly but because I thought that this would have a good game for Greg. Wayne began the game immediately by howling. During Dan's pretaping speech, he told us that if we picked to play Dubbing, the most important thing to remember was to move our mouth. "Otherwise, it just looks like a bad ventriloquist act." Obviously, the girl remembered Dan's instructions because as soon as she heard Wayne howling, she started miming it. How Colin who was sitting in the car next to her while she howled managed to not hear her, I don't know. Maybe the broadcast will clear that up for me. There wasn't too much stage motion since both of them were in the car. Ryan joins in after a bit riding up on a motorcycle, I believe. He goes over the girl's side of the car and asks for a diver's license (or car registration?). Colin says that he's driving on the other side. Ryan sheepishly walks around the couple to Colin's side. (The scene must have been set in England since Colin was driving from the right-hand side of the car.) I don't remember much more of the scene except that it ended with Colin giving the girl a goodbye kiss. After the game, Drew asked the girl how old she was. She promptly and correctly answered 18. Colin looked relieved. Was she really 18, you ask? I'm not sure. But she was close enough to count, I'd say. For some reason, everyone started joking about the girl having to suffer through a kiss from Colin. She spoke up from her seat, "Colin, you kiss very nicely." Colin: "Thank you." A male audience member: "She's lying." Ryan: "How would you know?" That exchange might have happened after the pickup for the game. Speaking of the pickup, during the main part of the taping, the girl had come down wearing a purse strapped across her chest. She took it off and handed it to Drew while she played the game. For the pickup, she wasn't wearing the purse. I noticed, but none of the cast or crew noticed except Ryan. Ryan starts doing an elaborate mime trying to get Keith's attention to point out the missing purse. Finally, Keith catches on and they refilm the pickup with the purse. Why Ryan didn't just say, "She's not wearing her purse this time" is beyond me.

I happened to be in the right place at the right time to witness something related to this game that very few members of the audience even knew about. It happened before the taping even began. A little background information. If you're a guest of the cast or crew, you get to sit in reserved seats. These seats are taped off with the contact person's name written on the masking tape. The studio pages have a seat chart with all the reserved seats marked off. When the guest checks in, the page locates him on the chart and seats him in the taped off chairs. Two rows below and to the left of me were three chairs that had been taped off. Three men were eventually seated in the reserved seats. Later the woman in charge of arranging the audience in the Drew section came over and asked the men who were special guests of someone in the crew or cast to move to the Drew section. Shortly thereafter, three young women were seated in their place. Later, the Drew section woman comes to the young women. She caught my attention when I heard her ask, "Are you affiliated with ABC or Warner Brothers in any way?" The women said that they weren't. Then she asked one of them if she wanted to be on TV. I assumed at the time that those were standard questions for the Drew section people. But the women never moved to the Drew section. Well, I'm sure you're ahead of me by now. Yes, the middle woman of those three was the audience volunteer. Before I became a WLiiA fan, I had read an interview with Dan where he said that he had production assistants selecting the audience volunteers for the acting games before the taping began. The preselected volunteers were the ones that Drew eventually picked on the broadcast. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to witness the process firsthand.

Helping Hands: Ryan = witch; Drew = wants to buy a potion from the witch; Colin = hands
There was a lull in the taping, and the cast and crew started milling around. They were obviously discussing something, and eventually we all began to wonder what was going on. Unexpectedly, two stagehands in black came out with a carpet roll on their shoulders. The audience is buzzing; what is going on? They unrolled the carpet in the center playing area and down the steps. It fit perfectly. You would not have known that a second carpet was there. Then the men in black brought out a table and lots of foodstuffs. By this time, we'd figured out that the next game was Helping Hands. Then the wardrobe ladies came out carrying two black capes and a pointy witch's hat with long orange hair hanging from it. Ryan put on one cape. Colin protested. "Why do I have to wear a cape? All you see of me is my hands." He had a point. Colin was well hidden behind Ryan's cape. The three men settled in, and Keith began the countdown to restart the taping. Just as Keith hit three, Ryan's face suddenly changed. His expression had been fairly placid up until then. But when Keith called three, Ryan suddenly put on that expression of annoyed disgust we see so often at the start of this game. I learned something then. Ryan might truly hate this game, I don't know one way of the other. But the expression he displays on air is entirely an act. The game followed the traditional Let's Get Ryan To Swallow Icky Stuff format. At the end, Colin started mixing up a concoction that had a red gloop as its base ingredient. Colin kneaded and molded the stuff. I don't remember if it ever got near Ryan's mouth. I think the game timed out beforehand. When Ryan and Colin separated, Colin's palms were bright red. The wardrobe ladies had to help him off with his cape. They gave him a towel to wipe his hands off. The red faded a little to a bright pink. Eventually, Colin and the wardrobe lady gave up and walked backstage to try and clean off his hands. Meanwhile, someone gave Ryan a towel as well. He threw it over his shoulder saying, "Why do they always give me a towel? I don't use my hands!" When Colin came back on stage, I noticed that his hands were still pinker than normal human hands should be. But at least he wasn't going to stain everything he touched. After the game was finished, the men in black came back, rolled up the carpet, and carried it off. Mess and all. Ryan eventually had to do a credits reading wearing the cape and hat. Once the credits were over, he pulled off the hat and announced to the world, "I hate this hat!" If I had to guess which Drew game is shown on the Halloween special, I would guess that this is the game and the credits reading we'll see.

Foreign Film Dub: Drew (translated by Ryan); Wayne (translated by Colin)
I have no memories of this game even being played. I only list it because others claim it was played, and I believe them.

Sports Commentators: Drew and Greg = commentators; Ryan and Colin = female roommates getting ready for a date
This was a very hard game for me to hear for some reason. And I had trouble seeing Ryan's and Colin's actions as well. So I don't remember too many details from this game. I remember that I thought it went well. And I hope that it is the Drew game for the non-theme episode that should come from this taping. If only to see Greg and Drew play a game together since this was the only Drew game that Greg played.

Hoedown: something that scares you at night; Wayne, Drew, Colin, and Ryan
There was a break before the Hoedown game was taped, and the cast had wandered off backstage. Greg was the first to return and sat at Drew's desk since his Drew game was done. Wayne came back next, and he wanted to sit at the desk because he knew that Hoedown was the next game to play. The two of them playfully argued over who would be the person to NOT have to sing the Hoedown. Finally, Keith announced that Wayne would sing the Hoedown to Greg's immense satisfaction proclaiming, "You were born to sing. I was born to be snide." When the entire cast was assembled, Drew announced that the Hoedown would be in honor of the theme and asked Greg to read the topic from the card. Greg read it and then Drew started to get an audience suggestion for something that scares you at night. Greg interrupted him and said that that was the topic. It didn't need to be any more specific than that. I don't remember much of the first set of Hoedowns except for Ryan's. His first line ended with "scary". I started to get nervous sensing a Drew slam coming. (Not that I mind Drew slams per se, but Ryan tended to over use them last season, I thought.) I got very worried when Ryan's second line ended with "hairy". But Ryan surprised me and turned the song back on himself saying that it turned out to be his reflection in the mirror. Afterwards, someone went up to Colin and whispered something. Colin's response was not whispered, "I have to do one that's funny?" So Colin struggles to come up with another song. He gets halfway through the song then suddenly sings the last two lines in Tibetan. The house explodes and Ryan collapses laughing on the Party Quirks step. A great moment to end the main games with.

© LKK