Whose Line Is It Anyway? was an improv show in the UK, but the version I saw was the one shot in the States with Drew Carey as the host. I used to stay up late doing homework and finished (more or less) just in time to watch the late night reruns on ABC Family when I was in high school. In college I had the opportunity to see Brad Sherwood and Colin Mochrie perform three times (I was a year too late for Wayne Brady). But this year they had a new show called Drew Carey's Improv-a-ganza, which was like an updated version of Whose Line and what Colin and Brad were doing (turns out they were right about being hired by Drew again, which was why they said they wouldn't take audience suggestions involving him on their tour). I never saw Drew Carey's Green Screen Show that they did in between, though, so it will not be part of this discussion.
Whose Line was an epically funny improv show that had a regular cast of Wayne Brady, Colin Mochrie, and Ryan Stiles plus a fourth chair usually filled by either Greg Proops, Chip Esten, Brad Sherwood, Kathy Greenwood, Jeff Davis, or any number of special guests. There were also three musicians: Laura Hall, Linda Taylor, and CeeCee Worhol. Improv-a-ganza brought most of these performers back (except Wayne was considered a special guest and only appeared for one taping) and brought in some new ones, including Wayne's assistant on Let's Make A Deal, Jonathan Mangum. The musician was Bob Derkach, and he had his own game named after him (retooled from Whose Line's Show-stopping Number) in which the action had to change and characters break into song whenever he began playing a style of music of his own choosing. In fact, many of the games in Improv-a-ganza were retooled versions of games featured in Whose Line; some were even an amalgamation of combined aspects of certain games. When Brad and Colin did this on their tour it was called The Torture Game, but there were always new names for old games as well as games never before seen on television such as the dreaded mousetrap game. They almost always cheated during that game in some way by taking their blindfolds off too early or when the other performers sneak up on them with mousetraps in hand.
The two shows are approximately ten years apart or more, so age is beginning to show on some of the performers if it hadn't already. Greg, for being referred to as old by Jonathan, called him Wayne's b*tch. In fact, out of all the newer performers added to the bunch, Jonathan was perhaps the most hazed as his crotch was grabbed a few times. I remember this one episode I saw of Let's Make A Deal when Wayne was pretending to be a swami and Jonathan was the head inside the crystal ball - Jonathan told Wayne he couldn't feel his legs anymore from crouching down so long and Wayne said he could keep the act going all day. The performers seemed glad to be sharing a stage again, but there were always good-natured jokes between them just like before (for example, Chip was the one who kept bringing up Drew's recent weight loss). Being shot in Vegas and airing on the Game Show Network, they probably get away with more than they used to on Disney-owned ABC and ABC Family.
Then came Trust Us With Your Life. The last two episodes weren’t aired because of the Olympics, so I didn’t get to see Hasselhoff or Jane Seymour. From what I did see, it was similar to the improv show that Colin and Brad did on the road, clips of which can be found on Youtube. Fred Willard was the host, and instead of random audience members, games were played with and about celebrity guests such as the Osbourne siblings, Serena Williams, etc. Some they have worked with before, like Jerry Springer and Florence Henderson - others they haven't. The main three were Colin, Wayne, and Jonathan, with the fourth chair being filled by Greg, Brad, or someone else. Plus they added a mime. One of the better examples of Summertime filler that was replaced by reruns of Wipeout for the two weeks that the Olympics were on and afterward. Congratulations last week to both Let's Make a Deal and The Price Is Right for their landmark anniversaries. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the week they were pre-empted by local programming bumped up by tennis coverage.
Whose Line Season Nine (US): Five episodes have aired at the time of this writing so now's a good time to do so. Aisha Tyler is certainly different from Drew Carey, though she is trying her best. The CW is certainly different from ABC too. I think they were trying to appeal to younger audiences but the hashtags are killing it for me. It's really really really really really really annoying. As if it wasn't bad enough on mainstream television, but every game has to have some kind of snarky tag for people to retweet. Episodes have also relied on celebrity guests, but that's nothing new. It's great to have regulars Wayne, Colin, and Ryan around as well as musicians Laura Hall and Linda Taylor, but there have also been some fourth-seaters who are new to the show. Some advice I would give to Aisha would be to compare the useless points to other things more often and to stop making everyone win at the end all the time. A little more participation on her part would be nice, and when giving instructions during Sideways Scene I've noticed her laughter makes it sound like she's thinking, "Dance, puppets, dance!"
Update: Season 10 aired this year and it's more hilarious and outrageous than ever. Me likey.
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