Cast: Wayne Brady, Kathy Greenwood, Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles, Drew Carey

Show Intro:
A couple of quick questions / comments here. (1) I think there might be an interesting trivia game in this episode. Try to figure out the relative order of the games as they were taped based on how mussed up Kathy's hair is. I noticed her hair needed a good brushing in the intro. It was clearly filmed after she had played several games. Comment (2). After Drew announced that Kathy should start preparing to be the winner, do you think Colin was patting her shoulder to congratulate her or to console her? Since the winner "gets to do a little something" with Drew, being the winner is not always a good thing.

Film and Theater Styles: Mad scientist, Colin, comes home to find his wife, Kathy, in bed with his latest creation, Ryan. [styles: Brady Bunch; Indiana Jones; Spanish soccer telecast; Crocodile Hunter; melodrama; Jeopardy]
A small little déjà vu from the past season crept in during the game setup when Drew couldn't find the scene card because he had been writing the styles on the back of it. He did that last season too. You'd think by now, he'd have a pattern established to keep that from happening to him. I'm surprised that Drew didn't egg Ryan on when Ryan offered to undo his pants to establish the scene. I was impressed with Kathy's opening line in the scene, "Are you kidding? It was superhuman" because I thought it was a promising start. I liked how Colin came in and went through the litany of famous unfinished lines that you always hear on poorly scripted dramas: "What the? Oh my! I can't! What? Hey!" And then turned right around and went through the litany of famous lines from the Brady Bunch — a poorly scripted comedy. (With a nice style intro from Kathy: "Milk and cookies".) Kathy had another good line in the Indiana Jones style: "One giant ball from you is not enough". Unfortunately, one line from her wasn't enough to put her on the same playing field as Ryan running through the shooting arrows. Which was totally inappropriate for the scene as a whole and yet wildly funny. It had the added joy of causing Colin to drop character out of confusion and then Ryan trying to apologize / explain while trying to look like he wasn't trying to apologize / explain.

Did you notice that Kathy tried to participate in the Spanish soccer telecast style? But she didn't quite do enough of anything to really draw attention to herself. I'm not even sure if the guys noticed she was trying to play along. She managed to get in a line in the Crocodile Hunter style but was completely overshadowed by Ryan's performance. I think he started out doing an Australian accent, but somewhere along the line, he started sounding an awful lot like Robin Leach. (Ryan may have stumbled upon another personality for Questionable Impressions there.) And did anyone else notice that while Ryan began by defending Kathy, "she's one great woman", he ended up insulting her by talking about how her teeth were long and can bite? (Or maybe he just likes his women that way, I dunno.) The melodrama style probably had the single best moment in the entire game as almost simultaneously Ryan and Colin moved downstage and looked away after Kathy's line. I say almost simultaneously because Colin moved slightly before Ryan so Ryan must have picked up on Colin's signals (intentional or not) and followed suit. If melodrama had the best moment, Jeopardy had the best line: "What is a bigger gun?" Spoken correctly in the form of a question, I might add. (But then Ryan is one of the masters of Questions Only, so that shouldn't have been too hard.) Drew picked a good spot to buzz in because that was a nice joke to end the game with. (And let's not forget the Awwww factor as both gentlemen, yes, gentlemen, helped Kathy to her feet.)

If you think that I was overly generous in my praise of Kathy in that scene, let me say that I had expected less than nothing from her. If she had spoken one word, I would have been surprised. Actually, what she said was quite good. She has the ability to invent dialogue. But, as I said in my review for the other half of this taping, Kathy has got to work on her delivery. The words are there, but she is not selling them. There's no power, no confidence, no timing, no characterization, and worse of all, no funny in the delivery. Her words have potential but they need a better actress.

Song Styles: Wayne sings to Cyrus, a retired merchant marine, as Mae West
For some reason, Ryan and Colin were very interested in whom Drew would pick from the audience for this game — especially Ryan. I don't know if it was the after effects of an audience encounter that didn't air or what, but they're usually not that animated during the audience selection part. Something or someone had them going. This had to be one of Wayne's shortest song styles that he's ever done. I don't know if he found the style limiting or simply couldn't think of things to say about Cyrus. But I think he only did a verse and a refrain, which is very unusual for him. (Wayne normally does two verses and three refrains even when he's singing solo.) Kathy really enjoyed the song. I thought Wayne was channeling Tina Turner vocally more than Mae West although he certainly had the hand and hip actions right.

Narrate: in an operating room
A slightly disappointing playing of one of my favorite games. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with the game except that it lacked that magic spark that Ryan and Colin tend to produce. For any other two players, it would have been fine, but it doesn't stand up to what Ryan and Colin have done in the past. Don't get me wrong. It did have its moments. I was amused to see that Colin's line "Sure he seemed to know all the jargon" got to Ryan, but I'm not quite sure why it got to him. And I liked the way Ryan's nostrils flared when he pulled the scalpel from his hand. That small piece of acting sold me the idea that Ryan was experiencing pain. Of course, I loved how Colin had to openly signal Ryan that he'd finished talking after the rearranging faces line because I'm a cruel person who enjoys it when their telepathy goes on the fritz. But on the whole, I don't remember too much about this playing. One general Narrate question. I've been trying to think of a Narrate where Ryan starts speaking first. I'm sure there must be at least one. But I'm drawing a blank. Anyone care to embarrass me by reminding me?

Newsflash: Kathy and Ryan = anchors; Colin = field reporter at a 1940s strip club
Kathy and Ryan delivering "hip tips" to Colin. I wonder if Drew had slipped up there and was subconsciously referring to the video's subject matter. (That just occurred to me while I was writing this. Aren't I clever?) I was surprised when Kathy missed the cue Ryan gave her about the breaking news story. She didn't jump in and introduce Colin like she should have. I was surprised because she did join in on the "before the camera's on" banter about Tijuana and the bucket of chicken. So for her to miss the opportunity to introduce Colin was strange to me. Most of the clues came from Ryan although Kathy did get one real clue in. Something about keeping "abreast" of the situation. Kathy was probably too busy laughing to come up with any more clues. Neither of them tried to clue Colin that he was at a strip club. So it's a good thing Drew didn't try to force the place out of Colin. I doubt he could have gotten it. Colin always runs to the TV to see watch he's been in front of. But didn't he look disappointed this time that he'd arrived too late? Ryan's expression after the game was priceless. This sort of odd mixture of amusement and disbelief. And didn't Wayne just sum up the whole thing perfectly: "That was wrong on so many levels."

Motown Group: Wayne, Colin, and Ryan sing "Do the Navy Seal"
Leave it to Colin to do something left field that throws his fellow performers. The opening dancing was lousy. The effect was delicious. I don't remember too much about Wayne's verse. I do remember Happy Bob's verse though. Do you think Colin needs therapy? Ryan's lyrics were nice and naughty. Leave it to him to talk about the joys of wearing tight rubber. But he couldn't decide which register to sing the verse in. His voice has deepened through the years (a natural process quickened by smoking), and lately Ryan has been having trouble finding the best pitch for him. His search for the right pitch was noticeable here. Out of curiosity, I went looking for the leader of the synchronized movements. Most of the time, Colin was watching Ryan out of the corner of his eye in order to mimic him. Except for towards the end when the two of them switched. (Why did I go looking for that, you ask. I guess you haven't read enough of my reviews yet to know that I have no life to speak of. It's sad.)

Hoe-down: lottery; Wayne, Drew, Colin, and Ryan
Wayne and Drew had nice complimentary Hoe-downs here. I suspect it took Drew a while to come up with his Hoe-down. You can tell that he was proud of it mid-way through the verse. And he had a right to be proud. Asking Wayne why he would spend his money helping Michael Jackson made a nice response to Wayne's song. Fans of the UK version might remember Rory Bremner singing about his power ball in the lottery Hoe-down from 1997. But I doubt Colin was ripping Rory off because picking a ball is a natural subject for a lottery song. (By the way, I thought the censorship had the exact opposite effect from its intent. Rather than conceal what Colin said, it highlighted in BIG RED LETTERS. Just in case no one had noticed what he meant with the double entendre.) My first thought when Ryan started singing was that his Hoe-down came from a different Hoe-down attempt than the rest of the verses. Or that he had had his verse stolen and was having a hard time coming up with a lyric. I don't have any physical evidence of this. But the whole atmosphere on the set had changed by the time Ryan started singing. Everyone was up and laughing over Colin's verse. But by the time Ryan started, the atmosphere felt more subdued. Like I said, I can't say "go watch this tidbit" in order to prove my point. But I'll stand by my gut instinct and say that Ryan's verse came after a lot of struggle. As for what Ryan actually sung, I'll give him points for an original Drew insult. Buy the show and fire Drew is a new way to slam Drew. Unfortunately, I'll take away some of the points for telegraphing the insult with the rhyme word of "scary". Not all the points, mind you. Because I still liked the insult. I'm curious as to why Ryan felt the need to apologize to Drew for the slam this time. He's never done it before. I wonder why now?

Credits: Colin = news reporter unaware that the others are stripping and wearing tassels behind him
How do I depict a shoulder shrug? That sort of describes this credits reading. I did like how Kathy and Wayne got their tassels tangled together. And Ryan using his tie as a tassel was a nice touch. But that was about it.

Best game:
Uh. Let's go with Hoe-down this time. Why? I was hoping you weren't going to ask that. Three and a half of the Hoe-downs were nice. Will you buy that? No? Well, that's okay. I don't think any game was outstanding, so if you picked something else for some other reason, that's fine.

Overall comments:
Somebody had better talk with the lighting crew about ramping the lights. (I can hear you now, "WHA???") Throughout this episode and its companion, I kept noticing how the lights would ramp up and down. That's not how it's supposed to be. Light ramping is supposed to be subtle. There's a reason the phrases are "Fade In" and "Fade Out". (In the companion episode, the lights came down on the players so fast at the beginning of Party Quirks, they were left sitting in the dark!) Tonight, the lights bumped up too quickly and actually overlit the set. Very annoying.

As for the rest of the show, it was like the lights. Little things not quite right. Nothing that you'd shake your head at and say "bad, bad". Nothing that you'd nod your head at and say "good, good". A real fair to middling kind of show. (As my father used to say.)

© LKK 11/12/00