Whose Offseason: Drew Carey’s Improv-a-Ganza Episode 8, or One of Your Children’s a Moth!

We start off the maroon taping, featuring Drew, Ryan, Jeff, Chip, Greg and Jonathan, which is pretty much the core of this group, all the guys who attended five or more tapings.

Duet: Jonathan and Jeff sing to Pam, a lawyer

GSN used this game to advertise the show, mostly due to a self-referential line in it.

Drew’s responsible for picking Pam. As he leads her upstage and notices her…very short skirt, Drew says “you’re gonna be so happy you wore that skirt. Have a seat on this TALL STOOL in the middle of the stage”

Ryan immediately comes in with a napkin/towel, and places it over Pam’s lap. Like this is his duty.
Drew lets out a high-pitched laugh in response to this

Pam announces she’s a lawyer.
Drew, immediately: “A lawyer? NICE KNOWIN YA PAM”
Chip, Greg and Ryan all get up and act like the game’s over and pretend to take Pam back to her seat. THAT is funny

Pam says she does ‘business litigation and divorce’
Drew: “…so you dress like that to trap them?”
DREW.

Pam says she enjoys going to clubs, and Drew refers to her as a cougar
Ryan, thankfully saving this: “Drew. A cougar for YOU is 80.”

And so the song starts…and as immortalized in the promos, Jeff immediately yanks the towel away.
Chip ABSOLUTELY LOSES IT AT THIS. Ryan has to get up and turn around, he’s chuckling at this. I notice that in stool city, they don’t really hide their laughter as much. Ryan doesn’t stifle it.

Jeff starts a verse then accidentally looks down at what he’s wrought: “Baby babe-OH WOW…you’re showin’ me the kind of woman you am…”
dear god

Jonathan: “What happens in Vegas ends up with Pam’s litigation”
Pam loves this one

Jeff: “I love redheads, so you know that I’m hurtin.”
Ryan realizes the line Jeff is going to rhyme with, and starts shaking his head violently, trying to keep it in.
Jeff: “From where I’m standing now I can see that the carpet matches the curtain..”
EVEN JONATHAN WINCES AT THIS ONE
WE CUT TO HER KIDS AND THEY BOTH DUCK OUT OF SHOT.
We cut back to Ryan and he’s nearly crying laughing
Jeff: “…sorry, David”
RIGHT HERE, Drew points to David absolutely squirming in his seat, and Drew, Ryan, Chip AND JEFF all double over laughing.

Regardless of the smut factor, Jonathan and Jeff are really good at making this a solid 60s soul number, and Bob’s backing is pretty solid here. So this is a good song, it’s just everyone remembers it for the scandalous bits

And now we get to the other portion of this that GSN used in promos
Jeff, putting an arm on Pam: “You’re looking so good..”
So Pam starts to turn towards Jeff, and also towards the audience. Jeff realizes what might happen, so he sprints into action: “NO, DON’T FACE THAT WAYYYY…”
That alone is funny. To the caliber of Wayne yelping at the snake or going ‘WHAT THE HELL YA DOING RICHARD?’. But Jeff puts it over the line
Jeff: “We’re on the Game Show Network, not a network where you have to PAY!”

And again, Jonathan and Jeff’s final harmonizing note has a lot of power behind it, especially from Jeff’s end.

As Pam leaves, Jeff goes over to the guy  directly in the front row in front of them, and goes ‘you’re welcome, sir’.

A genuinely great and funny Duet. Probably the best one yet, topping the one from E1, both in humor and in technique. Just a lot of great moments here.

Options: Greg and Chip; Christmas department store displays; Jeff calls

Jeff asks Steve from Cleveland his favorite thing about Cleveland
[they cut to Drew as he answers]
Steve: “NOTHING.”
Jeff: “NOTHING. And that’s why you’re here.”
[price is right losing horn SFX plays]
Drew, not satisfied, stands and comes towards the audience: “HOW BOUT ME, YA SON OF A BITCH?”
HA
Jonathan has to hold him back and bring him back to his seat, which is also funny

Greg starts the scene off with this: “I just don’t think Santa should be smoking.”
Chip: “It’s a PIPE. He smokes a PIPE, JERRY.”

Greg: “Wait a minute, it’s Cleveland, why don’t we just have more dead people around a lake.”
I was not prepared for this mid-week-2 Greg resurgence.

Jeff has a nice move and gives them an emotion, happy
Chip: “That’s a great idea, I’ve already got 12 packs around the tree…”
Greg: “Here, I’ll set Lake Erie on fire.”
Chip: “WOULD YOU?”
HA.

Jeff gives them the style of a Woody Allen film, which plays right into Greg’s hand:
Greg: “…uh, if I might interject a concept here…”
Bob, in a great move, starts playing a jazzy, minimalistic Woody Allen score type on the piano.
Chip, in an okay Woody: “Burning that river would be an improvement…”
Greg and Chip exchange impressed Woody noises

Jeff gets ‘haiku’ as a style of literature, which is a good way of really messing with Greg and Chip
Jeff: ‘YEAH, SLICE OFF A LITTLE HAIKU ON THE MGM RIGHT NOW…”
This bit tells us that Chip doesn’t know what a haiku is, but Greg does [“Jew, jew…ME JEW TOO.”]

Jeff asks for a playwright, and gets Balzac. Jeff genuinely laughs at this.
Greg just turns around and is absolutely dumbfounded.
Jeff: “Uh, Greg, can you handle some Balzac?”
Greg has a line ready, and Chip is already dying.
Jeff: “I SAID GREG, CAN YOU HANDLE SOME BALLZAC.”
Greg, right into Jeff’s mic: “Jeff…that’s how I got the gig.”
GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY

Chip, in Balzac style, goes into some very nice refined French.
Greg throws in a very twee frolic in with his.

Chip and Greg in Oscar Wilde style is alright, pointing out interesting colloquialisms and giggling.
Jeff: “WOODY ALLEN OSCAR WILDE.”
Chip: “OHHHH YOU…”
Greg: “I wonder, uh, if I might interject a bon mot here.”
Jeff: [dies]
Greg: “Something redolent with humor, and at the same time self-deprecating..”

Jeff gets ‘Train’, the band, from the audience. There are groans from the audience. Jeff even admits ‘I don’t know music.’
Yes, Train was very big in January 2011. Also big in January 2011? BASHING TRAIN.

Chip, as a cop-out, has a train come in on the display.

Jeff gets a favorite actor from the audience, and gets Jack Nicholson
Greg, in a really impressive Jack: “…I’m SORRY I stepped on your BLACKSMITH…”
So good.

Jeff gets another actor for Chip, and some lady suggests Mel Gibson. WHICH ALSO GETS GROANS FROM THE AUDIENCE.
Also kinda fitting that Chip gets reunited with Mel Gibson after 8×02.
Jeff: “and, uh, keep it…non-anti-semetic”
Chip, to Greg: “Keep yours non-Jack-Nicholson”
Are we listening to the same impression?

Chip, who has seen Lethal Weapon, goes right into some manic Mel Gibson stuff from the 80s. Which is nice.
Greg: “…listen, maybe it’s time we take a break…”
This also doubles as a great Christian Slater impression, admittedly

For Cujo, Chip just starts spitting and trying to simulate rabies.
Greg, clearly horrified: “STOP FROTHING.”

A pretty good Options. They lost the scene a smidge towards the end, but it was a good matchup of people, with good styles and lines in there.

Forward/Reverse: Jeff and Drew; butterfly cards; Ryan calls

Jeff is already good at making the delivery fun for repetition, starting with a semi-accented: ‘I’ve been chasing yooou…for yeeears…”

Drew, as the butterfly: “I already gave me all the money I had”
Jeff, who isn’t the only one puzzled by this line: “I didn’t know butterflies carried currency”

Ryan is very good at giving us a long stretch of the scene, then going back and screwing with everyone with it. Jeff’s ‘I’VE BEEN CHASING YOU FOR YEEEEARS’ gets funnier every time I hear it.

Drew, finally progressing: “Well, I just hope pinning me isn’t extra.”
I criticize Drew a lot for making scenes sexual when they don’t need to be, but that is at least a good line

Drew, as Ryan reverses, forgets his ‘pinning me’ line and improvises a new one. Drew isn’t good at this game, folks. This AND OTHERS.

It is funny as they run through it faster and all the lines get run into each other, like Drew’s line being interrupted by Jeff stabbing him: ‘THISISTHEGREATESTEXPERIENCEI’VEEVERHADINMY-GAAAHHH”

Jonathan and Chip come in as the butterfly children, which is a funny move.

Jeff, laying Drew down: “TELL ME, DO YOUR CHILDREN HAVE MONEY?”
That is a good callback

It’s even funnier when Ryan keeps running the scene back and forth as Drew has to keep getting up and lying down. You can hear the eventual cries of back pain from Drew as he keeps having to get up

Jeff, once we’ve finally gotten further in the scene, spontaneously shoots Jonathan and Chip once Drew reveals they don’t have money.
Chip, diving towards the edge of the stage: “WAIT, LIGHTBULBS!”
Jeff, realizing the flaw: “WAIT A MINUTE…ONE OF YOUR CHILDREN’S A MOTH!”
HA
Drew: “I CHEATED ON MY HUSBAND ONCE.”
[…Drew, they already established you were a man.]

As we reverse:
Jeff: “wait a second one of your children’s a moth”
Chip: […]
Jeff:

Chip, now cracking up: “LIGHTBULBS!”
HAAAAA

A really funny playing of this, arguably better than the first one with Ryan and Jeff. Drew made one or two mistakes, but they honestly didn’t sink the scene, and it was fun to see him go through the motions again and again. Jeff led this scene, though, as expected.

Sentences: As the Jack Flaps, starring Greg and Jonathan

It doesn’t feel like it, but this is our first playing of Sentences on IAG. And it’s gonna recur a lot more often over the rest of the run.

So this is a scene ABOUT a pancake house. Which means, by this show’s logic, that Greg must make it about lumberjacks.
Okay not really but I WISH.

Greg, being Greg: “Wanna do some syrup shots?”

Greg: “Blueberry or maple?”
Jonathan: “I’ll take a COMBOOOO”

Jonathan reminds Greg of the store’s motto: “Man’s first massage with beautiful female.”
…Jonathan realizes that’s the title of a porn video, and just tries to go on

Greg: “This morning when I woke up, I thought to myself “I have been waiting for you all my life”
Greg is really good at making a sudden want for someone work.

Jonathan: “the first time you looked at me, you stared at me in my good eye, and you said…[pause]….something racist that I won’t repeat onstage.”
HA. Thankfully he just says why he’s not saying it, rather than Julie at the IAS taping and just pocketing it.

Jonathan: “We could look at each other, hold each other and say…’why are there mullets around?”
Greg, knowing the audience: “because we’re in Nevada, bro..”

Greg’s next line: “So why did you divorce her, anyway?”
Jonathan sighs, and knows the only thing he CAN do: “…it was PAM that did it.”
I forgot about that callback.
Bob even plays a little motif from Pam’s song.

Jonathan ends with a passage from a romance number that says “…so, this jew walks into a bar.”
Greg walks upstage, just taking that in, and goes: “…I’m glad you didn’t think THAT ONE was racist…”
Perfect

An okay Sentences. Could have used a bit more in the middle, as it feels like a lot was cut out, but Jonathan and Greg worked off each other really well.

Overall: A pretty strong show across the board. Nothing felt ‘bad’ tonight, and even the weaker games had a lot of promise. Obviously the Pam game set the standard for the whole show, but Options and Forward/Reverse had improvements over previous playings, and Sentences gave us some good dynamic moments. From a pure improv standard, this had a lot of nice moves, especially from Greg again, and some cool callbacks and inter-game moments.

Best Performer: It was down to the wire between Jeff and Greg, but Jeff narrowly defeats Greg for nailing two games AND impressing me calling Options.
Worst Performer: Ryan didn’t act in any games tonight, and only called and supported others.
Best Game: Duet. Still a classic.
Worst Game: Sentences, solely due to the editing.
Best Dynamic: Chip and Greg, Options. That rib Chip had at Greg’s Jack impression cemented it.
Best Host: Jeff in Options, for being so damn smooth with it.

COMING UP NEXT: Back to the lilac taping with Heather, featuring two really damn good Heather games.