Cast: Wayne Brady, Chip Esten, Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles, and Drew Carey

Let's Make a Date: Chip = contestant; Wayne = evil horror movie doll Chucky; Colin = cowardly old bystander in a western; Ryan = relentless bounty hunter rounding up the infamous "Bald Men Gang"
The fun here starts early with Drew's comment, "hoping to get picked by Chip. And aren't we all?" Ummm, well, yes, now that you mention it. Chip takes on a French accent / personality here and it suits him. I've never seen the Chucky films, but what I've see of the commercials leads me to believe that Wayne did a good impression here. I especially loved Wayne's climbing back onto his seat after round one. And did anyone else besides Colin and me ...... uh, let's call it "misinterpret", shall we?, Wayne's six inches of plastic comment. I'm not sure which one of us did a quicker double take on that one. Colin or me. I loved Colin's cowardly bystander act. My two favorite moments: (1) when he wet himself after Ryan yelled at Larry to stay down and stood up to dry himself off. (Ryan had to look away to keep from laughing.) And (2) running up and down the aisle yelling "Kill the schoolmarm! Kill the schoolmarm!" and then getting shot in the back and landing next to Larry. (Then it was Wayne's turn to look away laughingly.) Ryan's bounty hunter was a gem. Collecting the various bald men from the audience. I hope Ryan got some tea with honey later that night because the character voice he used really made him hoarse there. Finally, Chip got to shine again with the game's final guessing. Once again, Chip actually picks someone to go out with. (He seems to be the only one who really does select a date.) Got Wayne's right away. Got what Ryan was doing even if he was wrong on who Ryan was. Never, ever got Colin. But who cares. His first guess about a cast member of Deliverance was great and his second guess, "And you're a Bald Guy!" was a winner. Question: do you think we'll ever get to see any of the photos that the still photographer who was sitting on the studio floor took?

Scene with Audience Member: Ryan and Colin as surgeons fighting over their attractive nurse Gizelle
A variant on last season's Scene with an Audience Member. Here, Gizelle was given a card with lines that she was asked to read when prompted. I described this in another post as being like that party game, Madlibs, where you filled in words (a noun, a verb, etc.) and then read the resulting story. The setup of the game was fun to watch. As Drew, Colin, and Gizelle are playing pass the microphone, Ryan comments on how it was like watching the opening of the Olympics. I assume he meant how the torch is passed from runner to runner in the stadium. (Question for any taping attendees: had the Olympics started by the time of this taping? Anyone remember?) Then Colin introduces himself to Gizelle and Ryan introduces himself with "Hi, I'm Dave." That caught Gizelle off guard. (Would have caught me off guard, too!) I think this game worked well. Gizelle was with it enough to pick up on her responsibilities. She seemed to miss only one of Colin's prompts, but it was a weak prompt that could easily be missed. She seemed to have fun, and so did the guys. I liked how Colin beat Ryan to the hug. Not quick enough off the mark there Ryan, indeed. That was a rare win for Colin. When Colin mixed up engaged with married, I think Ryan took a somewhat impish delight in calling him on it. Finally, Gizelle having to say to Colin how he was uglier than Ryan and obviously feeling bad about having to say it. I enjoyed watching Colin console her. I enjoyed even more watching Ryan try not to laugh. This one game worked.

Sound Effects: Ryan and Colin are cops in their squad cars
A third variant on Sound Effects. (Has any other WLiiA game had as many variants as Sound Effects has?) Gail and Lynn were obviously reluctant volunteers, but there have been less willing victims in the history of WLiiA than them. Clive has dragged up several women who obviously didn't want to be on stage either. (One nearly bolted from her seat when he approached her.) And I thought they got into the spirit of the game after a bit. Despite what Ryan and Colin were implying, Gail and Lynn were providing sound effects although very soft ones and naturally not very good ones. The only sound cue they missed totally was when Ryan revved up the squad car engine. So that begs the question: Could Ryan and Colin genuinely not hear their sounds? Or did they decide to play deaf because they thought it would be funnier? I'm inclined to believe that Ryan and Colin really couldn't hear the sounds because they seemed to grow annoyed at the "silence". I suspect Ryan eventually caught on to what was happening when he faced the women and said that he was going to kick the door in "LOUDLY". I don't think the women realized how low the gain on the microphones is. The mikes can't be very sensitive otherwise we'd be able to hear the players' whispering better.

I didn't find the game particularly funny (although I noticed several audience members wiping their eyes and my husband found it funny) until afterwards watching Drew's hysterical laughter. There have been times when I've been with friends and someone will say something mildly funny that'll strike me in just a certain way and I'll be laughing hysterically over something that wasn't as funny as all that. It's happened to my friends, too. And I'll start laughing at watching them laugh. It's probably happened to you, as well. And I think that's what happened to Drew. Should his laughing been included in the episode? That really boils down to whether or not, you laugh watching other people laugh. To me, laughter is contagious. And I've found that I'm particularly susceptible to Drew's laugher. So, I'm glad the bit was left in. But if you disagree, I won't argue with you. There is no absolute right or wrong on this question.

Motown Group: Wayne, Chip, and Ryan sing "Do the Sewer Worker"
I'm sorry, but that song title just seems wrong to me. I get all sorts of nasty images from it. Does anyone mind if I call it something else? This was a pretty good song from the guys about a pretty lousy topic. I especially liked Chip's verse for some reason. Not so much his lyrics, but his melody. It was a different interpretation. Why did Ryan go for the really low bass? It certainly couldn't have been good to strain his hoarse voice that way.

Three-Headed Broadway Star: Wayne, Drew, and Ryan sing "You are my Butterstick" to Chrissie
Many people have commented that Chrissie served absolutely no function sitting in front of the guys. That's not quite true. Chrissie's function was eye candy. It's not a great function, but it is a function. Admit it, we've all watched something at some point in our lives for the eye candy. I don't mind the eye candy factor as much as I think having someone sit in front of the guys presents a bigger problem. Drew is simply not experienced enough to have an additional distraction while he's acting. And when Drew starts messing up, the whole house of cards falls down. Now, I can't directly relate the screw-ups to the fact that Chrissie was sitting there. But I'm sure that if it didn't happen in this episode, it will happen eventually. Drew is just not that focused yet. By the way, several comments were made about how no one sang to Chrissie. I disagree. I think Ryan made a real effort to look as if he was directing the song towards her. He frequently looked at her (the only one who did), and he was very aware of her reactions to the song. At one point, he whispers to her "S'alright, S'okay" and pats her on the shoulder. At the end, he told her, "Don't go anywhere. Don't go anywhere" because I think he realized that she wanted to get up. So, yes, I think Ryan was singing to her. And I think he was being very chivalrous to her throughout the entire game.

Credits: Ryan and Colin with the women from the Sound Effects game
This is where I felt that Lynn and Gail were most uncomfortable. And I would have preferred another credits reading because I didn't enjoy watching this at all.

Best Game:
This was easy for me to pick. Let's Make a Date. I loved it from Drew's opening "hoping to be picked by Chip" through to Chip's "And you're a bald guy." A winner game all round to me.

Overall Comments:
First off, did anyone notice that Drew did not award any points during the entire show? Yes, the points don't matter. But he almost always gave some at some time before. Many people have griped about too much audience participation, so I'll gripe about the bad editing. Two audience participation games back to back. Followed by two song games back to back. Couldn't the editors have split the 2 twosomes? Who knows. Maybe if the show's game pattern had been audience, song, audience, song we wouldn't have minded the participation games quite as much. I realize a lot of factors go into which games are shown when, including something as simple as broadcast time available. But surely, there was something that could have been done. Will I rewatch this episode over and over? Hmm. I'll probably rewatch Let's Make a Date, Gizelle, and maybe Motown again. I'll definitely skip over Sound Effects, but I will rewatch Three-Headed Broadway Star. Mainly because of Ryan's gentlemanly behavior. And no more viewings of the credits for me!

© LKK 10/15/00