Awesome TV Shows - Whose Line Is It Anyway?

One of my favorite things in the world is television. Since I am a couch potato, tv is a major part of my life. After thinking about it for quite some time now, I've decided to share some of my favorite tv shows through this blog, and I figured it would be a good idea to start with one of my favorite sketch comedy shows of all time, Whose Line Is It Anyway?

For those reading this blog who are not familiar with the show, the basic premise is the host (Drew Carey) gives the performers (a 4-person crew, usually consisting of Wayne Brady, Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles, and a rotating 4th guest) a series of games to act out, and the performers improvise the scenes on stage.

Carey awards "points" to the "winner" of the game, and at the end of the show declares an overall "winner" who gets to sit at the desk while Carey performs with the remaining 3 actors (which is usually a "hoe-down" to a silly topic).

There are usually 3 different games in each episode (not including the final game that Carey plays with the actors). Some of the recurring games on the show are "Scenes From a Hat", "Props", "Weird Newscasters", "Let's Make a Date", "Party Quirks", "Questions Only", and "Song Styles". ("Song Styles" appears on almost every episode - I think I've only seen one or two shows where this game was not played.)

The basic rules of these games are as follows...

Scenes From a Hat - Carey pulls an audience suggested scene from a hat, and the actors take turns acting it out in one-liner fashion.

Props - The actors are teamed in pairs, and each pair is given a prop to act out scenes in alternating turns. The props are always obscure items that one would never think of owning.

Weird Newscasters - The actors are assigned roles as anchor, co-anchor, sports reporter, and weather man. Each actor must portray a weird personality that is revealed at the start of the game while giving their portion of the news report.

Let's Make a Date - One actor is a guest on a "Love Connection" type dating show. The other three actors are the prospective dates, but each has a quirky personality that the actor playing the guest must figure out.

Party Quirks - One actor is the host of a party, and the other 3 are guests of the party with unusual characteristics. The host of the party must guess what the 3 guests' quirks are.

Questions Only - Two actors start a conversation about a pre-determined topic, but may only speak in question form. When an actor fails to do so, they must leave and another actor takes their place and continues the conversation. The person who lasts the longest wins the game.

Song Styles - An audience member is selected, and an actor (usually Wayne Brady) will sing a song to the audience member about their profession in the style of a musician or musical style revealed to the actor at the start of the game.

There are other games that were played on the show, but these that I have discussed are some of my favorites and are some of the most frequently used.

I'm sure you're wondering what gave me the inspiration to talk about this tv show first, since it hasn't been on the air for years. Well, to answer that question - I was channel surfing a few minutes ago and noticed that it was on tv, so I decided to watch it, and I thought hey, why not blog about it? - so I decided to share a few You Tube clips highlighting some of my favorite moments from the show.

I hope you enjoy these as much as I do.


SOUND EFFECTS - COPS & DUCKS

SCENES FROM A HAT (WITH ROBIN WILLIAMS)

PARTY QUIRKS - DESK LIGHT

Again, these are just a few of my favorite clips from the show - it's cool that we have websites like You Tube so we can go back and find stuff like this and watch it any time we want. Of course it has spoiled us to the point that we sometimes forget the good old days when we had to record everything on our VCR and hope no one recorded over our tape. (Man - those were the days.) But that's a different story for a different day.

If you have any favorite clips from this show (or any tv show for that matter), please feel free to share links to them in the comments section.