July 23rd, 2013
Gary Anthony Williams and Keegan Michael Key have one obvious thing in common, other than being first-time performers in this season: they both have three-part names in which it's unclear whether the second part of the name is their middle name or part of their first name. Do I call him Gary Anthony or just Gary? Keegan or Keegan-Michael?
Where they seem to differ is that while the first impression GAW made was that of a newcomer doing a wonderful job at fitting in, KMK struck me as a guy trying too hard to be funny. I know Whose Line, especially nowadays, doesn't have the most subdued of tones, but Keegs, you gotta ease into the wackiness. Dial it down a notch. Find the spots where it works best.
In Hollywood Director, does Colin come up with his suggestions or are they given to him? I think they used to be provided but maybe weren't some point? I would hope he could come up with a better reference than The Jerry Springer Show. Back in the late UK seasons/first US season there was an entire game based on it called Daytime Talk Show. There have been other games using Jerry Springer as the entire topic (remember the mash-up of TV references that was The Jerry Springer Millionaire Show?). And then an entire episode guest starring and largely based around Jerry Springer. Then Trust Us With Your Life featured Jerry Springer! Is there anyone who hasn't had enough Jerry Springer in their Whose Life?
Another talent Colin has is saving a weird moment and turning it good. Joke about Canadian Emmy, groans from audience. Are you all Canadian? Lukewarm comeback. "Yes we are!" Saved.
So here's another question. Is Aisha writing any of her pre-written material? There was no way to be sure but I figured for a while that Drew wrote most of his at-desk jokes while some were written by creative consultants or whatever they'd be called. The reason I ask about Aisha is, either her style is very similar to Drew's, or she's trying quite hard to copy Drew's style, or the people writing for her cards are writing as if Drew was still in the chair. Too bad Aisha's AMA has already come and gone.
In Props, there sure were the following references: Madonna's bra (would young people nowadays even get that?), Coneheads (I'm just surprised the audience seemed to love that one that much), and the bullets scene from The Matrix. Those made Wayne's Harry Potter reference seem downright topical (correct me I'm wrong, but I'm 90% confident it was the first Harry Potter reference on the show. Yay!)
On the upside, I will now explain what I loved about another one of Colin's jokes. In Props, it's one thing to just use the prop as it would be used, like going "AWOOGA" as if they're cartoon eyeballs. It's another thing to create an imaginatively hilarious micro-vignette using the props and just one sentence. Instead of just using the prop as a beard and sayng something generic like "Ho ho ho, what do you want for Christmas, Timmy?" as if he might as well be saying "I am Santa and this is my beard," he uses that prop use to explain a secondary prop use which is the real heart of the gag. The idea of an old Mr. T with a white mohawk is funny in itself, but the idea of old Mr. T being visited by Santa Claus makes this one of my new favorite prop jokes. I mean, just imagine an actual aging Mr. T (even older than now) not only meeting Santa Claus - but address by Santa Claus as "old Mr. T." I challenge you not to even smirk at the very idea of it!
Soo are we not getting any audience-participating games at all for this run? Aside from the one with the purses? One of the reasons the audience-participation element existed was to help sell the idea that everything is made up on the spot. The pre-arranged very special guests, unfortunately, threaten to do the opposite. When someone picked from the audience decides to dance along with the singer(s) (remember Derrick?) it comes across as a spontaneous thing. When a guest waiting out behind the audience seating area does it, it comes across as something he/she was encouraged or just figured he/she should do. Ah well. I did like Wayne's line about her show not being in his target demo. (possibly answering my question from last week?)
In Dating Profiles the back-of-the-set screen is all like, "Hey, I can do more than just show the Sideways Scene feed! I can display floating hearts too!"And I'm going to gripe about the hashtag use again. This time, the hashtag "#creepydates" flashed up just before Colin said his line, "Want a creepy hug?" By doing so, it effectively ruined the line by giving the quicker reader a heads-up on the word he was going to use. It makes me think of one of a terrifically bad joke, "What kind of key does a skeleton use? A skeleton key." And, more reference tallying: Wayne references Honey Boo-Boo and Justin Bieber, which helps his not-outdated-references scoresheet. Ryan references Neil Patrick Harris, which is interesting in that NPH has since risen from relative obscurity since the last time Ryan had mentioned him on WL. So it's an old reference that is actually more relevant now! I wonder what Neil Patrick Harris himself thinks of Ryan's comparison? Also, I think Wayne finds his being-posessed-by-a-demon bit funnier than anyone else does?
The most outdated reference, however, may be the very idea of a video dating service. At least Wayne tried to keep things current by passing it as an internet thing.
Hey! Want to hear a thing about this playing that is interesting to me but may or may not be interesting to you? This game has something unique from other games in common with Make a Monster and Remember That Song, in that it requires no outside suggestions. But whereas MAM and RTS involve the four players playing off suggestions from each other, Dating Profiles does not at all. What this means is that there was nothing preventing anyone from coming up with anything they said on the spot. Not that I'm saying they did or didn't, just that in theory the format of this playing means every single line could have been prepared ahead of time (not unlikely the Weird Newscasters anchor's lead story).
Not much to say about Living Scenery, but that cannon bit was something special. Keegan's overenthusiasm paid off for that one!
The credits reading is the usual too-many-people-talking-over-each-other-talking-over-the-audience-clamoring-over-the-music, but I did really like Ryan's impersonation of a silent vampire.
The first episode of the night as just okay, but at least there's another one after it.
Ah! Another episode from the Gary tapinig. Hmm, they're re-using the same intros. Okay. And the first game is...Let's Make a Date, again? Did they do this game twice? I did think it was odd that there was only one round of questions the first time. And they're reusing Gary's first question, and the quirks are... the same and... oh I see. They're reairing the second episode. Just so I'm straight here. The first two episodes the previous week on Tuesday. Then the CW aired those same two episodes that same week on Friday. And for the following Tuesday they aired the second episode a third time, following the third episode. Why, I couldn't begin to explain. Well, at least I hear this won't be a regular thing, I hope, and that next week (well, this week, as I'm writing this on Sunday) we do indeed get two new episodes.
Where they seem to differ is that while the first impression GAW made was that of a newcomer doing a wonderful job at fitting in, KMK struck me as a guy trying too hard to be funny. I know Whose Line, especially nowadays, doesn't have the most subdued of tones, but Keegs, you gotta ease into the wackiness. Dial it down a notch. Find the spots where it works best.
In Hollywood Director, does Colin come up with his suggestions or are they given to him? I think they used to be provided but maybe weren't some point? I would hope he could come up with a better reference than The Jerry Springer Show. Back in the late UK seasons/first US season there was an entire game based on it called Daytime Talk Show. There have been other games using Jerry Springer as the entire topic (remember the mash-up of TV references that was The Jerry Springer Millionaire Show?). And then an entire episode guest starring and largely based around Jerry Springer. Then Trust Us With Your Life featured Jerry Springer! Is there anyone who hasn't had enough Jerry Springer in their Whose Life?
Another talent Colin has is saving a weird moment and turning it good. Joke about Canadian Emmy, groans from audience. Are you all Canadian? Lukewarm comeback. "Yes we are!" Saved.
So here's another question. Is Aisha writing any of her pre-written material? There was no way to be sure but I figured for a while that Drew wrote most of his at-desk jokes while some were written by creative consultants or whatever they'd be called. The reason I ask about Aisha is, either her style is very similar to Drew's, or she's trying quite hard to copy Drew's style, or the people writing for her cards are writing as if Drew was still in the chair. Too bad Aisha's AMA has already come and gone.
In Props, there sure were the following references: Madonna's bra (would young people nowadays even get that?), Coneheads (I'm just surprised the audience seemed to love that one that much), and the bullets scene from The Matrix. Those made Wayne's Harry Potter reference seem downright topical (correct me I'm wrong, but I'm 90% confident it was the first Harry Potter reference on the show. Yay!)
On the upside, I will now explain what I loved about another one of Colin's jokes. In Props, it's one thing to just use the prop as it would be used, like going "AWOOGA" as if they're cartoon eyeballs. It's another thing to create an imaginatively hilarious micro-vignette using the props and just one sentence. Instead of just using the prop as a beard and sayng something generic like "Ho ho ho, what do you want for Christmas, Timmy?" as if he might as well be saying "I am Santa and this is my beard," he uses that prop use to explain a secondary prop use which is the real heart of the gag. The idea of an old Mr. T with a white mohawk is funny in itself, but the idea of old Mr. T being visited by Santa Claus makes this one of my new favorite prop jokes. I mean, just imagine an actual aging Mr. T (even older than now) not only meeting Santa Claus - but address by Santa Claus as "old Mr. T." I challenge you not to even smirk at the very idea of it!
Soo are we not getting any audience-participating games at all for this run? Aside from the one with the purses? One of the reasons the audience-participation element existed was to help sell the idea that everything is made up on the spot. The pre-arranged very special guests, unfortunately, threaten to do the opposite. When someone picked from the audience decides to dance along with the singer(s) (remember Derrick?) it comes across as a spontaneous thing. When a guest waiting out behind the audience seating area does it, it comes across as something he/she was encouraged or just figured he/she should do. Ah well. I did like Wayne's line about her show not being in his target demo. (possibly answering my question from last week?)
In Dating Profiles the back-of-the-set screen is all like, "Hey, I can do more than just show the Sideways Scene feed! I can display floating hearts too!"And I'm going to gripe about the hashtag use again. This time, the hashtag "#creepydates" flashed up just before Colin said his line, "Want a creepy hug?" By doing so, it effectively ruined the line by giving the quicker reader a heads-up on the word he was going to use. It makes me think of one of a terrifically bad joke, "What kind of key does a skeleton use? A skeleton key." And, more reference tallying: Wayne references Honey Boo-Boo and Justin Bieber, which helps his not-outdated-references scoresheet. Ryan references Neil Patrick Harris, which is interesting in that NPH has since risen from relative obscurity since the last time Ryan had mentioned him on WL. So it's an old reference that is actually more relevant now! I wonder what Neil Patrick Harris himself thinks of Ryan's comparison? Also, I think Wayne finds his being-posessed-by-a-demon bit funnier than anyone else does?
The most outdated reference, however, may be the very idea of a video dating service. At least Wayne tried to keep things current by passing it as an internet thing.
Hey! Want to hear a thing about this playing that is interesting to me but may or may not be interesting to you? This game has something unique from other games in common with Make a Monster and Remember That Song, in that it requires no outside suggestions. But whereas MAM and RTS involve the four players playing off suggestions from each other, Dating Profiles does not at all. What this means is that there was nothing preventing anyone from coming up with anything they said on the spot. Not that I'm saying they did or didn't, just that in theory the format of this playing means every single line could have been prepared ahead of time (not unlikely the Weird Newscasters anchor's lead story).
Not much to say about Living Scenery, but that cannon bit was something special. Keegan's overenthusiasm paid off for that one!
The credits reading is the usual too-many-people-talking-over-each-other-talking-over-the-audience-clamoring-over-the-music, but I did really like Ryan's impersonation of a silent vampire.
The first episode of the night as just okay, but at least there's another one after it.
Ah! Another episode from the Gary tapinig. Hmm, they're re-using the same intros. Okay. And the first game is...Let's Make a Date, again? Did they do this game twice? I did think it was odd that there was only one round of questions the first time. And they're reusing Gary's first question, and the quirks are... the same and... oh I see. They're reairing the second episode. Just so I'm straight here. The first two episodes the previous week on Tuesday. Then the CW aired those same two episodes that same week on Friday. And for the following Tuesday they aired the second episode a third time, following the third episode. Why, I couldn't begin to explain. Well, at least I hear this won't be a regular thing, I hope, and that next week (well, this week, as I'm writing this on Sunday) we do indeed get two new episodes.