Cast: Greg Proops, Brad Sherwood, Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles, and Clive Anderson

Superheroes: amnesia; Greg = Sticky Man; Ryan = 70s Disco Kid; Colin = Karma Sutra Boy; Brad = Captain Bullshitter
Clive began the game with his traditional question: What shall the world crisis that they're trying to solve be? After amnesia was yelled out, Clive came back in and repeated his question. Nicely done. The man is quick and always has been. Greg originally misheard his superhero name, thinking it was "Stinky Man". Clive offered to let Greg play it anyway he chose, but Greg stuck with the real suggestion, Sticky Man. He began with freeing himself from his sticky mold but still remaining glued to the floor. Breaking free, he noticed the crisis on the monitor. I was surprised that Sticky Man never seemed to suffer from amnesia himself, but he was concerned that his superhero friends might not remember to come help after being notified about the problem.

Ryan hops in and promptly gets stuck to Greg while shaking his hand. Greg names him 70s Disco Kid, and Ryan starts dancing in place. He was doing quite well, at first, but for some reason, Ryan seemed to get lost in his improv and even ended up shaking his head at his own actions. I don't think he really enjoyed his power too much. Colin jumps in, gets stuck to Greg, frees himself, and turns to Ryan to receive his name. Ryan names him and waves his arms in a circle ending them pointing at Colin who has been standing there stunned by Ryan's name for him. Karma Sutra Boy. (I have a major gripe with the editors on this point. What were they thinking when they DIDN'T give us a close up of Colin's face after getting his name? Even worse. We spend most of the time looking at Colin's back during those precious moments of disbelief. At least we got a shot of Ryan's small smirk after Colin's prolonged stare at him, Colin finally turns to face the audience with that puzzled half-grin of his.) Karma Sutra Boy. And so begins my favorite single performance of the evening. And an instant favorite superpower. Assuming all sorts of conceivable lovemaking positions, and several inconceivable ones, Colin depicted scenes from the famous tower. All of them hilarious. (At one point, I was reminded of Colin's hoe-down about his contortionist girlfriend and her ability to foresee her own end.)

After Colin's fantastic performance, Brad's portrayal of Captain Bullshitter was something of a let down. (Comedy Central censored Brad's name. They completely silenced the second syllable. So it sounded as if Colin had named Brad Captain Bull.) The lies that Brad told — You're shirt looks nice. That suit is so slimming — seemed more like little white lies rather than the outrageous whoppers I would have expected from that superhero name. Brad gets himself offstage somehow. (I don't remember now how. Nor do I remember if they even solved the crisis. I guess they forgot about it. Or maybe I'm the one with amnesia.) Colin announces that he needs a cigarette and walks off. (A very nice exit line.) And Ryan leaves after saying the night's worst pun — something about everyone staying alive. (Apparently Ryan wasn't just 70s Disco Kid, but Bad 70's Disco Pun Kid.) Clive buzzes in with his brand spanking new buzzer that sounds remarkably like my oven timer buzzer. Very soft and very hard to hear, too. Clive gives each player 50 points except for Colin who, as Clive says, for once deserves the full 69. And Colin is sitting there trying very hard not to look as embarrassed as he felt. Trying very hard, indeed. And not succeeding.

Sound Effects: Tarzan waking up in the morning and encountering danger in the jungle
This was an enjoyable round of Sound Effects from beginning to end. But spend at least one time watching Brad in the background. He was having a great time watching this game. For once, you can't fault Colin for starting the game asleep as that was what Clive told him to do. Instead of an alarm clock, Tarzan uses a monkey. But Colin still bops the monkey on the head to silence him. A bird arrives with the morning news. Lands on Colin's hand and begins to chatter the latest crisis to him. Colin listens attentively, but when the bird drops its final non-vocal message on Colin's hand, he promptly breaks its neck and tosses it aside. (Colin is one tough employer, let me tell you.) Stepping outside of his house. Tarzan breaks into his trademark yell. Only to suffer from a mild case of laryngitis. Stepping back inside, Colin takes a spritzer of throat lozenge from his medicine cabinet to loosen his vocal cords. (Tarzan might live in the jungle, but that doesn't mean he's uncivilized enough not to have a medicine cabinet.) Stepping back outside, Colin tries the yell again. Success this time. Colin holds the yell as Tarzan would. And holds it. And holds it. And holds it. (I think it was a deliberate jab at Ryan on Colin's part to see just how long Ryan could hold that yell. Maybe as payback for Karma Sutra Boy.) Ryan eventually gives up and takes a deep breath (with Colin playing along) and yells some more. Next, comes the morning rounds. Tarzan swings on several vines throughout the jungle. The last vine ending up being a snake that he wrestles to the ground. After defeating the snake, Tarzan hears the native jungle drums. With their enticing hypnotic rhythm, Tarzan's hips begin to sway. But he breaks free of the spell. Attacked by the natives' darts, Tarzan shakes some fruit down from a tree and throws it at the natives who withdraw. And then, out of the bushes comes a huge angry lion. Tarzan steps back. The lion attacks. Fiercely, Tarzan fights. Man and beast. Tooth and fist. Each fighting for his life. And the winner is Tarzan who now proudly puts on his lion skin cloak. Clive buzzes in; and Ryan and Colin walk back to their seats with Ryan rather enthusiastically congratulating Colin. Although why this performance warranted the congratulations any more than any other of Colin's fine performances, I'm not sure.

One small thing caught my eye while I was watching Colin, and it's something I'll have to watch for as Season 10 progresses. Some of the camera shots have the musician's area in the background. Beside Laura Hall's piano are two guitars. I've never seen Laura play any instrument other than a piano. And from what I've read, Laura Hall is the only musician in Season 10 (except for the one episode where Win Meyerson subbed for her). So who are the guitars for??? Maybe some future episode will reveal the mystery of the guitars.

Quiz Show: wheel of fish; Greg = host; Brad, Colin and Ryan = contestants
As I look at the notes I took when I rewatched this game, I realize that I don't have that many notes about this game. Not because it wasn't funny. It was. Not because it wasn't memorable. It was. But because this game was bizarre, that I found I either had to transcribe the game or write no notes at all. Clive asks for a made-up game show something like Wheel of Fortune but not a real one. Wheel of Fish — Clive: I think we have that in England. But that's what they go with. (While Clive is getting his audience suggestions, the cast comes downstage. Greg goes off by himself to stage right, while the other three head stage left. Ryan immediately assumes the mime of a contestant ready to hit his buzzer and then drops the mime because the game intro is taking too long. He doesn't resume the mime until well into the game. Sorry, the whole thing just struck me as interesting.) Greg begins by introducing himself ("Snack Payback") and asking the contestants to introduce themselves. Brad is Lionel Horsepackage; a horse trapper from Saskatoon (that's a phonetic spelling). Colin is Name Withheld from a small city that you've never heard of. And Ryan is Jimmy Lucas; a Mormon with 46 children. And that's as sensible as this game gets. (Which tells you a lot about how sensible this game wasn't.) Ryan answers Greg's first fish question correctly — Pamela Anderson. Colin answers Greg's second question (an audio one) correctly — an act of cod. But since Brad is in the lead, he gets to spin the wheel of fish (and fish and water come flying off as he spins). Then Brad gets to do the shrimp dance. (Watch Ryan and Colin watch Brad. They both stand with their arms held exactly the same way — one arm across the chest with the other upraised with the fingers touching their lips. I wonder if they did that on purpose or not.) Brad's shrimp dance is almost indescribable. The best I can do is this. Imagine a woman trying to put on a really tight — no, sorry, that image doesn't do it justice either. I can't describe it. They end the game with all four singing the Wheel of Fish theme song. Of all the multi-person unison songs I've heard on WL, this was the absolute and most delightfully worst one I have ever heard. Somehow, by the end of it, they were using the tune to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and they had totally given up trying to sing actual words. It was pitiful. And hysterical.

Hey You Down There: hunting in the wild; Greg = narrator; Ryan and Colin = act
Greg uses this game to get in a few digs at England after all those years. Clive sets the scene as "in the wild", but Greg takes it one step further and puts it in the English countryside, complete with typical English weather, and hunting the English squirrel. The game begins with Ryan and Colin going out hunting. While looking for game, Ryan accidentally shoots Colin who is remarkably forgiving about the whole thing. Ryan sews Colin up while Colin coughs up the souvenir bullets. Once Colin is better, they spot the English squirrel in the bushes. Both start shooting. Colin more aggressively then Ryan. Ryan stops shooting, but Colin continues on and on and on. Until Ryan and Greg convince him to stop. Greg suggests that maybe Colin should talk to his family a little more before these trips. Picking up their bounty, Ryan and Colin collect the various squirrel bits and prepare to take a photo for the family. After the photo shoot, the triumphant hunters share a congratulatory shake, promptly smearing each other's hands with dead squirrel bits. And that's all that happens in this game, but the "what happens" doesn't begin to describe this game which is so very dependent on Ryan's and Colin's expressions. Happy go lucky, not a care in the world. Naively going through the activities without a single thought to the consequences, Hey You Down There's humor comes from the contrast of their attitudes and what happens to them. It's a game that you have to see at least once in order to fully understand it.

World's Worst: lover; all four
The cut game. Hm. Well, World's Worst is not one of my favorite games but I like it better on the whole than some of the ones we did get tonight. Props, for example, has to be pretty spectacular for me to keep it over most other games. So, I would have traded Props for this game especially since I've heard it was very good this time.

Props: Greg and Colin = 2 red foam cylinders with hand grips and hand guards at 1 end; Ryan and Brad = 2 foam poles (1 long and 1 hollow with holes in it)
Well, since we did see this game, how was it? Ryan and Brad's first joke was using a bike lock. Since that's exactly what the prop looked like when Clive gave it to them, I wasn't surprised when they said it. (That's actually the one use that I could have come up with.) I liked the mousetrap idea. The holes in the wall of the women's changing room took me a moment to understand — I never went through that stage in puberty. I also like the putter idea. The drug pipe was popular with the audience, but I don't enjoy drug humor personally.

As Clive is handing the second cylinder to Greg, you can just barely hear Greg ask Colin if he's "Got anything?" I couldn't hear Colin's reply. But I'm guessing it was negative. The ideas they did come up were so-so. Arguing over which one of them had the real Olympic torch. The house on the wicked witch. And two others that were marginal. Oh, well, you can't win them all guys. Points to Ryan and Brad. I think Ryan and Brad had the better set of ideas overall. I also think they had the better prop to work with.

Three of a Kind: on an oil rig: Greg, Ryan, and Colin = John Wayne
Through the quirks of the television scheduling god, we've gotten a lot of John Wayne lately from WLiiA. This time, all three were John Wayne on an oil rig. Colin starts the game by announcing an oil gusher. Colin is the weakest impersonator of the cast, and his Wayne was particularly bad this time. His body looked like it was a marionette doll being manipulated by a rank amateur puppeteer. And don't ask about the Wayne speech pattern. Trust me. Brad was in hysterics in the background. Greg's and Ryan's impersonations were better, of course. But neither one could maintain a successful impersonation for the entire game. The gusher somehow transformed into a rig fire. So they unfurled a water hose to put it out. That didn't work. Ryan noticed he was spitting a lot. Maybe that could put out the fire. Greg suggested that they all say "Pilgrim" with the emphasis on the P. So all three of them are saying "Pilgrim" as Clive buzzes in. Clive quite wrongly complimented them on their impersonations. "It was as if John Wayne had come in to the room" and quite rightly noted that there was just a hint of Norwegian there are the end.

Scene to Rap: in a zoo; all four
I'm not sure why I was surprised, but I was very surprised at how well Brad rapped in this game. I know. I know. I've seen him rap in other games. But I was still surprised at this one. Maybe this was the first time I've seen him start the rap? Maybe I'm just trying to make excuses for my forgetfulness? (Maybe the heroes didn't solve the amnesia crisis after all.) I enjoyed Greg's rap too even though there were some logic gaps in it. How many zoos have pups — oh, maybe he didn't mean puppies as I thought when I first heard it. Just thought of that. Okay, I'll buy pups as a generic term for baby animals. But what being white has to do with not being willing to clean the animal cages, I don't know. Ryan's rap as a nudist who's come to give the monkeys some nuts was too funny. Topped only Brad's comment about not having enough to give them. Colin's small rap was the game's winner. After that first stumble over his rhyme word, Colin went on to deliver a top quality rap which left Brad doubled over with laughter at the end. (Come to think of it, Brad spent a lot of time laughing at Colin this episode.) Nice job all around, guys.

Weird Newscasters: Brad = anchor; Colin (co-anchor) = fishing and landing dangerous sea creatures; Greg (sports) = character from Braveheart; Ryan (weather) = auditioning for a porno film
Brad's done a better job at anchoring than this. His top story — some things died; some things were born — seemed weaker than normal. Colin's fishing quirk wasn't particularly inspiring either. He spent a lot of time grappling with that octopus. Unfortunately, the grappling lasted longer than the humor. But the game really picked up with Greg at the sports desk. If there's one thing that quirky television scheduling god has given us more of than John Wayne lately, it's Braveheart. But I really enjoyed Greg's Braveheart character this time. His accent was much thicker than it has been in the past. The highland jig seemed peppier. And special bonus points for being one of the few sports newscasters who actually managed to work sports into his quirk. And not just any sports, mind you, but sports related TO his quirk. Despite what Brad claimed afterwards, Greg is not unintelligible. He presents the sports story of the caber toss competition at a highland games, complaining that the caber was so heavy that no one could toss it correctly. Very Nice. Very Nice Mr. Proops; to paraphrase Ryan. Speaking of Ryan, if I were casting a porno film, I would have hired him. And that's all I choose to say about that.

Credits: Brad = doing a newscast from a really dangerous location
I wonder what Ryan wanted to tell Colin that was so important that he had to grab Colin's arm and pull Colin back from applauding Brad's win in order to speak with him? Well, at least Ryan was polite enough to wait for Clive to finish announcing that Brad had won. When I heard Clive say "a really dangerous location", I assumed something like a jungle watering hole or something. Definitely not the freeway that Ryan turned the scene into. I liked Colin playing the rabbit that was hit in traffic. But I really wish I could have seen what Greg was doing with Ryan's chair. Unfortunately, he was just too low for the camera range. Drat! One last thing, did anyone else hear Clive buzz the end of the credits reading? I don't recall him ever doing that before. Or at least, not that I've heard.

Best Game:
Well, despite the fact that the single best performance was in the Superheroes game, I think the best game overall was Quiz Show. Everyone was equally strong in Quiz Show while the Superheroes performances were more uneven. And Quiz Show had that special element of the surreal in it. I'm not sure what was in the water they drank before that game. Maybe it was essence of fish. But the cast was extremely loopy for this game. And it was funny.

Overall Comments:
YES! (Is that enough? No? Okay.) What an introduction to Season 10 for us in the US. If the rest of Season 10 plays like this one, it's gonna be fun season. Keep this episode handy, you'll want to replay it again.

© LKK 01/14/01