Whose Watchdown is it Anyway: S16E16, or If Only We Had Lettuce and Tomato!

Seasonal Code: S16E16
Production Number: 356
CW Seasonal Code: S16E06

The last quarter of Season 16 is inundated with Jeff Davis episodes, and they’re all very strong shows. We return to the Jeff S15 taping that’s given us some good stuff so far, including an excellent show to start the season with. This show has some nice changes of pace, which is always welcome.

Dating App: Jeff must choose from:
Wayne – Has a secret identity, the superhero ‘Angry Grandma’
Colin – Hannibal Lecter trying to find another body that tastes as good as his own
Ryan – Zombie gathering an army of the undead to take over the studio

There is something extremely funny about Wayne doing a full on superhero intro, with seeing the signal, going down the batpole, suiting up and just shifting to:

Wayne is excellent at nailing physical gags, and this is no exception

The quirk itself is par for the course for Wayne, though I do like him humming a theme song and throwing in the occasional word, like ‘OCTEGENARIAN’

Wayne is already bracing himself as Colin comes towards him, and sure enough:

Colin times this really well. Licks Wayne, licks self, licks Wayne again. Trying to compare the two.

And, of course:

I actually prefer the standoff they have for about 5 seconds after Colin’s done with Ryan:

Ryan’s is the goofiest of the three, because he just skulks around…grabbing the occasional audience member…then getting them to operate the camera. And eventually:


[BUZZES]
I think my favorite part of this is Aisha’s zombie mumbling as she returns to the desk, mainly because she sounds like Whoopi Goldberg

I love that right before Aisha hands it to Jeff, we cut to Ryan and he’s just…

Colin’s more amused than anything, really. He just shrugs and goes back into it:

HOW DID NEITHER OF THEM BREAK?

Jeff guesses Colin correctly, but adds “that was more like Hannibal LICK-ter”
Ryan: “HOHOHOOOO…GOOD NIGHT EVERYBODY!”

A fine LMAD. Not…really a ton to it that felt new, but some goofy moments. Getting a Ryan-Colin lick-off did feel like the ending of the ‘ravenous boa constrictor’ LMAD we never got, though.

Doo-Wop: Jeff, Ryan and Colin sing about Ruby, who died tragically in a seafood accident

No Wayne? No Wayne.

Wayne does get to laugh at the confusing way Aisha says the title of the game, something like ‘DOOOOOOOOOOOWWAAAHHHHP’.

Gotta say, Aisha’s delivery on both ‘Ruuuuuuuby’ and “…IN A SEAFOOD ACCIDENT” throw the performers. There’s just something in the air on this one

Hell, the second Jeff starts the song, you can see he’s on the fringes of breaking just looking at Ryan and Colin. There’s just this goofy atmosphere at this point.

Jeff and Ryan’s verses are easy, but it’s worth noting how easy leading the game comes to Jeff.

Colin: “Oh Ruby, you were my little oyster
Just thinking of you makes me a little bit moister.”
THAT alone is funny
“You died eating crabs, that was your wish
It was so like you, you were so SHELLFISH”
PFFF. Okay, that one works

Wayne, I think, considered himself lucky he wasn’t in the firing line for this one, but Colin looks right at him doing his ‘bububub’s at the end and he falls over in the back.

Jeff has a strong ending line: “you’re like a dead tuna, and for the rest of your days
I will mix you wish mayonnaise.”
Hell, the three of them make the note work as well.

Pretty strong Doo-Wop, especially for a different grouping. Lot of little things worked for me in this one.

Forward Rewind: Wayne and Colin are two firemen responding to a fire at a farm, Ryan’s the panicking farmer desperately trying to save his animals, Jeff is Ryan’s lusty daughter who bursts out of the burning farmhouse

Furthering my point about the goofy atmosphere in the studio. After Aisha plays in the ‘forward’ and ‘rewind’ SFX, Wayne and Colin do this sort of dangly-armed running together, which is a direct callback to Wayne’s movements from that taping’s Weird Newscasters, which probably taped right before this game.

Aisha, reading the card: “Jeff is Ryan’s lusty daughter-LUSTY. That’s gonna go great..”

From the jump, there’s a fun clumsiness here. Wayne and Colin start the scene asleep, then Colin goes “the fire alarm went off”, then repeats it, cracking a little, as they jump into action

I feel like Wayne and Colin getting into their gear are just…patiently waiting for Aisha to call ‘rewind’, and it doesn’t happen.

Luckily, once Wayne and Colin are moving about the stage on the truck, then Aisha calls rewind, and they get to do that motion a few times.

Ryan has a very funny entering line: “MAH PIG DONE DIED, SHE DON’T SQUEAL NO MORE.”
I laughed at him doing that line 2 more times thanks to Aisha’s calling.
I also laughed at the eventual response to that line from Colin, “if only we had lettuce and tomato!”
PFFFF

And then we get the Ryan line two more times thanks to a rewind from Aisha. It’s just very silly that we can’t get past this part, though nowhere near TOTALLY PARTAAAAY levels.

THEN FINALLY, JEFF PRANCES IN: “LUSTY LUSTY LUSTY!”

…lol Colin.
Aisha, of course: “…REWIND.”
Jeff, backwards: “LUSTY LUSTY LUSTY”

Then, we finally get the line after that, from Ryan: “FER GOD’S SAKES, PUT SOME CLOTHES ON!”

I feel like right as the scene was getting somewhere, Aisha brings it back to the top, but we do get to see Jeff going ‘LUSTY LUSTY LUSTY’ one more time, as well as a funnier rendition of Ryan’s ‘PUT SOME CLOTHES ON’ line

Colin also manages to get the line wrong: “if only we had…bacon and lettuce.”
WE ALREADY HAVE THE BACON

I laughed at Colin trying to add in one more laugh line about how he only sleeps standing up, then realizing it’d defeat the purpose of the scene and just falling asleep.

And then after the buzz, Jeff prances back to the seats. What a goofy fun time that was. I really wish the scene had progressed a tad more, but Aisha knew that the hook was in replaying lines and keeping us with Jeff and Ryan, and Jeff going ‘LUSTY LUSTY LUSTY’ is an extremely silly hook. Not my absolute favorite CW Forward Rewind [ANTONIO! NOOOOO] but a favorite of mine for the silliness.

Aisha takes aim at Jeff’s “very literal” interpretation of ‘lusty’
Jeff: “I…’lust for life’?”

Scenes from a Hat:

You can see Wayne and Ryan doing the digging motions from ‘I’m Shipping My Love to You’ from 16×01.

“If famous movie scenes were performed on too much caffeine.”
I really liked Ryan’s interpretation of Moses parting the red sea in 10 seconds, mostly because we never see The Ten Commandments in these types of scenes. I also love Ryan finishing with an “OH STOOOPP”

Then Ryan does an ‘ET’S GOTTA GO HOME’ one that makes me think he mistook the scene for ‘too much cocaine’

Colin: [walks up]
Wayne, passing in front of the camera: “…butyouCAN’TTAKEMYFREEDOOOoooomm…”
Colin:

He’s BAFFLED. He’s cracking up as he walks back. Wayne flings himself back across the camera shot like an excited muppet.

Colin, even keel: “…captain, the dilithium crystals are going to blow….’ see, it had an opposite effect on Scotty.”
PFFF

“What Star Wars characters say while making love”
Wayne, perhaps an episode early, does one as Mr. Jar-Jar Binks. Somehow no one comes down to snap his neck.

Ryan: [takes drag of cigarette] “I’m your father, Luke..”
PFFF

Jeff, as Admiral Ackbar: “oh no…IT’S A CLAP.”
PFFF. That got me my first watch, and it got me here. You can see Jeff’s lips curling as he sells it.

Wayne: [Darth Vader breathing] “that’ll be another 2.99 for the next-”
I like that one a lot too

“What superheroes do when they think they’re alone.”
Ryan: [uses web-shooters to grab a beer]

“World’s worst thing to say to a bride on her wedding day.”
Colin, lifting the veil: “Oh SWEET LORD.”

Had a few moments above ‘perfunctory’ but not wall-to-wall substantial.

Greatest Hits: Songs of the Car

Ryan starts out with a segue about sleeping in his car, when it’s parked in the garage [“like garage rock”]
Colin: “…you sleep in your car when it’s parked in the garage??”
Ryan, a la Fred Willard: “THAT’S RIGHT.”
Colin: “which I’m guessing is attached to your HOUSE.”
Ryan: “I can’t go inside, the wife’s having an affair..”

I actually really like Wayne and Jeff’s garage rock song, Beep Beep Snore Snore, because Laura and Linda give it the crunchy guitar groove it deserves, and Jeff aligns the verses along it perfectly for the genre.

They’re able to get such a powerful and cool song done in a minute, that you literally see Aisha go “wow” the second the song ends.

Wayne and Jeff’s reaction to the next style being ‘greek wedding’:

Colin’s:

Ryan: “I dunno if you’ve ever been to a greek wedding, the bride doesn’t actually wear a gown, she’s just wrapped in grape leaves”
COLIN:

The banter stuff is subtler this episode but it’s working

The silly atmosphere strikes once more, as Ryan stumbles and says ‘tarp of the charts-TOP, or tarp..”

Colin: “I can see why the phones aren’t ringing..”
Ryan: “they never should have legalized it in California..”

I love, as the Zorba the Greek music starts, Jeff rushing into his pocket to pull out a handkerchief and finding the next best thing, a folded up piece of paper from…something.

I like Wayne throwing in the line ‘walking to the gas station not good in certain neighborhoods..”
Jeff: “well if you wanted/to drive more far
You should have got a prius or a TES-LA-CAR.”

Jeff, as the speed picks up: “if you kill the environment then I will kick your ass..”

The number ends with Jeff and Wayne dancing around, Wayne cracking up, and Jeff clutching his ribs and going “I’M out of gas too…”

A solid GH. I think it was funnier than last show’s, and had more emphasis on banter, though equally impressive in terms of musicianship. Jeff also took more of a lead on these songs, and the quality was pretty high on both. I think I remember more laughs from the other two GH songs, but these were fun too.

Overall: The things I liked about this show owed more to the really goofy environment and energy than to many individual games. There were games I liked in this, like Doo-Wop, Greatest Hits and Forward/Rewind, but there were issues with a couple of them. I’m just more happy that something like Forward/Rewind exists in this episode than anything. But honestly, this is a show I don’t have a ton to say about because the only real standout game is Greatest Hits, and even then I can name better playings of it from this season. I enjoyed this one, but I can see why I wasn’t wild about it when it went out.

Show Winners: All four
Best Performer: Jeff Bryan Davis, who seemed integral to every game and was responsible for the show’s best moments [leading Doo-Wop, Lusty x3, taking the lead in Greatest Hits, Admiral Ackbar]
Worst Performer: I hate to do this for the second show in a row, but Wayne was more deferential than the others tonight, and showed more signs of wear [especially in GH].
Best Game: Greatest Hits, cause it was the most substantial.
Worst Game: Not an opinion I thought I’d have going in, but Dating App. It felt like a lot of it had been done before, and better, and didn’t have many laughs. Which stinks, cause I remember liking that one the first time around.

COMING UP NEXT: One last trip into the archives with another Jeff show. This one’s pretty special, though.

Whose Watchdown is it Anyway: S16E15, or It’s a Musical Riddle!

Seasonal Code: S16E15
Production Number: 350
CW Seasonal Code: S15E20

I feel like my hiatuses for this project have been more frequent lately, and so I’m less prone to apologize for them, but this one was particularly abrupt and took me far too long to get back to. Basically, I’ve been a lot busier the past several months, there’s been several projects I’ve been prioritizing, and this one’s fallen to the wayside a bit. But seeing as I have a bit of time, I might as well get to another S16 show. Especially this one, because I’ve been waiting to talk about this one for a while.

According to the CW, this is the last of the S15 leftovers, the last of the ones that aired overseas before it hit America. There was a long wait for this one, a Brad guestless show from the S13 taping, and we who had seen it were worried it was due to something that happened in Film Dub. We were sort of right.

Questions: At a Wedding

I like the scene-quality of Wayne and Brad’s first go-round
Brad, in a dog hat: “Can I have just two minutes with your leg?”

I like Ryan, entering in a pope hat, using a very silly Italian accent, like a gangster film, and going ‘ey, you got a smoke-y?”
Wayne takes a moment to take that character choice in and walks off

Colin, I think, saw this hat and had to jump on it:
Colin: “Ready to try the other white meat?”
For the first of two times, I can sense an audience reaction that’s a mix of laughter and outrage. You can hear one guy going ‘OHHHH’ loudly.
Ryan, to his credit, just walks off shaking his head.

Brad brings this back to scene work and sets up a concept, with Colin, of several different men at this wedding dressed as food [“is he fooling around with the hashbrowns?”]. I like that Brad knows that this game works when it feels like a scene and it’s less of a back-and-forth with pick-up lines. There is something very cute about the moment Colin challenges Brad, and Brad just chuckles and walks off.

Ryan, in a basketball hat: “am I dribbling?” [licks his lips like 50 times]
Colin, with my favorite no-sell yet, just looks Ryan over, goes ‘yeah’, as in ‘yeah, that’s what you’re doing’, and leaves.

Wayne, in a skeleton mask: “after the wedding, would you like to bone?”
RYAN, STEPPING BACK ABOUT A MILE:
Ryan has a moment where he realizes an easy lay-up, and he didn’t think he’s have one. You see him do the math and go ‘huh’: “Can you handle my ball?”
Wayne, thinking of one that isn’t as good and cracking up as he hands the mask to Ryan: “would you like some head..”
Ryan: [wilts]
They’re just standing there awkwardly as the joke sort of dissolves.
Wayne looks right at Aisha and goes “BUZZ.” So she does.

Colin: [enters in an angry ant mask]
Ryan: [IMMEDIATELY EXITS]
PFFFF
Colin: [throws out his hands, as if to say ‘what??’]

A goofy Questions. Maybe not an over-the-top classic, as only one of them was really trying to flesh out a scene here, but there were some fun moments.

Film Dub: One day in the spa

This one, the International cut is the fuller version. If you’re watching this on Max, you miss a key moment or so.

Ryan starts out doing this Terry Thomas style British accent, sort of mumbling about [“MMI SHOULDN’T BE SMOKING, PROBABLY, mmgheei’m in a spa…”]

I think they’re already finding the silly hook of the scene when Ryan suggests the others check if the sauna’s enough, and Colin’s character looks through a device to see a volcanic eruption.
Colin: “…seems a little hot..”

Something that makes me think this was a pickups playing is Colin using his character’s continued speaking to just repeat his line a bunch more times. [“Well, WHY? WHY? WHY? WHY?”]

This does get funnier when Wayne’s character enters in a facial cast, incoherently mumbling
Ryan: “how did the facial peel go, Sylvia?…I hope everything turned out alri..ght..”
You can see Ryan cracking a bit as the scene goes on, cause he’s still trying to figure out the hook

I did laugh at Wayne, as his character exits, going, very muffled, “I’ll see you again at 7:00, simply mahhvelous…”
Then Wayne’s other character, a blonde who’s been there all scene, finally speaks, and Wayne gives her the voice of a black woman: “…what the hell happened to her face?”
I like that choice, it comes out of nowhere

Ryan, whose character is on a gurney: “Look, I’m going to lie here, would someone please give me a Brazilian?”
PFFF

Then, Ryan calls for a policeman, and a new character in A FULL NAZI UNIFORM ARRIVES. Brad, who hasn’t had a character yet, jumps into action, giving the character a very goofy ‘HALLO’.
Ryan, barely in character: “well, this really took a turn for the worse, didn’t it?”
Brad, as his character exits with Wayne’s, figures he should make the most of this: “I’M HERE TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”
FOR THE SECOND TIME THIS SHOW, you can hear an audience member go ‘OHHHH’, audibly against that joke, but enough people laugh at it. And for someone who only really had 2 lines in that scene, Brad really made the most of it. Because jeeeeez does that line make this game.

Ryan, back at the seats: “Wow, that guy came outta NOWHERE. Nice little spa scene?”
Wayne: ‘a nice alt-right massage..”
Aisha: “comedy just really took a hard left turn at the end there..’
Colin: “Actually it took a far right turn..”

To give you an idea, the CW version splices in laughter after ‘this really took a turn for the worse’, and rides out the game on the punchline of ‘random Nazi’, rather than the Trump joke. So the CW apparently didn’t allow Angst to deliver the Trump joke to US audiences, perhaps considering that this was summer 2020 and Trump was up for reelection, and the CW’s run by cowards. This would explain why this was the last of the international early releases to air, because the CW probably made Angst go back and reedit it instead of airing it when it was supposed to go out.

I completely agree with Angst, there’s no reason to censor that, it should have gone out. Lumping in fascism with the MAGA movement is not uncalled for, and judging by both what had happened in Charlottesville years earlier and what happened at the Capital months later, the ideals of both groups are very much intermixed. Also, it’s a joke meant for American audiences, so giving it to every international audience save for the one it’s intended for is kind of backwards.

This film dub is decent enough, but it gets better midway through and ends strongly. I just think it took them a while to figure out what the game actually ‘was’.

Props: Ryan & Brad vs. Colin & Wayne

You can see Ryan trying to subvert an old classic- Brad does a wrestling promo gag with the props as belts, saying ‘I’m gonna take that from you’, and Ryan just goes “OKAY.”

Colin: “should I worry about this blood in my urine?”

[THIRD vehement audience protest reaction of the show]
Wayne: “I’d worry about the fact that it’s FROZEN blood in your urine..”

Wayne, German accent: “hello, and velcome to our Minimalist Christmas special.”
Colin: “…WE WISH YOU……”
Wayne: “…We wish you.”

Ryan and Brad have some classics, but are selling them like old pros. There’s a bear trap one that they both make work. And then:

Ryan, fumbling: “I’ll tell you what, I think that snake ate our pig..”
Brad: [crumbles]

Decent Props round. A few ideas that stood out, but a short runtime and a lot of old standards pushed this back down.

Sound Effects: Ryan and Colin are two cops patrolling a zoo when they get orders to head downtown to combat a zombie invasion

The only non-all-four game in the show.

Katie’s first sound effect is a siren noise, which Colin uses as his ringtone. He answers…and then Katie clearly doesn’t know what to do. You can see Colin looking over to her, helplessly.
Katie finally gives a sound, which is a four-note ‘bom bom bom bom’, which honestly sounded like the opening line of Do They Know It’s Christmas.
Colin: “…it’s a musical riddle!”
PFF

I think I’ve figured out one of my favorite Sound Effects tropes. When Colin and Ryan discuss the premise of a scene, and the audience members respond to that with sounds thinking they’re talking about something in front of them. And then Colin and Ryan responding to that with ‘oh, there it is now’. It happens here, where Colin and Ryan talk about the possibility of a zombie attack, Julia and Katie respond with zombie noises, and Colin just goes “oh yeah, there’s some over there..”
Katie throws in a throaty scream that she’s even confused by
Colin: “…RIGHT BY THE HYENAS”

This scene eventually mellows into a hook of Colin and Ryan suggesting animal noises and being underwhelmed by the meek volume Katie and Julia go with. Lions, elephants, all just not what they want.
The thing is, I think they KNOW the hook is for them to be small. Ryan even goes ‘I’m gonna use this conch to call all the animals’, and Julia responds with a very tiny ‘waaaaa’. Ryan responds to that by just spitting out whatever animal he just blew into, and I love that move
Colin: “ALRIGHT, WE HAVE ONE CAT.”
As we’ve established, that’s enough sometimes.
Ryan: “I blew a snail outta there..”
Colin, choosing this moment to appeal directly to Ryan: “boy, ya don’t hear THAT everyday…”

I like Ryan’s move of responding to Colin’s gunfire with “sorry, that was my shotgun”, and having to quickly sew Colin up

Then, after the car doors don’t work, and Ryan has Julia do a siren that’s a delayed cat noise
Ryan: “……WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH OUR CAR??”

You can tell they’re having a tough time, because Ryan has to diagram exactly how the next gag, involving a flare gun, is going to work, and hopes the audience members will listen. “Then you throw your grenade, I dunno what’s gonna happen there..”
Colin, smirkingly: “I got a hundred bucks that says you don’t get past the flare.”

Ryan: [fires]
Julia: “….pew!”
Ryan: [hands over 100 dollar bill]

I did like the ending, where the grenade explodes in Colin’s hand and he draws back in shock. Always funny to end a scene with silly violence [reminded me of Niall Ashdown ending Improbable Mission with the squeezy bottle bomb attacking him]

Another ‘the audience members can’t do it as well as we thought’ playing, and those vary in mileage for me. This did have some fun moments [the bet, the conch gag] but a lot of it was just Colin and Ryan airing out their frustrations, and we’ve had more of those than not in the CW.

Ryan: “every sound was some kind of cat, except the lions, oddly enough. The lions sounded like a shotgun.”

Scenes from a Hat:

“Unlikely names for candy bars”
Colin, too excited: “TURD Melt..”
Ryan, reading the label: “Oh! Henry..OH…OHHH HENRY…OH YOU’RE THE KING HEN-” [gives up]
PFFF. The kids won’t get it but I did

“Bad times to be caught fooling around with someone”
Wayne’s wedding scene with Colin and Brad is almost a ‘Colin and Ryan walking around in the middle of Wayne’s wedding toast’ type of ‘this really got away from me’ scene. First, as Wayne’s orchestrating the I Do’s for Colin and Brad, he names Brad’s character Ricardo, and isn’t prepared for Brad to answer ‘si’. Then the ‘fooling around’ Wayne was thinking of becomes just a slight touch below the belt, and it slowly turns into all three performers tickling each other, which is way sillier than Wayne intended. I love every second of it though

“If Vegas Magicians did regular jobs” causes a unique conundrum. Ryan immediately shakes his head, and Aisha points out that he’s got nothing. Brad, meanwhile, is FROM Vegas, so he’s got a bunch. But Wayne’s just talking over it as Brad goes to do his, saying “I’m just trying to not do a dick joke right now.”
Aisha: “WHEN HAVE YOU EVER TRIED-”
Brad, who was setting up, sees they’re going at it, and goes, “oh, SORRY,” and abandons the gag. Very much a Mock the Week-esque banter over gags moment.

Ryan does eventually try one, as a dentist that does a ‘stick into the lion’s mouth’ act, and this cracks Ryan up

Also, you can see Colin shaking his head right when he figures out where Aisha’s going with her barber joke [‘POOF, IT’S GONE!’]

Again, moments of substantial quality but a lot of ‘been there done that’. Also, I wish Brad had gotten more moments to be onstage, and one of his few suggestions was blocked by Aisha.

Greatest Hits: Songs of Backpacking

Ryan does an ill-advised ‘rap’ segue, and Colin wonderfully no-sells it by wiping the spit from his eye.

I also love Colin injuring his shoulder doing the ‘hands on shoulders’ rap pose on the throw to Wayne and Brad. Wayne seems to enjoy this as well.

Note that the backing by Laura and Linda is pretty similar to California Love by Tupac and Dr. Dre, which is pretty cool. Wayne even uses this as a way of doing his opening line, “I wanna welcome everybody to the forest”

To that point, Brad is very good at replicating the chorus of California Love with the “THERE’S A KILLLAAAAH ON THE LOOSE”, and it actually fits with the tone of rap from this era.

The song actually gets to a fun place between Wayne and Brad, as Brad details the contents of his trail mix, and Wayne responds “there’s a killer on the loose, you’re talking ’bout food?”

I like that the song ends with Wayne camoflaging off under the piano, as he’s convinced he’ll die first if the killer shows up. Meaning Brad has to end the song along.
Brad: “there’s a killahhh..”
Wayne, from under the piano: “BANG.”
Brad: ‘…..ya missed me.”
Aisha’s howling at this. Brad just keeps looking to Laura and Aisha for somebody to end the song, and eventually someone does.

Colin and Ryan have some good banter in the opera leadup, as Colin makes up the name of an Opera [“bolamohooo..”], which confuses Ryan.
Ryan: “just sounds like you’re making this shit up..”

In the opera song, I actually like Wayne’s verse, even if his patter owes itself more to Broadway than pure Opera, he’s still excellent at singing it. Even funnier that the song is about eating bark, with lyrics like “it tastes like candy, put it in your mouth, you might have a harder time…passing it out..”

I like the twist where Wayne decides it’s just easier to just kill Brad, and takes out a knife and starts stabbing him.
Brad, bringing it back: “THERE’S A KILLER…”
Wayne loves this, laughing as he completes “ON THE LOOSE.”

Excellent opera number, though. Terrific musicianship and some funny lines, as well as a great callback. And a nice capper on a pretty strong Greatest Hits, boosted by Wayne and Brad not only doing great songs but doing funny things in them. It’s a boost of improv energy that more of this show needed.

Overall: A lot of limp, anemic games with maybe one or two amusing moments, polished off by an excellent Greatest Hits. I know that this show gets flak for overusing Greatest Hits, but when it’s the only inspired game in the whole show, maybe they shouldn’t? This show was stocked with a lot of quickfire rounds, and a scene game that was weighed down by audience members that couldn’t deliver. There’s games I enjoyed in this, like Film Dub and parts of Sound Effects, but no wall-to-wall triumphs here, even with a much better Greatest Hits. This show felt like it was a lot of ‘this was left’ material that could fit in a 22 minute show. And in fairness, I get that they need content, but I just wish there was a little more to this one. And a bit more for Brad to do other than rock Greatest Hits.

Show Winners: Brad and Wayne
Best Performer: Very tight between Colin and Ryan all night. I think I am gonna give it to Ryan, as his edge in several games sort of dictated the direction of the show.
Worst Performer: Y’see, here’s the thing. Brad WAS utilized the least this show, but in two of the games tonight I can point to his contributions as one of the most important to the game’s success. Wayne had more moments tonight where the joke got away from him, and more moments where he deferred, so I’m honestly giving this to him.
Best Game: Greatest Hits, cause it seemed to be the only one to do something new tonight.
Worst Game: Props, which came and went without doing much.
Should it have aired in S13?: Nah, I see why it was relegated to here.

COMING UP NEXT: You know what we haven’t had in a while? A Jeff episode. We go back to his S15 taping next, and we bring back a game that hasn’t been played since aroooound S10.

Whose Watchdown is it Anyway: S16E14, or You Got My Gender Pronoun Wrong

Seasonal Code: S16E14
Production Number: 355
CW Seasonal Code: S16E05

For the last guest star show we’d see for a while, the producers managed to muster one more Adam Rippon game out of the material from the Gary show from S15. He wasn’t bad in his first episode, let’s see how he does here.

Also, very funny that I’m doing this episode now considering that Adam just won Stars on Mars, and managed to take down another S15 guest star, Tinashe, in order to do so.

Weird Newscasters: Colin anchors, Gary, Colin’s bitchy gossiping BFF, co-anchors, Ryan, Bad tempered repo man visiting the Whose Line studio, does sports while Wayne,  TV going through lots of different channels, does weather

Something about the intro gives me ‘re-taped at pickups’ vibes; I don’t know if these are the genuine reactions to these quirks.

Gary’s already bitching to Colin as the game starts. I love that Colin has to cut him off by going “I’m working.”

And with one of the most iconic bitings of the hand that feeds you in this show’s history, Colin introduces himself: “I’m your anchor, Rich? NoIWorkFortheCW.”
What’s even funnier about this slam is that he’s about to go into the top story but the audience erupts in both surprise and amusement, so he has to trail off and wait for them to recover. Aisha has a big laugh at this, and eventually the audience applauds. And as it’s come out in years since how little the performers were being compensated for episodes, especially considering the number of later opportunities for episodes to be broadcast, it’s a very pointed move.

Colin: “A man who works in a Chinese restaurant burnt himself severely while doing a stir-fry. Paramedics say he may never wok again.”
That’s such a good one

Gary: “You know what I like about the word ‘wok’? Spelled backwards it’s ‘kow’, and very few people walk cows…”

Colin takes an extra half-second to figure out a name for Ryan, but lands on “….Balls McGillicutty.”
Ryan:

I do not blame him in the slightest.
Ryan, after taking a moment: “PLEASE. Call me Balls.”

It’s funny, Ryan’s quirk plays right into the ‘Rich? No, I work for the CW’ gag, because he’s just taking more and more things away, verging on integral:

I think the funniest bit is when Ryan decides to go bigger:

My favorite detail is just the feed we get from this camera:
I love that. Aisha’s just confused.

Gary: “This is the kind of work environment that YOU ENJOY COMING TO WORK EVERYDAY?”
Meanwhile:

This is a great decision by the editor

I love that, the camera operator, befuddled as she is, just waves

Plus, the very silly detail of this is that, because Ryan took the stools,

THEY’RE JUST STANDING

Wayne’s is too quick and hits too many familiar beats for Wayne. So we end with a thud, honestly.

To that point, this was one of the freshest and most classic-feeling WN playings in a while. Colin’s CW joke gave this playing a ‘we’re running out of money’ feel that carried throughout, and was helped by Ryan repossessing everything. I just wish it had a better Wayne quirk to go out with. This is honestly why he was better in the third spot, because he didn’t have to end the game.

Scenes from a Hat:

“if team sports were done in a sexy way”
Ryan, for about 10 seconds:

It really is that simple
This ends clumsily, as both Ryan and Colin have punchlines they want to get out, they overlap, and Aisha buzzes.

“Unlikely questions from a school test”, the US version of the Mock the Week “unlikely exam questions” topic:
Colin: “…Why?”
PFFF
Wayne, similarly: “…who DIS?”

“Bad professions in which to play practical jokes”
Ryan has a really excellent one, convincing Colin to turn the key to deliver the nuke, then busting up, “I didn’t get a call!”
Colin, after 10 seconds: “…..oh, I get it!”

I also like Wayne’s, where he pulls over Gary as a sadistic cop, then pulls off a mask to reveal it’s Gary’s friend. For the moment, a really funny subversion
Gary: “I ALMOST SHOT YOU!”
Wayne: “I ALMOST SHOT YOU!”

Colin: “now very carefully, cut the RED wire”
Ryan: “the red wire..”
Colin: [sprints out of the room]
Maybe it’s because this is giving us the most extended improv energy but i really love this suggestion

“Magic shows you’d never want to see.”
Wayne has a very fun idea for this one, as a maternity magician that delivers Colin’s baby, makes it disappear and then returns it. Colin does have trouble when Wayne grabs something else from under Colin’s legs, but they must not have been on the same page.

Ryan: [mimes eating something]
Gary: [is already giggling in advance]

The audience is shocked by this. Where did you think he was gonna go??
Colin finishes the trick by removing something from Ryan’s ass. As opposed to the last one, they’re on the same page
Wayne even helps out by revealing that it was a bird that Ryan ate by having it fly away. THAT is more like it

Wayne has the topper, though, by bringing back the cop character that pulled over Gary and making him ‘magically’ plant drugs in Gary’s car. Like the first time, it plays with the modern experience of driving while black, and it really doubles down on Wayne’s satire against cops.

Colin does a cute ‘saw a woman in half for real’ gag, but he nails it with the facial expression.
Ryan, entering sowing himself up: “I know, I made the same mistake.”
It was verging on grotesque but it became silly

A really nice SFAH. It got so much better when it favored extended scenes, like in the practical joke and magic show ones.

Dubbing: Colin is the world’s greatest female ice skater auditioning her young protege Adam, voice by Ryan, to be her ice dance partner when suddenly her ex-partner Wayne skates in to prove he’s still got what it takes

Colin heading to the stage amuses me. He does a lot of ‘OH!’. Maybe they told him to be more up, but you see him realize what game they’re playing, realize Laura and Linda are in it, and nearly run into Wayne on the way to his mark.

It also amuses me that Aisha describes Adam as a ‘television presenter’. Looks like a british person wrote that card..

Ryan: “I’ve got a signature move I’ve had for years, it looks something like this:”
Adam:

Yes, Adam brought his comedic timing to this one
Colin, almost metatextually: “honey, I’ve been doing that for more years than you’ve been alive..”

Ryan has Adam turn their move into almost a chicken impression.
Colin, so cleverly: “Of course, cause you always see chickens on ice. [sticks finger out] oh, we’re done.”
THIS IS WHAT HE’S CAPABLE OF

I like Ryan, when Adam demonstrates the signature move again, adding a ‘yeeeeahh..’
Adam’s also very good at owning Ryan’s vocal decisions, and really goes big to nail Ryan’s boastful ‘THAT’S WHAT I’M TALKING ABOUT’.

I like the little trepidation Wayne has to doing his signature move at the same time as Adam, and how that plays into Ryan trying to get everything in. Ultimately,

Yeah, that’s about right
Colin just turns to Wayne and goes “no.” Adam dies at this. There’s no WAY they’ll get that on air.
Colin: [leaves]
Wayne, confused: “…that is my move…”

I do like the silly diplomatic ending we go towards. Colin has a great line of “maybe you’re right, or maybe you’re both just stupid.”

I like Wayne pimping out Adam, and thereby Ryan, to do a ‘signature song’ as all three of them do the move.
Adam: [mimes pulling sheet music out of his uniform]
Colin: “…oh, you have a lyric sheet.”
PFFFF. WHAT A GREAT MOVE.
Adam also hands the music to Laura and Linda. Man, if only more guest games actually had moments for the guests to flex their improv muscles, cause Adam’s going above and beyond more than he did in his other 2 games.

Ryan tries his best to follow the backing, and vice versa, but there’s a disconnect. Ryan even justifies, ‘I can’t sing well I’VE GOT A CLEFT.”

And so the rest of the game is singing a song while the other three twerk. Anyway, the CW markets to the 40-60 demographic now…
Wayne does add a line in about “slap them cheeks like Cardi B”, but…yeah, they kinda lost me

Ryan, as they’re wrapping up the song, throws in a Colin slam, “who’s the guy on the right, he looks like a phony”, and as Wayne leads towards a tender final note…
Colin, standing, finishing the song defiantly: “you got my gender pronoun wrong” [leaves]
Now, let’s compare this to Greg’s line from last show, assuming that if Wayne isn’t a man he is obviously some non-binary overly sensitive thing. Clearly coming from the voice of the opposition, however subconscious. Colin, as has been documented, comes from the voice of the cause, he’s all for queer and trans rights, but beyond that he was mostly just trying to right the wrong of Ryan’s mistake, because Ryan’s desire to slam Colin got in the way of the rules of the scene. So the final line from Colin is not only a way of writing an improv mistake, but he uses it as a way of rejecting Ryan, and Adam’s character, and leaving both people that were supposed to be fighting for him to themselves.
It also works because, uh…not that I’ve been following Stars on Mars, but something came out about Lance Armstrong causing a shit-fit about trans athletes, and the one of the first people to shut him down was Adam Rippon, because that’s what heroes do. So if anyone would stand by Colin’s move of turning the ending line into a confident stance against a subconscious misgendering, it would be Adam Rippon.

Also, it’s just a funny ending line, especially how it fits perfectly into the final notes of the song. So that’s good too.

So, very good Dubbing. When this originally aired I thought this was one of the best Dubbings I’ve seen in a while. It’s good, but the decision to make this a twerk-off and go about the usual Dubbing beats does hold this back. What does make this game still good is not only Adam’s surprisingly great improv moves, but also the emotional finale, where nobody wins and Colin takes the high ground. I like that a lot.

Aisha, summing it up perfectly: “it was upsetting and also unifying at the same time.”
Colin: “and it was such a fight for women’s rights.”

Wayne: “so…you were playing a female skater?”
Colin: “YES. Just because I didn’t do the stereotypical [higher-pitched] OOH I’M A WOMAN, I played it REAL. THAT’S what makes America GREAT.”
…I mean, I’D vote for him..

Infomercial: Ryan and Colin deal with personal hygiene 

Ryan starts his intro as usual, then stops: “I can’t even continue, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?”
Colin: “what is wrong with me? I got hit with the stink…stick.”

Also, very silly timing on both of them slapping the table once they reveal the topic. They play this less often, and that honestly makes it successful whenever they do play it.

Colin goes with an easy joke with a pair of green foot-looking things that Ryan uses to talk about footcare: “and if you don’t take care of it quickly, gan-GREEN sets in..”

Then, after they finish with the foot care bit, Ryan makes a discovery:

“Hey, I could have used this for the foot instead of that green thing!”

The ‘breath-powered glove’ bit is very amusing, because Ryan’s breathing into it like he would a bong, all while Colin’s trying his best to explain the prop

Ryan takes out a grabbing claw type thing, then says “some places you can’t get you, cause they’re too damned tight”, so he asks Colin to turn around and begins to come around back of him with the claw. Then, Ryan realizes something “…well you’re way ahead of me, aren’t ya?”
Yeah, where else is he gonna go?
Ryan, to Colin: “you got off lucky! Maybe later…”

Colin: “some people don’t want their personal hygiene taken care of right away.”

“…CHAIN THEM TO THE FLOOR.”
The simple ones work for me here too

Colin: “WE’RE NOT KIDDING. PERSONAL HYGIENE IS IMPORTANT. IT CAUSES CLIMATE CHANGE. AND YEAH, IT’S A REAL THING.”
This has become a very politically charged Whose Line
I also love, after that, Ryan smiling and chucking the chain and a mace-ball into the bucket without saying a word

Colin, suddenly:

Ryan, of course: “I WISH.”

A strong Infomercial, definitely improved as it went on. I wish we got a bit more, and a few more out-of-the-box uses for these props, as it treaded familiar ground in some points, but some of the frantic energy here was very good.

Props: Ryan and Gary vs. Colin and Wayne

Gary is very good at putting a creative spin on ideas we’ve seen before, like the reveal that he’s going through a car wash without a car, or that the hairdresser just gives everyone the same hairdo, “but it’s GOOD.’

Wayne does a ‘wrong size condom’ gag.
Colin: “WELCOME TO FANTASY ISLAND.”
PFFFF

Gary: “Can’t believe it, we adopted two reggae babies…”

I love this little aside Colin has while Wayne’s trying to get into the props:

like ‘give us a second..’

Finally,

“…that’s all.”

Colin: “…it’s a reverse birth…”

Alright props. There were some original ways of going about some ideas we’d seen before, but you could tell that some of these guys, especially Wayne and Colin, were struggling.

Overall: A good show but there was just this uneven feeling to a lot of it, even if there were good games. My favorite games of the night, being WN, SFAH and Dubbing, all had major flaws. Weird Newscasters’ biggest flaw was its lack of an ending; Wayne didn’t do enough to make the finish as strong as the rest of it, and, like the theme I’ve been noticing, was something he was comfortable doing from before. SFAH had some of the best extended energy here, but only in the second half. Dubbing was excellent but going towards a payoff where three performers twerk, IN 2019…was not a move I would have done. And as good as Infomercial was, there wasn’t enough of it. It just felt like there were aspects of this show that were dragging it away from greatness at multiple points, and that isn’t even beginning to mention that Gary only appeared in 3 games, the one Adam game feels incongruent to the rest of the show, and some banter sections [after Props and WN] felt like complete afterthoughts. I liked a lot of this show, but it frustrates me that it couldn’t be better.

Show Winners: All four
Best Performer: Ryan Stiles. Even with his Dubbing mistake, Ryan had the cleverest moves tonight, and was the star of the first half.
Worst Performer: I’m actually going with Wayne, because he made the most improv mistakes tonight, and had more moments where he wasn’t on the same page as the others.
Best Game: Dubbing. Even with the issue I have with it, there’s still a lot of great stuff in there, and a very advanced ending.
Worst Game: Props, just kinda ended us with a shrug.
Guest Star Rating: 9/10, Adam brought it in Dubbing, arguably more than he did in his prior two games.

COMING UP NEXT: Finally, we take on the last of the S15 leftover shows, which is also our last Brad Sherwood show to date.

Whose Watchdown is it Anyway: S16E13, or As a Gift, Not Internally

Seasonal Code: S16E13
Production Number: 354
CW Seasonal Code: S16E04

This is the fifth of five shows to come from Greg Proops’ S15 taping, and yet there’s still good material to be found here.

I find it funny that the intros are all cartoon-related, considering what it leads into:

Dating App: Greg must choose from

• Wayne – French skunk looking for the perfect kiss
• Colin – Obnoxious barnacle who only attaches himself to idiots
• Ryan – Hillbilly turned on by the weirdest things

Wayne, as has been documented many times, has seen his fair share of cartoons. So he knows this is Pepe Le Pew, and even if he’s not exactly doing an impression of Mel Blanc or anything, the sort of lovelorn oblivion he’s working with is exactly what the character was.

I do really like Wayne trying to chat up the camera, getting closer and closer, insisting he wields “the smell of roMAUUNCE”

Ultimately,

Yeah, in the same vein as Mike McShane..

I love the detail of the fogged up camera lens after that

Greg: “if you were a piece of fruit, how would you present yourself to me? Peeled….or sliced?”
Colin, with the perfect cutaway:

Not even hiding how stupid he finds that

Colin, on Wayne, refers to him as a ‘dingy’, and goes “come on, the…veal is free.” WHICH CONFUSES EVEN HIMSELF.

followed by:

[WAYNE BRADY? PANSEXUAL? I NEVER WOULD HAVE KNOWN!]

It is very amusing to see Colin trying too long for Ryan while barely getting a grip on his stool, and nearly falling over to reach for him.

Of curse, Colin, seeing Ryan: “JACKPOT!”

Ryan, to Colin: “would yew mind kissin’ him one more time?”
As if it was handed to him by the gods

There is so much drama and sexual tension in this shot alone. Remember, this is GAME ONE.

The biggest laugh from me in this game is the moment where Ryan runs towards the audience and Colin grabs onto him as he does. You can tell Ryan was not prepared for that, so his horny rage suddenly turns into out-of-character confusion. “NO. NO. NO. GET OFF ME.” Not liking what Colin’s dragging him into

It’s even funnier seeing, as Ryan commands some old people in the front row to spank him, Colin just hanging around as a bystander.

Ryan, walking back, still confused as to what Colin is and why he’s hanging onto him, starts cracking up. “What are YOU???”
Colin: “AHOY.”

…really says a thousand words sometimes..

Ryan: [SQUEALS]
Colin: [does like a ship’s horn]
Ryan:

I do love how these two react to each other

So Greg guesses and once again it’s 2019 Greg so he’s pissing me off. Aisha tells Greg he’s close but Wayne is not a man, so Greg guesses that Wayne’s “a nonbinary non-male-ruled exploratory gender person”, and besides naming something that Wayne could be attracted to nowadays, he did kind of just make fun of gender fluidity, and this does kind of denote some of his archaic views on gender even if he does position himself as a ‘love is love’ type liberal. It’s not a great move, I don’t like it.

What is funny, though, is once Aisha sort of gives it to him, Greg guesses that Wayne was “the MeToo skunk, Pepe Le Pew”, which is a description that cracks up everyone.

A very strong LMAD that worked when it went in on what was funniest, which in many cases was the sexual tension and horniness that all three quirks gave off. I do wish we could have seen a second round, or even Colin trying to attach himself to Greg, but as it was it’s a very funny round.

Aisha does point out Colin’s “[clenched teeth] what the fuck??” reaction when he saw his quirk.
Colin: “I’M SIXTY ONE. I WENT TO COLLEGE.”
Alright, Plankton…

Doo-Wop: Ryan, Wayne and Colin sing about Shelby, who died tragically in an auto repair shop-related accident

As all three step down, and Aisha explains the game, you can see all three performers do a rendition of Colin’s ‘bub-bub-bub’ backing tic, so it seems to amuse them all

So within a second of the song starting, Wayne and Colin are already cracking up a little. I’m not sure why.

Wayne: “you were my type
Until she had a banana put in her tailpipe.”

Colin has the bright idea of making the death happen after backseat coitus
“you left the shop, hit a tree, that’s how it ends
as they say, that’s how the Mercede Benz,”
THIS WORKS

Once again, during Wayne’s ending verse, Colin’s ‘bub-bub-bub’ backing gets Wayne to break for a moment

Then, as Wayne nails the last note, Colin comes at him with a face so silly that Wayne has to look away from them as they finish, and somehow hangs onto his composure.
Aisha buzzes, Wayne collapses, and he just…sighs. “I CAN’T LOOK AT YOUR FACE.”
Colin, sitting down: “Too intense? Little threatened, are ya?”
I do love their working relationship

A surprisingly fun Doo-Wop. Not the most substantial, but the little game Wayne and Colin were playing, as Colin was really trying to crack up Wayne and just succeeded, amused the hell out of me. So many little moments tickled me here.

Wayne: “Colin’s commitment to the ‘bububu’ is so much that he makes me laugh just by looking at him..”
Aisha: “it’s like he’s looking into your soul…”

Mixed Messages: Prison warden Colin has gathered his guards Wayne and Greg to help him tackle a riot

You can place this after Doo-Wop in the taping because as the audience members, Grayson and Antoinette, come down to deliver their phones, Colin’s doing another ‘bububub’ to try and throw Wayne before he forgets about it. It doesn’t quite work, but Wayne is amused by it and returns the ‘bubub’

Colin: “what do you think is the first thing we should do?”
Greg, perfectly: “I’m already full and I’ve just started.”

Wayne, in a southern accent, after Colin complains about the inmates always rioting: “OMG ah’m so sorry, are they okay?”
Colin: “it doesn’t matter if they’re okay, we’re trying to quell the riot”
Wayne, snuck right in there: “aw okay, that’s good.”
Wayne’s very good at this game

Greg, just camp enough: “OH MY GOD YUM, I’m not going out there I’m in bed, the men are getting CRAZY OUT THERE.”
Colin, not quite understanding: “YES.”

This might be Greg’s best game of the taping, and it’s not just because he doesn’t have room to say any neoliberal crap

Wayne’s sheepish “oh mah gahd I am so sorry..” in response to Colin is so good. I really like this character he’s doing, and how chill he is.
Colin: “Calm down”
Wayne: “I love you, stay strong.”
Colin, shifting back to gruff: ‘ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT…”

Greg, to Wayne: “MOOOOM, it’s almost your 21st birthday”
Colin, to Wayne: “what, today your birthday?”
Wayne: “….NOOOOO, whaaaat?”
It’s flowing very seamlessly

Wayne: “wait…will there be other 18 year olds there?”
PFFFFF. DO I WANNA KNOW THE CONTEXT??
As the audience rebels, Wayne just flips the phone around as if to say ‘wasn’t me’
Colin, trying to save this: “IF WE CAN FORGET ABOUT THE PARTY…”
Wayne just looks over at Grayson and shakes his head, disapprovingly.

Colin has Wayne take the megaphone to shout something at them
Wayne: “YOU GET ANY VIDEOS LAST NIGHT?”
Colin: “….what the hell was that??”
I really do like this game
Greg, having a go: “I MIGHT BE ABLE TO GO INTO THE AUDIENCE FOR WHOSE LINE ON WEDNESDAY OR SUNDAY.”
Colin: “DON’T TELL THEM THAT. That’s the only entertainment they HAVE here.”
PFFF. Ah yes, prisons just have all their TVs turned to the 24 hour Whose Line network. It must really piss off Inmate 27994, or Langham as he’s known in the shower.
Greg, deciding to improvise: “That’s cruel and unusual punishment.”
Colin: “it is!”
THEN COLIN REMEMBERS WHAT GAME HE’S PLAYING:

PFFFF. What a move from Colin. Calling Greg on that snafu, which does ironically make him similar to Rory Bremner in a way. The ultimate fourth wall break. I love it.

We do get one last beat from Wayne, harping on the details of the party rather than the riot, which is a very good hook for this scene. I do like Colin’s ending reaction as Aisha buzzes:

That’s really all you need.

Wayne immediately asks how old Grayson is. “You’re 19? …dirty-ass ol’ man…”

Honestly, I’m mad at myself for not remembering this MM. I remembered more of Greg’s first MM, which was talkier, but this one was a delight. So many great runs and moments that barely felt scripted or stilted, and flowed so well. The humor came not in wild texts but in weaving ill-fitting conversations into Colin’s overarching plot, which made for a really funny subversion. And the Greg snafu moment, regardless of whether or not it came as a result of Greg forgetting what game he was playing, was absolutely perfect. The curtain just dropping feebly. One of my favorite Mixed Messages rounds.

Alright, we’ve had our spontaneity, let’s go onto the two games every CW show has to have:

Scenes from a Hat:

“Unlikely opening lines of a sermon”
Wayne: “brothers and sisters…maybe I *HAVE* slept with all of your wives..”
and Wayne: “awright, let’s talk about…”GOD”.’
PFFFFF. He may have an unfair advantage. Also, very funny that this topic shows up in the taping where Wayne refuses to hop on the back of a worship leader’s wife.

“Bad things to do or say in the armed forces”
[scattered groans]
Ryan, surprised: “oh jesus, they’re already angry…”
Wayne, covering his bases: “I’ll preface this one by saying I’m from a military family and I love the armed forces”
[so that makes, like, 2 queer people then..]

Wayne: “don’t shoot until you see the whites..”
Colin:

Wayne: “…OF THEIR EYES.”

Ryan does a gag where he parachutes over his wife’s house, and then undoes his pants and clenches. Aisha, however, has him explain the joke. Ryan does. “Was that not clear enough to you??”

“Bad people to be marooned on a desert island with.”
Colin: “I’m so alone…SOMEONE…PARACHUTING DO…”

THAT ALONE.
Colin: “…is he pulling off his pants?”
Wayne adds the full effect by splatting Colin in passing

An alright SFAH. Some lulls, definitely felt like ‘here’s what’s left’, but some good energy.

Greatest Hits: Songs of the Motel v2

Yay, more Wayne and Ryan GH action!

Colin and Greg’s demonstration of their former hit is a little less pronounced than others [“speeeeeeead jam.”], but it’s still funny. It certainly cracks up Wayne.

Colin and Greg explain the lounge acts that play in hotel lounges, and then Colin awkwardly segues “so this is…one of the…groups.” It’s such a silly fit, and you can see him struggle to keep composure after that

Ryan and Wayne’s lounge chemistry is initially pretty smooth, and the handoff is also very easy. But then, as Wayne does his verse, Ryan, before the audience would even know what he was calling back to, riles off some of his world famous errant lounge scatting [“DOOOOT-DA-DOODOO-DOODOO..”], and that’s enough to break me a little.

Ryan: “there’s no mint on my pillow…but there’s a chocolate on my sheets that’s melted AND NOW IT’S A BIT EMBARRASSING.”
Ryan is good in GH because he focuses less on matching likeness and more on just saying funny things in the style. Wayne is better at making it sound musically impressive, but Ryan is making this very funny

Wayne: “and by the way that chocolate came from me.”
Ryan: [confused but aroused expression]
Wayne, quickly before the song ends: “as a gift, not internally..”
Way to stick the landing

Greg gets no help from Colin, almost intentionally, on the calypso title, and I like Greg padding out the ‘how you relax to this song’ bit by throwing in “open up a beer, get drunk, and listen to..”
His eventual title, “…Little Bar of Soap”, cracks up Colin because he wasn’t prepared for THAT to be what Greg was going with. So he very quickly composes himself and grins for the camera

Ryan is very good at backing Wayne with silly renditions of ‘lllittle bar’ as Wayne lays the groundwork.

Also, here’s why I love that these two are doing this song together:
Wayne: “what do I do with this little bar of soap?”
Ryan, as if it’s a foregone conclusion: “drop it on the floor.”
Oh the people in that prison watching the 24 hour Whose Line network are gonna LOVE that one..

Then, as it becomes a ‘drop the soap’ refrain, Wayne specifies “I can do that because I’m the only one in the rooooom..”
Ryan, not letting him: “I’M RIGHT BEHIND YOU!”

A very good Greatest Hits. I think the other one from this pairing is a little better, but I like this one because you can see what Ryan brings out in Wayne, and you can get the quicker, smarter silliness in these songs as opposed to just the likeness.

Overall: This one is similar in quality to another guestless show from this taping, 13×09, yet I think this one impressed me more despite having a few more lighter games. Mixed Messages, Dating App, Greatest Hits and honestly Doo-Wop really impressed me, and especially in the former two you can see a lot of the improv moves and interpersonal moves that I love finding in these. Even something as simple as Doo-Wop, where the game is whether or not Colin can crack up Wayne, or even in SFAH where Colin adds a Ryan character into a scene we’re not expecting. I had some issues with Greg here, he doesn’t sink the show, heck in MM he does help a lot, snafu notwithstanding. I also think Mixed Messages is one of the best playings, and LMAD felt classic at its heights. A sentimental favorite from this season that I do think holds up.

Show Winner: Wayne
Best Performer: It was hard to separate Colin and Wayne this show, but as I seem to be doing more often than not, I am giving the edge to Colin for the amount of leverage he seemed to have over the whole show.
Worst Performer: Greg Proops. He just is now.
Best Game: Mixed Messages. I really thought it was gonna be LMAD, just from how much sexual tension was packed in there, but MM had so many more great moves by all three, and a really awesome flow and hook.
Worst Game: Scenes from a Hat was the most okay one here.

COMING UP NEXT: In a field of guestless shows, a random guest star episode. It’s a reprise of a S15 one, from the Gary taping.

Whose Watchdown is it Anyway: S16E12, or Thinking About Her Udders-Udders

Seasonal Code: S16E12
Production Number: 353
CW Seasonal Code: S16E03

We break from the remainder of the S15 shows for a bit and just start cranking out pure S16 material for a bit. This episode is another Gary guestless show, from his S15 taping.

Hollywood Director: Excited Scotsman Colin and his American wife Ryan are vacationing near Loch Ness, in Scotland, when suddenly the fearsome Loch Ness Monster, played by Wayne, emerges from the depths

Ryan: “Jacques, there’s nowhere for me to go to the bathroom around here.”
Colin: “…och, shut up.”
Some things I can always rely on

I really do like the dynamic between Ryan, who wants to stay in a hotel, and Colin, who’s the more animated character wanting to see the Loch.
Ryan: “Why did I ever agree to marry you?”
Colin: “BECAUSE YE CANNAE…”

We really went from 0 to 100 there..

Wayne enters with an equally-strong Scottish accent as a very aggressive Nessie.
Ryan: “he doesn’t seem as scary as I thought he would..”

Gary’s director character is a very hands-on, over-the-top southerner type. “THIS TAAHME, GIMME SOMETHIN’ DARK [motioning to Wayne] Not too dark..”
PFF
Wayne: “…well if that isn’t the pot…”
This breaks Gary AND Wayne

The film noir style…hey, it’s almost like a game of Narrate!

Colin, still scottish: “Her voice cut through my head like a knife goin’ through a melon…”
Almost as if it’d be really cool if they played Narrate on this version
Colin: “God, ah hated her.”
Ryan: “I can hear you, Jacques..”
Colin: ‘oh, sorry.”
PFF

Wayne, entering dramatically: “ROAR, I said” [takes drag]
…y’know Wayne woulda done alright in that game

Ryan: “…hello you big monster.”
Wayne: “hello sweetheart.”
oh, this is PERFECT. Of course they know each other.
Wayne: “have ya ever been with a monster?”
Ryan, motioning to Colin: “take a look…”
Gary, trying not to lose it: “C….UUUHUUUUHHUT”
Ryan, to Colin: “I didn’t mean that..”
Incredible

Jerry Springer style:
Ryan: “I’m pregnant with your baby, Jacques. At least I think it’s your baby.”
Colin, perfectly: “ah’m sleeping with mah-SELF.”
PFFF
Colin: “AND I’VE MADE MAH-SELF PREGNANT.”
As they start fighting, we CUT TO:

PFFF. Whenever someone randomly shows up someplace they weren’t before, that always works for me. The ‘cut to’ worked so well.

Great work by the audience in getting a full ‘JERRY! JERRY!’ chant as they argue. Props to the one guy standing up who got ’em going.

Gary: “NOW HOW BOUT A LIL…FIDDY SHAES’A GREY.”
Ryan: “…what?”
Gary: “FIDDY…[breaks]…SHADES…A’GREY.”
I love that. The accent got too thick, which is odd in a game about Scottish people
Gary: “…FIFTY.”
Colin: “oh, SHADES OF GREY.”
PFF. Same energy.
Also, I love Aisha’s audible ‘hyuk-hyuk’ laugh here

Colin, taking a different approach: “I’ve got my earrrrl grey. [smacks Ryan with it].”

The way Ryan yanks Colin up against his chest confuses the hell out of Colin:

Wayne, for the SECOND TIME THIS SERIES, enters a Hollywood Director scene tied up in a ball-gag. So here’s what I must assume. The Gary taping was first, then the Greg taping, then the Chip taping, which is why during the Ricki Lake game, Ryan made a comment that there’s a ball-gag in every show. THAT ALSO MEANS that Wayne hopping in during the Greg playing in E9 is a callback, unless this one came second and THIS is a callback.
Wayne, eventually: “MMMPPH.”
Ryan unzips him.
Wayne: “…ROAR.”
Ryan: [re-zips him]
BUZZ

An extremely strong director, possibly even stronger than the Greg one we just saw. Gary’s directing was a fun twist, and the southern accent had another layer of funny on everything, even with the accent madness and really great style work we already had. Like, we saw a lot of styles and we didn’t even need the musical ending, and all the styles felt needed. Just a really great Director without needing to be too big.

Aisha: “it was also made clear that no one on this stage had seen the movie 50 Shades of Grey..or ever had sex before in their lives…points to whatever women or men are suffering through a relationship with you four.”
I really do love Aisha on this show
Wayne: “haha, JOKE’S ON YOU, CAUSE I’M ALONE IN LIFE.”
Aisha: “if you ever seen someone to come over and take the ball out of your mouth, Ryan’s available.”
WELL WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT…

Sound Effects: In rural Texas, Ryan and Colin are two cops patrolling a livestock auction “cause those are typically hotbeds of criminal activity”; suddenly a gang of criminals, “WHO KNEW?” arrive to steal the prize animals

The scene begins with Maddy doing a nice chomp for Colin’s donut mime.
Colin: “…my donut’s really hard.”

Colin establishes they’re looking after chickens.
Ryan, realizing what he can do with this accent: “Must be FIDDY CHICKENS HERE..”

Colin: “I don’t know why but there’s always been something about cows.”
Maddy: “buck-MOO, uh…mooo..”
Colin: “Just their high-pitched, small moos…”
Maddy, going for a deeper register: “MOOOO.”
PFFF. That’ll do

Ryan suggests he use his megaphone, and Debbie, meekly and quietly, springs into action. Even in doing the ‘there’s something wrong with this megaphone’ look, Ryan’s hiding a smile.
Colin: “You know what’s so odd? A megaphone usually AMPLIFIES the voice.”
Colin’s just having fun screwing with these two

Ryan, of course, turns it around, and gets a louder ‘HELLOOOO’ from Debbie
Ryan: “I’ve got it set on flamboyant.”

Colin: “look, there’s someone over there, it looks like he’s gonna steal that goat.”
Maddy, with no other options: “…MAAHHH.”

Maddy does a really good job of doing a lassoing sound effect, but the second Colin releases, she adds in a ‘GYAAAH’, which throws both Colin and Ryan off-guard.

I love the moment where Ryan offers to shoot the guy so he won’t get away, Debbie gives him a shockingly admirable gunshot sound, and Ryan’s caught off-guard by THAT. “It sounded better than I thought it would!”

An alright, very manageable SFX. Not a ton of moments that really stood out from a lot of these games, sadly.

Newsflash: Ryan, Wayne and Gary in the studio, Colin in the field in front of zombies

My first laugh of this game was Colin turning around at a lunging zombie actor the audience has a particularly loud reaction to, and going ‘ALRIGHT. ALRIGHT.” Like calming him down will work.

Ryan: “well you’ve really been chasing this story, what have you been out there for, 28 days?”
That was a zombie movie reference that impressed me at the time, because Ryan likes to play up how many movies he’s never seen.

Colin: “I WILL CHASE THE END OF THE STORY-”
[another gruesome zombie appears behind Colin, and the audience reacts]
Colin: “TIL IT FIN-…COME ON!”
PFFF

Gary has a very savvy line about Colin having “a lot of time” to get out of there, as zombies aren’t especially fast.
Colin, who doesn’t get it: “…okay.”

Wayne: “now are some of the people in back of you actors? Because, from what I can understand, they all need headshots.”
10/10. Incredible. You can hear Ryan cackle at that one.
Colin: “yeah, a lot of them went to the Ryan Stiles school of acting..”
Ryan, perfectly: “I’m sorry, Colin, you’re breaking up.”
Colin: “……RYAN STILES SCHOOL OF AC-”
Ryan: “I HEARD YA.”
PFFF. You don’t get this kind of banter in Newsflash anymore. Between here and another S16 one, we are gonna return to that kind of attitude from Colin, which is welcome

Colin ends the round by genuinely telling the other three they gave nice clues. It’s him sitting down, checking the monitor and going ‘oh, look at that’, that has me concerned it may have been a ‘could you say more things on the way back?’ pickup.

Aisha: “you were able to guess that very difficult topic and also insult Ryan. FROM THE FIELD, no doubt.”
Colin: “yeah, it’s a win-win”

I like this Newsflash a lot. Not my favorite of the season, but very similar in tone and content to it. I also did like a lot of how this one went, and how Colin reacted against the footage.

Scenes from a Hat:

“Bad times to propose” makes me laugh, because when I ran my college’s improv club there was a whole running gag involving a SFAH topic ‘bad times to propose’ that has carried to this day.
Wayne, somberly with Colin: “Jonathan was a good man….but not good enough” [kneels]
PFFF

I love the ‘Ryan proposing while Colin’s giving birth’ one, just because of how confused Colin is going into it, and his “…can I think about it?” reply from the ground

“Characters that were rejected from Sesame Street”
Ryan, creepily: “who follows you around your neighborhood?…”
I love how he just looks right at Aisha, waiting for the buzz
Wayne: “…we get so dark…”

Gary cracks up just introducing Wayne as ‘Randy the racist’. Wayne does bring it home, doing a song that requires a rhyme with ‘bigger’, as the audience figures out where he’s going. Aisha buzzes repeatedly to stop this.
Wayne, subverting wholesomely: “ESPECIALLY….you.”

Not much to this SFAH, sort of came and went.

Greatest Hits: Songs of the Therapist

Colin: “hi, we’ll be right back to our documentary on lethal erections…Die Hard, in just a second.”
The CW cut bleeped ‘erections’, which is weird because they don’t always

Ryan and Colin do a very by the book ‘what’s a therapist’ intro that Ryan leans into the clicheness of.
Ryan, too cheery: “A THERAPIST? I’VE GOTTA GET ME ONE OF THOSE.”
Colin: “yeah, maybe an acting teacher, too..”

Colin notices that Ryan’s slowing down in getting to titling the reggae song, so instead of pointing out that he’s got nothing, he stops him: “say it again, is it REGGAE?”
PFFF. He’s actually helpful in this one.

Wayne’s opening verse is really good and flows well, I like him ending with “your problem is connected to that dude Oedipus”

The song is ‘Thinking About Mother’, but Gary turns the rhyme into “if you stop thinkin’ bout your mother’s breast”, which is an escalation from the makers of ‘everyt’ing is biggah, FBBBBBBBB’

Also, Gary and Wayne going off each other in harmony during the chorus is awesome, I really like their GHs because they have similar mindsets but also contrast both musically and vocally.

The joke here is the escalation of the ways the protagonist thinks of their mother, like twerkin’, or Gary’s ‘SEXY AND MOPPIN'”, which has Aisha confusedly looking towards the audience
And what’s great is that they keep going and hopping and working off each other, and it’s fantastic

Ryan, post-song: ‘boy, did I make a mistake with that title..”
PFFF.
Colin: “…’thinking about your mother-mother….thinking about her udders-udders.”
I love when they just touch back on what they just wrought.
Colin, for the second show in a row: “it’s just like a Rodgers and Hammerstein come to life…”

Ryan: “Motown is either Detroit or a theme part dedicated to the Three Stooges.”
PFFFF. Can you imagine?

Ryan does his ‘on top of the charts’ joke, but lands on ‘for NINE DECADES.”
Colin, not letting that go: “NINETY YEARS?”
Ryan: “NINE DECADES.”

This is a really great Motown number because both Wayne and Gary hear the title, You’re Just Nuts, and get the tone of the song, a girl group telling off someone who thinks everyone else is the problem, and it’s a really fun, pointed number that also succeeds as a Motown number. Almost the same orchestration as Motown Group.

I like the part where Gary even calls back the last song, and Wayne throws in a refrain of ‘UDDER-UDDER-UDDER-UDDER.”

Wayne, being Wayne, has to do a spoken word bit where he specifies that they’re not making fun of people with mental health issues, and that it’s important to address psychological needs, before going back into the refrain. Just covering his bases.

Strong GH, maybe not the best one of this season but some very nice moments. Most of what I love about this one stems from that reggae number, which is chaotic as I like these Wayne-Gary ones getting.

Overall: Y’ever had a sandwich where it’s clear that the bread is the best part? That’s this show. The intro game and the closing game were the highlights for me: Director had so many fleshed out style moments, and GH had some excellent Gary-Wayne energy. Everything else I can take or leave, from the beginnings of the trend of slightly-irate Colin in Newsflash to very disposable rounds of SFX and SFAH. A very alright, room tone show that at least had those bordering games to raise it a bit.

Show Winners: All four
Best Performer: Colin squeezes out a victory thanks to the middle portion of the program.
Worst Performer: I’m giving it to Wayne because it felt like in basically every game someone had the upper hand on him.
Best Game: Director. I adored this playing on so many levels.
Worst Game: Sound Effects honestly had the least amount to it, and feels like the second half was cut.

COMING UP NEXT: Right back to the Greg S15 taping to close things up there.

Whose Watchdown is it Anyway: S16E11, or It’s In the Shape of an Apple

Seasonal Code: S16E11
Production Number: 349
CW Seasonal Code: S15E19

We return to the Season 12 Gary taping that gave us episodes with Wil Wheaton and Chris Jericho for its first guestless episode. Sure to be some good material left in there

I often wonder if Ryan asks permission before he grabs things from the music table or if he just takes.

Let’s Make a Date: Gary must choose from

• Wayne – A series of Muppets turning evil
• Colin – Horny gorilla
• Ryan – Mosquito who takes on the characteristics of whoever he bites

Exactly three seconds into Wayne’s Kermit impression, he breaks. He just can’t believe he’s doing this.

It’s a simple enough quirk for the first round, but Wayne does commit to it.

I…It’s really that simple. It’s not a verbose quirk. It doesn’t need to be. It’s just two words, that’s all they need.

I do like Colin’s near-break due to his own stumbling before going into humping the stool.

The shot of Colin and Wayne flailing around together is extremely silly, complete with contrasting noises.

So Colin makes the mistake of tempting Ryan before he even starts:

And then once Ryan ends up sucking at Colin, we have this incredible progression:
I love Wayne’s reaction there. Not quite believing what he’s seeing.PFFF. They both thought of that move separately. Eventually they coordinate their smoking motions exactly. Aisha cackles at this.

Heheheheh.

The bulk of round two is cut, but we do get Colin making eyes at Aisha, which leads to, well…

I love this. Once Aisha tries to get away, the other two try to incorporate her as well. Like, there’s no running from this game. It’s like a defensive play.
Eventually:
[AUDIBLE YELPS FROM AISHA]
Unlike the last time someone tried this, Aisha’s wearing pants.
I love this shot so much. The drama of the quirk, and both Ryan and Gary transfixed. I also love the back end of it:
Poor Aisha. She’s horrified.
Eventually, after Colin politely puts her down:
Now THERE’S someone who knows where the hook is.

Unfortunately, all we get before the buzz is one more muppet voice from Wayne and Colin glomming onto Ryan again. So that’s two quirks we only really got initial observations from. I kinda wish they aired the rest of it.

Gary: “now Colin his interesting, he’s right at that cross between horny caveman AND gorilla..”

I also love that Gary gets the gist of Ryan’s exactly, and explains it even better than the card did.

Very strong LMAD, and with excellent comedic peaks from everybody. The rest of this show, I will be playing the game of ‘what could we have sacrificed to get an extra minute or so of this game?’. Because the edit did it dirty and cut out a lot of Wayne, Ryan and Gary’s highlights of round two. Not that the Colin moment wasn’t worth it, as it so was.

Props: Ryan and Gary vs. Colin and Wayne

Wayne does an extremely silly ‘squirting flower’ gag as the Joker, explains who he is, and gets Colin to go “yeah, I got it.”

Gary does a Williams sister gag, and Ryan brings the Venus on testosterone gag over from Mock the Week. Even Gary seems appalled by that.

Wayne: “…you are the worst Klansman ever.”
PFFF
Colin: “I’m claustrophobic!”
I like that move. Wayne appreciates it too

Ryan: “once that other witch gets here, we can start mixin’ shit.”
PFFF. A MACBETH REFERENCE? SURE. FANTASTIC.

Wayne does a ‘I make love to ghosts’ gag that doesn’t get the response he thinks it will.
Colin, lifeguarding: “well, if the spirit’s willing.”
HA. I love the little ‘and scene’ motion Wayne does

Ryan: “how much for the dick gauge?”
It was bound to happen eventually

Perfectly fine Props. It did seem like Colin was consistently getting Wayne’s over the line, though

Ryan, heading back to the seats: ‘that’s gonna be my porn name.”
Gary: “what, Dick Gauge?”

Aisha: “everybody gets points” [gets ready for next game]
Colin: “You’ve totally lost interest in this show..”
They can say that because she completely hasn’t

Whose Line: Ryan and Colin are Romeo and Juliet

Aisha, in divvying up lines for Colin and Ryan, admits she may have mixed up which ones were supposed to go to who.
Ryan: “who cares?”
They’re all going to the same place anyway

I really like the twist Ryan establishes at the beginning, that Romeo’s parents asked him to take Juliet out.
Colin: “I thought our parents were against our…co-mingling.”
Ryan: “that’s what they wanted you to think. They felt bad for you cause you can’t get a date.”
It feels like 1995-era Ryan just sprang back into frame.
Colin, being himself: “my god you’re charming.”

It helps that both of them know the play well. Colin even names the guy Juliet should be seeing, “Paris the prince”, exactly.

Colin describes how Paris climbed up into his window “and whispered as I was sleeping, ‘dyou wanna see my rash?”
PFFF. That makes for a very funny visual
Ryan: “and you found that attractive, did you?”
Colin: “…it’s in the shape…of an APPLE.”
He can just make any line funny with that kind of delivery.

Ryan: “I can’t sleep at night, think of your face and not think ‘if only I had a penis.”
…so MAYBE IT DID MATTER WHO GOT THEM.
Colin, perfectly: “you were doing so well in that swordfight.”
Thank you for not doing something more morbid here

I also really like the back-and-forth, and how natural it is. Ryan doesn’t wanna talk about this. “I still HAVE a penis, I just don’t WEAR it.”
Colin: “It’s alright, I don’t care-”
Ryan: “I CARE. IT’S IMPORTANT TO ME.”
This feels so natural, and is progressing so well.
Ryan: “I didn’t miss it til it was gone.”
Colin, as if this is the only response: “…isn’t that true of most things?”

Ryan: “you do have a way of putting things.”
Colin: “I do, because I’m….[he has nothing]…a frisky fourteen year old.”
THAT’S A CHOICE
Ryan: “well, you’ve just made this incredibly creepy..”
Colin, confused as to why Ryan didn’t remember this: “oh, REALLY MR. OLD MAN ROMEO.”
And then he…makes this alright by making him only 2 years older.

Colin: “well let me tell you something, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart….’just shut your big fat mouth.”
That works really damn well.

I got a laugh out of Ryan taking something out of a cabinet, raising it higher, and going “I CAN STILL KEEP IT UP.” It’s such a silly joke. And a great callback to something they knew worked in this scene.
Colin: “WHY ARE YOU KEEPING IT AT MY HOUSE?”
PFFFFF. I love that gift. THIS ISN’T EVEN RYAN’S HOUSE.
Ryan: “WHERE ELSE AM I GONNA PUT IT?”
Colin: “WELL I DON’T NEED IT IN MY DRAWERS.”
Ryan, as if the innuendo came from the gods: “OHHH DON’T YOU?”
Jesus Christ.

Ryan is convinced Colin’s bluffing, “because all you mutter to yourself as you sleep is ‘get down and bark like a dog.”
The serendipity in this game…

A really, REALLY good Whose Line, possibly one of the strongest ones in years. The escalation of the ‘dick in a jar’ gag to leaving it around other people’s houses is one of the funniest payoffs they’ve had in a Whose Line since the Drew version. The Colin-Ryan banter felt like this aired during S2 of the ABC run, it felt that classic.

Aisha does take Ryan to task for assuming Romeo was 56
Ryan: “it’s Romero, another guy that lives down the street…they’ve got a pizza place and everything..”

Scenes from a Hat:

“Things you can say about a gas station that you can’t say about your partner.”
Gary: “man, this was cheaper a week ago..”
Ryan: “honey, we’re in Oregon, someone else is gonna have to stick it in.”
Today I learned that Oregon didn’t let people pump their own gas til this year.

“Things you would not see in a food commercial.”
I love how well Wayne and Colin know each other.
Wayne: “honey, try this!”
Colin: [vomits]
Wayne: “RIGHT??”
Gary repeats ‘RIGHT??’ to Wayne as he gets back

Ryan: “COME ON DOWN TO ANGELO’S [continues peeing]”
This is always gonna work

Wayne has a very drawn out ‘yelling matriarch at Christmas one’ that doesn’t work til the end
Colin: “YOU’RE NOT MY MOTHER.”
Wayne: “Oh, I’m GON’ be.”
Colin:

PFFF. Everybody starts to think about it.

“Bad names for shampoo”
Ryan: “hey Jerry?”
Colin, offstage: “yeah!”
Ryan: “you mind if I use a little of your Trump?”
of course
and he waits for the response:

Colin: “…give it a tryyy..”

I loved this the first time I saw it. It’s always funny for people to yell things from the side, but just hearing that line, with the delivery, is hysterical. Ryan repeats it, heading back. They’re just amused by it.

Colin: “…’sham-POO?'”
I love his confusion at the concept of this.
An incredible thing happens- WAYNE comes on to lifeguard COLIN: “We’ve replaced Colin’s shampoo with ‘SHAM-POO’. Watch what happens.”
Colin, after Wayne leaves, takes some: “…….IT’S POO.”
It’s that simple.
Wayne, reentering, laughing: “…yeah.”
It’s almost like it transcended normal humor and became almost an avant-garde anti-humor thing. Honestly iconic.

“What Aisha is thinking right now.”
Colin: “man, he picked me up, I’m 350 pounds…thank god for Spanx.”

Very, very good SFAH, as packed as a round of this should be. Interestingly, not a ton of Gary, but ‘give it a try’ is just as funny as I remembered.

Greatest Hits: Songs of the Firefighter

Ryan: “do you smell somethin’ burnin’?”
And he just…sniffs for a good 10 seconds.
Colin, finally: “I don’t have the nose for it..”
OF COURSE

There’s some usual banter here, and Ryan blubbering on about the difference between 60s girl groups and groups of women in their 60s.
Colin, perfectly: “HOW MANY MORE FUN FACTS CAN WE GET?”

Ryan does pick a very funny title for this one, “bring out the hose.”

Laura and Linda do a backing that’s very similar to You Can’t Hurry Love, and Wayne’s first verse is really well-sung against it

Wayne and Gary even do a good rendition of the dance break in the song to do a miming refrain.

This is a pretty standard number for both of them, but thanks to Wayne it does include the line “a bitch gotta drop and roll.”
Ryan even points that out after the number.
Colin: “First popularized by Oscar Hammerstein in the original Sound of Music.”
[LOUD WAYNE LAUGHING FROM OFF CAMERA]

Ryan: “I love my Calypso music, made famous by the great crooner Jacques Cousteau.”
PFFFF
Colin: ‘that was actually his ship.”
Ryan: “WHATEVER.”

The eventual Calypso number, Catch the Baby, is full of very silly lyrics, like Gary adding “catch it all, catch the right, catch the left, NOT AT NIGHT.”

They just get into a nice rhythm
Wayne: “IF THERE’S A WOMAN UP ON THE FIFTH FLOOR, ya gotta catch the baby”
Gary: “IF THERE’S A WOMAN THAT YA NEVER SEEN BEFORE, ya gotta catch the baby”

Wayne sort of has a conclusive lyric after that, so Laura and Linda think that means the song’s over. BUT GARY’S IN MID-LINE. So he hears the music cut out as he’s going into a new lyric, and just:

Which is such a great move

Ryan: “that is the only cut here that is on an 8-track, so it picks up in a second…”
Wayne motions for Laura and Linda to continue, and they do, so they go right in with ‘….BABY”

I will say that finishing the song, Laura and Linda are a little clumsier on keeping time, but it does stick the landing before Wayne starts cracking up.

Good GH. Catch the Baby was worth it, even if this did feel like ‘oh, it’s another GH playing’ for most of it.

Overall: A bit of tonal whiplash, as we had two excellent games that I’m glad aired, a game I wish had gone on for longer. I think this is a good show, and had a lot of classic energy that it could wield whenever it wanted to, but diluting the energy with Props and 3/4ths of a pretty standard GH wasn’t how I’d go about things. At least we have Whose Line, LMAD and SFAH, all of which really impressed me and cracked me up. There is great work in this show, and there are nice takeaways, but I wish it was a bit more consistent.

Show Winners: Ryan and Wayne
Best Performer: Colin Mochrie. The best moves tonight belonged to him.
Worst Performer: Gary, as there sadly wasn’t a ton for him to do this show.
Best Game: Whose Line felt the most fleshed-out, and had the most great improv moves.
Worst Game: Props won the ‘which game should have been cut to get the rest of LMAD’ game.
Should It Have Aired in Season 12?: I’d honestly say yes, as a lot of these games are right up there with the rest of that season, and spruce up the quality of this taping’s material.

COMING UP NEXT: If you can believe it, another consecutive Gary guestless show, but this one comes from the S15 tapings.

Whose Watchdown is it Anyway: S16E10, or My Father Was a Chimp

Seasonal Code: S16E10
Production Number: 348
CW Seasonal Code: S15E18

We finally get to the second guest star from Chip Esten’s taping, and this one’s a throwback to some of the bookings from the Drew series. Ricki Lake was best known for a long-running talk show in the same vein as Jenny Jones and Jerry Springer, dealing with domestic issues and such. She was also the original Tracy Turnblad in John Waters’ Hairspray, and bopped around Waters’ rep company for a few years. And she was on the first season of Masked Singer, which was airing at the time of the 2019 tapings. Interesting to note that she wore a hat for this taping because the years of, well, hairspray and product have damaged her hair irreparably, and so she had a less-than-appealing hairline when this taped, hence the decision to wear a hat the whole time. Look, with Colin and Wayne on this show, they would have understood.

Dating App: Chip must choose from

• Wayne – Teething baby biting on unusual things
• Colin – Bird looking for the perfect place to lay her egg
• Ryan – Colin’s trashy ex-wife, trying to make him jealous

Colin, reading card: [sighs]
Wayne: “hee-hee-hee-hee…”

I remember being somewhat disappointed that, after years of using a different character voice for every one of his LMAD appearances on the Drew version, Chip uses his own voice for this one. Perhaps it’s fitting for what, ultimately, is his final LMAD playing.

And so,

Almost immediately.

I like this Wayne quirk because this is something that would usually be given to Colin or Ryan, and he’s doing really well with it. I love his reaction when he realizes what else he can bite:

A cousin of the close-up of Mike McShane’s tongue.

I do like Wayne crying and a very game Aisha bringing him in for a hug.
Wayne, however, leaning down: “HUNGRY”
Aisha: “OH NO”
PFFF

Colin’s is the sort of quirk we’ve seen before, however this is still funny:

Ryan: “I like a man with a beard, little hair…little hair ANYWHERE quite frankly…”
I actually really like Ryan’s quirk, because it’s dialogue based where the others aren’t, and it’s more about needling the others. He goes over to Wayne and goes “oh, here’s a man who KNOWS how to wear his head…”

Then Ryan notices someone in the audience, and goes over

“Hi baybeh.”
This is such a good gag. The audience member directly above Ryan is completely losing it. I’ll come back to her in a second, there’s an interesting point I want to make. She also does a little ‘heart hands’ motion, yes-anding this union.
Ryan: “NOW THERE’S A REAL AMERICAN MAN. NOT SOME SISSY CANADIAN BO-AY.”

Ryan, back at the stool, goes right into Colin and yells ‘EW’. Colin, in response, flaps right up against him. At least this is feeling fresh.
Then Wayne gets in on it:

At least this gives us a silly, collaborative ending.

Chip gets Wayne right but stumbles a bit. Ryan even goes “you got me nervous there with the ‘extremely hung baby’.”
THAT WAS LAST SHOW

Chip guesses Ryan was ‘Vivien Leigh in Streetcar Named Desire’. Aisha tells him he’s being too classy. It reminds me how fun Chip was as a guesser in this game.

Solid enough LMAD. I think Wayne and Colin’s were a bit too ‘been there done that’ for this game, though they at least did silly things with them. Ryan at least had a different, fresh quirk but I wish there’d been more interplay.

Now, to the point I made earlier. Remember back in S5 of the Drew version where Ryan did a Weird Newscasters quirk where he borrowed a jacket from someone in the front row? That someone was Elyse, who wrote episode reviews and taping reports, and was a central member of the early 2000s whoser movement, where the emphasis was less about special interests and more about wanting to fuck the castmembers [though I’m not gonna lie and say there’s none of that in the current whoser groups]. Why do I bring this up? Because this episode, Ryan goes into the audience and in almost exactly the same section, a row or so back, is another Whoser. That cracking up girl I referred to earlier. That’s a colleague of mine from the WatchWLIIATonight group who has chosen to remain anonymous but, and let’s make this absolutely clear, isn’t the one from Greece. I just think it’s wild that there’s a parallel between Elyse in 2001 and her in 2019.
What I also find funny is that during the 2001 LA tapings, there was a playing of Sound Effects where Elyse actually got to play Sound Effects, so she got an audience cameo and a audience participation game out of it. Why do I bring that up? Uh…no reason.

Aisha: “VIVIEN LEIGH, A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF, nah just a slutty lady tryin to get laid, that’s all..”
I love Aisha

Duet: Chip, Wayne and Ricki sing a 60s girl group song about ‘whips and whatnot’

Wayne asks the audience for something that would be awkward dinner conversation
Some guy: “A whip under the bed!”

PFFFFF
Wayne: “okay, so whips and whatnot.”
Chip cracks up at this way of phrasing it
Wayne: ‘that’s awkward conversation-”
Ricki: “Not in my home.”
WAYNE, REMEMBER, SHE’S WORKED WITH JOHN WATERS.

I love that Laura and Linda go into a backing that’s very similar to ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’ by the Shirelles, and Wayne matches that with an opening lyric that’s very close to the beginning of that song. It’s also very funny that a song about BDSM is gonna sound like Will You Love Me Tomorrow.

Wayne: “I’ll take you into the bedroom…and press the…secret button…
and then the door will open, and then I’ll really show you something.”
RICKI:

Oh Jesus she’s game. And then Wayne starts miming whipping her.

I think the fundamental problem with this number is that the lyrics are a lot cooler when Wayne sings them vs. with Chip does [“you be the lion, and I’ll be your tamer”]. Mostly because this is 2019, God Bless America era Chip rather than the fun, fresh kid from ABC.

That said, their harmony in the chorus is pretty great as a Motown hook.
I also like how Wayne cheekily rhymes ‘whip this love’ with “I slap you with this glove.” Very silly move.

Wayne: “Tonight…I’ll touch your bod,”
Ricki: “You promise?”
Wayne: “yes..”
PFF

I also like Wayne demonstrating the device, adding “and no batteries needed.”
I did laugh hard at Chip and Wayne using the sound of the vibrating device as the refrain. Ricki seems to enjoy it as well. Also, you can see Colin facepalming in the back.
Chip: ‘1,2,3, whip, now you both strip.”
How can something be both silly and vulgar at the same time?

Wayne: “tonight, myself, Chip, and you, are gonna do things that have only been dreamt about on other networks.”
Perfect line.

And Wayne brings us out by singing with a gag in his mouth. Second show in a row.
And so we bring this song home with a refrain, by Chip, of “time to bring out the gimp”, as Wayne tries to sing melodically while tied up. Ricki’s been losing it pretty much this whole time.
What also gets Ricki is Wayne unzipping for a split second and zipping back up, and having the ability to control his voice to make this work.

An extremely silly Duet that was perfectly fine with going blue, as was Ricki. I don’t think this was a very substantial Duet, as a lot of the laughs came from the act of ‘going there’ vs. in which ways they were going there, but I was amused, as I think we all were.

The thing that I really like about this Duet is that it’s the perfect use of Ricki Lake. If you know anything about John Waters films, it’s that he uses the aesthetic of 60s or 50s cleanliness as pastiche, and to contrast from the at-times shocking subversive material he’s really aiming for. Not just stuff like Hairspray and Cry Baby, but even something like Polyester, which sends up the ideal 50s romance with pure queerness and camp, or Serial Mom, which sends up the traditional 50s picket fence nuclear family dream by adding knives. So it’s absolutely perfect that not only did they choose to do a Motown number, which directly references some of the music Hairspray was paying tribute to, but making it the dirtiest goddamned thing ever. It is the greatest compliment I can think of when I say that John Waters would have been very happy with this Duet. Perhaps it wasn’t campy enough, but the juxtaposition of BDSM atop the traditional 60s Motown love song would have done it for him. It certainly did for Ricki.

This is the first time since Rachel Bloom that the show has actually used the guest to make a subversion of the genre and befit the guest’s own sensibilities.

Ryan: ‘there has been a ball-gag in EVERY SINGLE SHOW.”
I have to do the math, but I think he means that there was one at the Greg taping, which I *think* was before this one. Possibly others during this taping stretch. If that’s the case, I think it’s incredible to put these two back to back, so we get it too.

I like Aisha’s PSA: “just make sure that you have a safety word, and that you can SAY it..”
Chip, chuckling, demonstrates the muffled cries of a safe word.
Aisha, even funnier: “HUUURHHH!! HURRRHHHH!!”
PFFFF

Whose Line: Colin is Batman and Wayne is Robin; they are having an argument

A rare round of Whose Line without Ryan. This raised eyebrows around the fandom when it came out.

Colin, with a very good opening line: “when you’re done with the toilet paper in the bat-room, REPLACE IT.”
Lol…the bat-room…

I do like the extra perspective Wayne adds to this scene. Colin expresses he needs someone who has his back.
Wayne: “You put me in FRONT! I’m a TARGET! I’ve got on yellow and leggings and a mask, I look like a sexy-ass parakeet.”
Colin: “There’s nothing wrong with that! Sexy-ass parakeet used to keep the streets clean in 1941.”
Good move by Colin. Of course there’s a superhero for that.
Colin: “AND REMEMBER HIS MOTTO: ‘MY FATHER WAS A CHIMP.”
PFFFF. That’s amazing because it makes the previous information even funnier. A superhero named Sexy-Ass Parakeet whose father was a chimp. I love this game.

Wayne: “That’s why I’ve started reading this self-help book. It’s entitled…’Screw This, I’m Going to Albuquerque.”
Ah yes, Bryan Cranston wrote the foreword.

I also really like Wayne owning this plan, saying “I am taking the Bugs Bunny route and I am going to Albuquerque.” You don’t get to see Wayne do dialogue-based improv like this, and I do like the sensibilities I’m seeing here. Honestly, it makes you wish he did it more, but I think he knows his strengths are physical stuff and musical stuff. I do like that he chose to play this one, to show even more range.

Colin has a great move to get the upper hand back after Wayne starts packing away all his stuff. Colin starts taking it back, saying “first of all, I PAID for all of this.” After all, he’s still Bruce Wayne.

Wayne: “You’d better get used to the idea, or as we used to say in my parents’ home country of…Los Angeles..”

Now COLIN’s barely hanging on.
Wayne: “…kiss me like you mean it.”
PFFF
Wayne just…removes his glasses and offers up the possibility.
Colin takes like 10 seconds to let this marinate. Before going “…there’s so many things wrong with that, Robin…

Colin, ending the scene warmly: ‘you pick up that phone, I’ll answer it and say ‘if you’re nice I’ll let you touch it.”
And then Colin winks and…if he’s gonna end with a line like that,

Yeah, he might as well. Even Colin admits when he gets back, “just had to.”

Wayne: “we’ve worked together for so long that it’s…UNFLINCHING when we kiss. It’s like ‘oh, it’s Tuesday…’

A very strong Whose Line. I really liked the Wayne-Colin combo here, and they had moments of throwing each other. Unlike last show, this had a very natural scene arc that stuck the landing. I wish we could see this combo a bit more.

Themed Restaurant: Chip and Ricki are a couple enjoying a romantic meal at an Olympic themed restaurant- Wayne, Ryan and Colin are waiters

Extremely silly opening gag, Ryan, Colin and Wayne entering as synchronized swimmers as Chip and Ricki converse. I will say that right off the bat, Ricki’s more amused by the goings-on behind her than focused on keeping the game going, but her improv skills aren’t exactly being tested anyhow.

Wayne skates in and begins to greet Chip and Ricki. Suddenly, Ryan, playing someone hired by Jeff Gillooly, stabs Wayne in the leg, and Wayne, a la Nancy Kerrigan, wails ‘WHYYY? WHYYYY?’ Remember this exclamation, as we’re going to need to come back to it in about 7 or so shows.
Wayne: “WHYYYYY don’t you enjoy yourselves?”
What a great gag, btw.

Colin: “I just noticed that you were eating your bread very quickly…can you just pee into these cups?”
Ricki loves this one. “You go first.”
Chip: “..do I START??”

Wayne doing a gymnastics routine over Ricki’s chair is more an impressive feat than a funny one, but Ricki loves it, as she has most of this scene.

I love this final image:

Wayne paying tribute to the 1968 ceremony there.

Some good gags. Not much of a scene, though. Ricki didn’t seem to be much of an active participant in the improvisation, and Chip could only do so much with that.

Wayne mentions that Colin joined Wayne in the black power salute at the end. Colin, of course, nods. “Every group needs an old white man to lead the way.”
Wayne, who’s seen Straight Outta Compton: ‘that’s how NWA got started..”
I do like that line as a summation of Colin’s politics and activism. Colin’s a straight white man and he’s done so much for marginalized communities.

Helping Hands: Farmer Ryan, hands by Colin, has prepared a welcome meal for his fiancee Ricki and is explaining what her new life on the farm will be like

Ricki, even in costume, still wears the hat. I get why, I’m not disputing why, it just comes off a bit as the sign of a performer who doesn’t wanna get more than her ankles wet. I’ll reassess that after this scene though.

Ricki first of all has a great move in explaining “I’m so glad we met on FarmersOnly dot com”, which does all the expository work, and explains why Ryan has an accent and Ricki doesn’t. So maybe she does know a thing or two about improv.
Ryan, however: “who would think there’d be a site like that? I’d just been looking in the woods!”
PFFF. That is a great line

Ryan is able to get both laughs and ‘awws’ in toasting “to the lady of the farm…who will never do me any harm.” I think Ryan’s better off making his character a wholesome sweetie of a southerner rather than somebody mean and dumb.
Ryan: “we gather the crops, we sow the seeds, now that it’s legal, we’ll grow some weed.”
Did Greg ghostwrite that?

Ryan, downing some lemonade: “…that’s TART!”
What, did you want more water with your citrus?

There’s a good bit of this where Ryan’s just charming Ricki with corn puns, and it’s extremely sweet, even if it’s more conceptually funny than line-by-line funny.

Ultimately,

Perfect
Ryan, of course: “wow, that tastes like it’s been sitting around a studio for HOURS…AT ONE TIME, THAT WAS HOT.”

Ryan, with most of a chicken: “I like the butt part.”

And then he goofs around and acts like he’s trying out ventriloquism. I think he knows he’s got Ricki in the palm of his hand and is just having fun. Ricki doubles over, sure enough.

There’s a preprepared glove that’s supposed to demonstrate how to milk a cow. Unfortunately, Colin knows how to squirt this upward and hit Ryan in the face with the milk. And this still catches him off guard. “Well, silly me, that’d be a cow laying on its BACK, now wouldn’t it.”

I do notice that in the middle of Ryan insisting that Ricki have a giant slice of pie, a little non-character “I’m soarry” pops out.

Ryan, getting Colin’s plan midway through: “And I’m gonna have a big piece-no, apparently I’m just gonna eat it out of the dish…”

This is a pretty standard climax, Ryan yelling at Ricki to get messy with the pie as he has [“YOU’RE EATIN’ THAT LIKE A CITY GIRL”], but I think just how hard Ricki’s laughing, and how much Ryan’s trying to use this as a hook, adds to it.

Ricki keeps trying to get out of it. “How ’bout I feed it to you?”
Ryan: “HOW BOUT I FEED IT TO YOOOU?”
I love this. You signed up to do an improv show, you’re gonna yes-and if you like it or not.

This ends up with Ryan mixing the pie with the chicken as the audience, and Wayne and Aisha, squirms. What did make me laugh is Colin raising the concoction towards Ryan, and Ryan pleading “OH, THAT AIN’T FER ME!!!”

Ryan, slamming the pie down: “I’m sorry, I just flicked a little cherry on ya there.”
Ricki: “It’s okay…you popped MY cherry.”
RYAN:

AFTER AN ENTIRE GAME OF RYAN THROWING RICKI, RYAN FINDS HIMSELF THROWN. What an incredible ending to this.

Even before Aisha buzzes, Ryan just goes “Oh, I’m so sorry, Ricki.” And obviously she’s game and fine with it, but Ryan knew she was reaching the limits of her comfort zone, and felt bad, but…dammit she got there in the end.

I really liked this Helping Hands. It had some basic beats but the Ricki-Ryan dynamic, where Ryan spent the whole game cracking her up and trying to pull her out of her comfort zone, only for Ricki to floor Ryan at the very end, was so good. This had some really fun moments, and Ricki did alright for herself in between trying to get out of the carnage. Not perfect, but a very fun HH round.

Overall: I didn’t think much of this one when it was initially on iView, but I’ve given it enough time to sink into my heart and I like it a lot better. I’m ignoring a lot of obvious flaws, like Ricki’s improv limitations, Chip’s diminishing returns, the lulls of sameness in LMAD and HH, and most of Themed Restaurant, but something about Ricki Lake’s effect on this show really turned a middle of the pack effort into a surprisingly fun show. Duet and Helping Hands are very fun guest games with great, subversive hooks. HH doesn’t always work because of good improv, but Ryan yanking Ricki away from her trepidations throughout the game is still funny enough. I also really like Whose Line, as it’s a really interesting change-up from the usual dynamic with the addition of Wayne, and I think the second half of LMAD is a nice sneaker-upper for Ryan. It’s a show that I like even if I know there are problems with it, and I may not think of it this highly on another watch. It’s a lot like Ryan in Helping Hands: undeniably sweet, even if there’s something clearly amiss.

Show Winner: Wayne
Best Performer: Wayne Brady. His strong work stood out throughout the middle of the show, and especially in games like Duet and Whose Line.
Worst Performer: Chip had the least amount to do, and rose to the occasion less consistently.
Best Game: Helping Hands I enjoyed the most, though I should be clear that between that, Duet and Whose Line, there was some competition.
Worst Game: Themed Restaurant didn’t work as a scene
Guest Star Rating: 8/10. Ricki was game, and her genrefucking history led to some nice subversions of clean-cut setups in Duet and Helping Hands. She wasn’t much of an improviser, and shied away from big in-scene risks, but she did add a lot to this show.

COMING UP NEXT: Back to season 12 for a guestless Gary show.

Whose Watchdown is it Anyway: S16E09, or I Drink Plasma

Seasonal Code: S16E09
Production Number: 347
CW Seasonal Code: S15E17

The remainder of the S15 shows keep on rolling, with a Greg guestless show from the S15 tapings. We’re gonna see basically everything from this taping soon enough, and this is the fourth of five.

Hollywood Director: In a luxury hotel room, hunky CIA agent Ryan is seducing female enemy spy Colin when suddenly, metal-limbed villain Wayne smashes his way in

There’s some stumbles in the first bit of this, but the hook of the actual scene is, well, the sexual tension between Ryan and Colin. It’s permeated by Ryan, after doing just enough of it, motioning for Wayne to enter.
Ryan, cracking: ‘someone’s at the door..[trying to sell it] HOW DARE YOU COME IN SO SOON!”
I love Ryan

As the CW is prone to, a lot of Greg is cut. We do get him suggesting they all do celebrity impressions, which leads to this reaction:

Sure enough, Ryan goes with John Wayne, which gets recognition applause. GOOD CROWD.
Colin: [does mime]
Ryan:

What’s great is these two have worked together for so long that Ryan KNOWS Colin’s doing Marcel Marceau, and breaks even then.

Greg does thank Wayne, who did a McConaughey, ‘for coming in as a celebrity who’s still alive.”

Greg, iconically: “got it, it just came all over me like a wave, KAZOOCHAS.”
I know the WL fandom has picked up ‘kazoochas’ but they’re just walking right past ‘came all over me like a wave’. How did that make air??

Almost immediately once Greg casts them as catwalk models:

Perfect.
This style is actually really damn good, and feels the most similar to the ABC version because they’re just doing goofy things while still doing the same scene.

Greg is also a decent enough director: “You’re sadists and masochists, you choose. Go.”

Ryan, after some expected nipple pinching, decides to challenge COLIN for once on this show:

Colin: “YES!”

And the two just stay here for a bit. They’ve been doing this for 30 years, this isn’t new.

I also really like Wayne hopping in bound and gagged, Ryan removing the gag and Wayne saying his intro line, “knock knock.” This feels like a more natural progression of the initial scene than the usual CW playings.
Ryan, slapping Wayne’s ass: “WHO’S THERE??”
BUZZ

I liked this Director playing a lot. It felt classic, and it was less about gimmicks and pandering and more about improv translations, and I liked that a lot. I also liked Greg’s approach to directing.

Even funnier is that Aisha mentions Colin’s Marcel Marceau impression.
Colin: “uh, I was doing Mike Pence.”

Scenes, OOH, from a Hat:

“Unlikely Lines from Romance Novels”
Colin, miming: “I’m the vice president.”
PFFF

Wayne turns an easy weave joke into a ‘how to make love to Aisha’ cover reveal. I didn’t laugh at that as much as I laughed at Ryan asking to borrow that book. Much more respectful.

Aisha has a rebuttal about Wayne being ‘as bald below as he was above’
Wayne, saving face: “yes, the carpet did match the drapes, because he was very hygienic, as well as very aerodynamic.”

I think the best one of these is Colin, after all these clapbacks, rushing through the shelves and going ‘WHO DO YOU HAVE TO SCREW TO GET IN A BOOK?”

Ryan, as he’s been left out: “Ryan Stiles romance novel, oh it’s a POP-UP..”

I love him practicing opening and closing it.
Aisha: “Ryan Stiles pop-up…oh, IT’S A POP….oohhhh…”
Ryan: “MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY TALKING TO THE BOOK NICELY!”
PFFFF

“Unlikely opening lines of a sermon”
Ryan, of course: “If you’ll turn to page 23 of your OHHHH” [looks up again]
That’s a really funny visual.

“Things you shouldn’t do to try and impress your date.”
Ryan: [casually opens book]
IT JUST WORKS
I also love Aisha coming over and bringing the rest of the dick back into the book, which is a silly choice

Wayne: “I’m quite well-read. Have you read the new Ryan Stiles book?”
I also love him opening it and it hitting him in the face.

“Things guaranteed to kill the mood in the bedroom.”
Greg, with Ryan: “…oh, is that the Ryan Stiles pop-up book?”
Ryan, perfectly: “No, that’s Ryan Stiles.”

A glorious game filled with wonderful dick jokes. Not enough Greg, but the energy of the other three, especially Ryan and Wayne quarreling with Aisha, made up for it

Whose Line: Snow White, Colin, has been woken with a kiss from a gallant prince, Ryan

The scene begins with Ryan kissing Colin, and Colin, horrified, going “BEST TWO OUT OF THREE” and falling back asleep again. This has been an excellent show for the Ryan-Colin combo.

Ryan: “Look, I’m not in love with you, but I want you to remember one thing: ‘can I have your sister’s phone number?”
I love the moment that Colin tells Ryan her sister’s ‘going out with Peter Peter’, Ryan initially doesn’t follow, is confused and chuckles, then realizes what he means and goes “ohhkay…” Like a Fred Willard response.

What’s interesting about this one is that they have the conflict solved at the beginning, and have to figure out ways of keeping the scene going. Ryan gives Colin a gift, thinking something can spring from there, and Colin takes it, eats it, doesn’t say what it is, and continues. Just as a way of saying Ryan can do better than that.

Colin: “every day I wake up, look into the magic mirror and say ‘say that again and I’ll cut you.” I like this because Colin leads to this line saying he doesn’t need a prince and is working on being more self-reliant.

Ryan points out Colin’s tramp stamp for his next line. I like Colin’s rationalization, ‘I got drunk and Happy went a bit overboard.”

Colin’s move here is realizing that to keep the scene going and advance the next line, Ryan has to look at his ass. Colin turns to him and goes “I know you don’t love me, but at least RESPECT me.”
Ryan: “I just wanna see your tattoo..”
Colin: “NO, YOU SAID ‘BEND OVER SO I CAN READ YOUR ASS.”

The eventual line above Colin’s ass is worth it: “get out, it’s gonna blow.”

Colin finishes by sharing the advice of treating everyone the same, “just look ’em straight in the eye and say ‘that’s one of the smallest one of them I’ve ever seen.”
Ryan, as if there was any other option:

PERFECT

A good enough scene. You can tell they didn’t know where to take the scene, and that they were using a lot of their usual methods of getting lines out, but the little interplay moments and Ryan-Colin dynamic moments made it worthwhile.

Props: Ryan and Greg vs. Colin and Wayne

Colin has a silly elephant one.
Wayne: “honey, take a picture with me and the elephant!”
Colin:

PFFFF

Greg: “Do you seek asylum?”
Ryan: “…si.”

Aisha motions for him to turn it around.
Ryan, doing this: “SI.”
I love Greg’s ‘OH NOW I GET IT’ reaction here

Wayne: ‘…they censor everything on this network…”

There are some easy ones, but a lot of them, especially on Colin and Wayne’s side, work because of how big the props are, like the ‘tin man’s nipples’ one, and the very silly ‘drinking bird’ one.

Colin: “these Ryan Stiles books just aren’t moving…”
I love that they keep finding natural ways to include this gag

We end on a combined tactic that proves they were at least having fun this playing:

A fun Props. Not perfect, Ryan and Greg stuck to a lot of standbys, but very fun energy.

Aisha: “the props get bigger and bigger on this show.”
Ryan: ‘that’s what she said…”
Aisha: “I wasn’t talking to you.”
Wayne, again perfectly: “Have you read his book?”

Greatest Hits: Songs of the Motel

This is a continuation of the one Ryan sat out of.

Greg cracks up in announcing this is a Snoop Dogg and Lil Wayne number
Colin: “When will he ever be Big Wayne?”
cut to Wayne:

I kinda love that. ‘I’unno..’

Greg naming the song ‘Room 237’ is a subtle Shining reference that not enough people are gonna get. I did, though.

Wayne’s Snoop impression is alright, he gets the cadence more than the vocals, same with the Lil Wayne. I did like the line “take off my pants, I’m a Lil Wayne Brady, I didn’t do this voice cause SHE MADE ME.” It’s just meta enough, and it lets him do a rap song without making it a pure impression showcase, which…I do not know how I feel about this move.

I like Wayne clumsily ending it “237, I hope that was the right number…”
Yeah…he didn’t feel too comfortable on this one, and it showed.

Colin: “What I like about this CD set is that it has songs from MY generation. As you know, I’m 121 years old..”
At least he’s leaning into it.
Greg: “you don’t look a day over 97.”
Colin: “…I drink…plasma.”
PFFF. What a strange rationalization. Wayne and Ryan have audible reactions.

I do love Greg’s unadulterated amusement at Colin bringing up Cab Calloway. “THE BANDLEADER FROM THE COTTON CLUB IN 1929?” He’s not believing the CW would have Wayne do something this old.
Colin: ‘so sit back and enjoy this Cab Calloway-I’VE GIVEN YOU ALL ENOUGH TIME TO GOOGLE IT.”
Enough of the audience has seen The Blues Brothers, you’ll be fine
Greg, still very amused: “were you drinking some bootlegged hooch when you were watching this?”
Colin: “I WAS!”
This isn’t as good of a Greg-Colin showcase as last GH, but moments like these where they can play off each other are great.
Colin: “WOODROW WILSON? HE’S MY MAN!”
PFFFF. Colin is just going long with this ‘Colin’s old’ gag and not looking back, and I love it.

Colin finally gets to the song title: “…What’s that stain on the lampshade?”
WE NOW CUT TO WAYNE:

He can’t help it.

Wayne, of course, does a fantastic 20s Jazz voice, and does a very good recreation of how unstoppable and energetic Calloway was in this era. This is a great testament to Wayne’s abilities, that he can spin a very funny song that has sensical lyrics and great musicality out of a prompt involving unknown fluid on a lampshade.

Hell, even if slightly-disgusted scatting as Calloway is great, though nowhere near as silly as the scatting from last show.

Wayne: “I watched 20/20, it scared me hella plenty
Something ain’t right, I used a blacklight, OHHH WHAT A SIGHT.”
Definitely making up for the first number with this

A strong GH, which is funny because I don’t think the first song should have aired. Everything about the second song salvages this game, and makes it worth airing, just on not only the bizarre choice of a Cab Calloway number, but how effortlessly Wayne pulled it off.

Wayne: “That’s why the kids tune in, for the Cab Calloway. COME FOR THE IMPROV, ST..AY FOR THE CAB CALLOWAY.”
Ryan: “They know him as Uber Calloway now…”
Wayne, as he should, says this with a German accent

Overall: A really fun show that may get overlooked throughout the crux of this season but still has some fun stuff. A lot of what I liked the most from this show were the moments that seemed like classic WL, like most of Director and Whose Line, some Props moments, and the GH Cab Calloway moment which almost seemed to capture the energy of the WetBiscuit McGlee, just challenging Wayne to do something incredible and seeing him do it anyway. It’s not a perfect show, I wish it utilized Greg better [then again I haven’t liked all the #resist stuff I’ve seen from him when they do let him talk], and I would have maybe consolidated the GH playings into one with this formation, as the rap number didn’t need to air. But as a breezy, running-gag powered show I enjoyed it without expecting it to be overwhelmingly huge.

Show Winners: Ryan and Wayne
Best Performer: Colin, separating himself from Ryan during GH.
Worst Performer: Greg didn’t have much to do this show, yet he still impressed me when he showed up.
Best Game: Scenes from a Hat. On the strength of one gag it just kept hammering away.
Worst Game: This is mostly me being an improv snob, but I’m putting Whose Line here because you could tell they struggled with it, and they didn’t know where to take it at times. I still enjoyed parts of it, though.

COMING UP NEXT: Another Chip S15 show. This is the second guest star show from his taping, and a familiar face for TV and musical theater fans.

Whose Watchdown is it Anyway: S16E08, or And My Teeth and My Balls

Seasonal Code: S16E08
Production Number: 346
CW Seasonal Code: S15E16

After a month off the air, for no other reason than to lengthen the season and piss off the Whosers, the show picked right back up with the backlog and the missing S15 shows. This one was a Jonathan Mangum guestless show, from the same S12 taping as the Lea Thompson and Brett Dier shows. We’d already gotten a guestless show from this taping, 12×19, but this one had some cool stuff to offer.

Let’s Make a Date: Jonathan must choose from

• Wayne – Japanese teen pop sensation looking for people to help launch the next big dance craze
• Colin – Drowning man using other people’s body parts to keep himself afloat
• Ryan – Acting out the fantasies of Colin Mochrie

Colin and Ryan have palpable reactions to theirs. Aisha even notes ‘Ryan’s heartbroken’.

Jonathan: “Bachelor #1, there’s nothing I like more than a hard whip and a gentle nae-nae.”
OH, 2016.

Wayne completely nails the ‘Japanese import trying to acclimate to American culture’ aspect of his quirk perfectly, flagrantly trying to come off likable in America, throwing in a ‘YANKEES-DODGERS’ to win over the crowd.

Colin’s physicality here is perfect, trying desperately to hang onto Wayne, yelling ‘SLIP-SLIP-SLIP’ as he struggles to hold onto his head.
“NEED SOMETHING BIG TO HOLD ONTO…”

I absolutely adore this shot. This is the look of someone who already was going to go hard on Colin, but now just got the go-ahead to go even harder.

Also, I do like Wayne trying to mimic Colin’s arm movements and try to get that to catch on.

Jonathan: “bachelor #3, the sexiest thing my ex ever said to me was ‘clear off the couch, you’re gettin’ pregnant tonight..”
PFFF. Okay, Jonathan came to play tonight..

Ryan, as Colin hangs onto him: “…I can’t believe I touched his nose…if his nose is that big I wonder what the rest of him’s like..”
And then he combs through his hair. Absolutely perfect.

The shot of Colin doing drowning motions and Wayne playfully doing that as a dance move is so good.

I loved this on my first watch, and still do.

As Colin starts his next one, Ryan moves Aisha out of the way to set up his finale. Colin’s actually aided by this move, as it helps him out: “maybe I can make it to those two little islands..”

“…AIIIGH, THEY’RE TOO SMALL!”

I also love Wayne’s reaction to Colin’s death:

Wayne’s quirk has really grown on me.

And Ryan, of course: “AS THE HOST OF THE SHOW, I’M JUST GONNA END THAT THERE..” [BUZZES]

What a fun move, even Aisha enjoys it

I love Ryan continuing the gag as Jonathan guesses, pressing the buzzer AND DOORBELL, and going “THAT IS RIGHT, as the host of the show”, combing his hair back again.

Aisha: “the other thing I wanted to say, Ryan, you’re never allowed to come to my desk again…my cards are all mixed up…you’re like a terrible magician who should go to jail.”

A really good LMAD, feeling like it could have been plucked out of the classic ABC series, and with great interplay from all 3.

Film Dub: Ryan, Colin and Wayne– Tensions rise on the beach

The first minute of this isn’t great, just usual love triangle scuffling. I didn’t start laughing until Ryan’s character started trying to get away on sharp rocks, and you hear Ryan going “AGH. AGH. OW. Oh god I shoulda worn thongs..”

Otherwise, this comes off as a ‘running through it late in pickups’ playing. Ryan yelling ‘MY FEET ARE BLEEDING’ during a scuffle in the water was funny, but there’s not much of a hook to this one.

I also liked Ryan, as his character rows away with sped up footage, going “at this speed I’ll get to the end of the reef by….monday?”

Not a great Film Dub. I can see why they don’t like airing half of them.

Irish Drinking Song: Went on a Date and Had No Money

The song starts out innocently. Then, as they’re wrapping up the end of the first verse, Jonathan decides to choose violence by picking a really difficult word to rhyme, ‘I reached into my billfold.”
Ryan looks over at Colin, as he sings, like ‘how’s he gonna rhyme with that?’

Colin: “…I…HAD…NOTHING. ohhh”
This is why Colin doesn’t go last anymore. It’s gotten harder for him to stick the landing, and so Ryan will do it. And that is why, because Jonathan tried to trip Colin up and it worked. He just refused to rhyme and went on with what the story was supposed to be, basically giving up.

Ryan, almost in response, picks a tricky rhyme for Wayne, “I felt so embarrassed”, and Wayne…still thinks of something, bending the word a bit, “I felt self-HARassed.”

Jonathan: “I snuck into the bathroom”
Ryan: “I snuck out the backdoor”
Colin: “I hope she doesn’t find me.”
Wayne: “and beat me anymore.”
PFF. THAT is how this game’s supposed to work.

I really like the contrast between, on the girl’s response to the protagonist’s cowardice, Wayne’s “she assaulted and assailed my manhood” and Jonathan’s charmed “yet she wore nice J. Crew.” I love that

Jonathan also made me laugh by finishing off his second verse, where the girl agrees to a second date, with “and you will be MY HOOOO.” It’s so silly.

So it’s GONNA end sweetly. Wayne and Jonathan are setting up that they got married and had 14 kids, and because Wayne had his line end on July, Ryan has seemingly no choice but to go “I found out she was a guy.”
Colin: “I still have no cash”
Wayne: “Yeah, I’m still broke”
Jonathan: “I make the kids work illegally”
HOLD UP. That’s something that Ryan just rolls right past, and that’s a very silly piece of this ending. Ryan does have a funny bright side: “But now I’m screwin’ a bloke.”
PFFF. Somehow this ends up slightly tasteful?

A good IDS. Not a classic. Some funny moments, some nice moves, not one of the best ones from the CW version.

Secret: Ryan and Colin are Adam and Eve. The secret is a ventriloquist dummy

Colin: “Hey Adam, I’m bored.”
Ryan: “I was just trying on a new leaf..”
Colin: “yeah, that’s why I’m bored..”
A great starting exchange, just simple enough

I like Ryan offhandedly saying “I’ve got some ribs on the barbecue..”
Colin: “What did I tell you about the ribs?? You can’t keep pulling out your ribs and cooking them!”
I adore how Colin says that. It even gets Ryan. “THAT’s good advice..”

The ventriloquist dummy is great because this is an actual Secret that Colin and Ryan made up during the UK shows. So actually producing one is pretty funny.
Ryan: “…say hello to my little friend.”
It’s just so natural

I love Ryan doing low-key ventriloquism during a dramatic moment:

He knows he needs to lean into the silly for this one to work.

Ryan: “he lets me do things you never let me do.”
Colin, again perfectly: “…oh here we go..”
Cause he KNOWS that Ryan’s gonna make this dirty.

I love this. Both on the brink. Something’s about to happen.
Colin: “GO ON, YOU HAVE TO EXPLAIN IT NOW..”
Ryan:

Did he REALLY think he was gonna let that implication go by without having to elaborate??
Ryan: “….NOOoo..”
HAAAA.

I really like the back and forth as the dummy keeps avoiding Colin’s glance. [“I’M NOT VERY GOOD AT THIS!” “No kidding!”]

There’s an audible panic from the audience when Ryan throws the dummy back into the box.
Ryan: “…HE’S DEAD. I’VE KILLED HIM.”

I love that now Colin has to have fun with the dummy [Ryan even goes ‘SEE WHAT I MEAN?’]

And it escalates to Colin laughing maniacally and strangling Ryan with it, complete with licking

Extremely silly ending to an extremely silly scene.

I do feel like this got away from them after a while, and it just became easier to bask in the silly than just go somewhere with the plot, which is the trap you can fall into with prop-based Secrets. I still like this one, it’s got some very goofy highlights, but it’s not as substantial as some other ones [“alright, Jill…”]

Aisha: “I’m surprised that the two of you, especially Colin being Canadian, aren’t more versed with ventriloquist dummies. It’s big up there, isn’t it?”
Colin, very confused: “…OH THE FUN WE HAVE WITH OUR DUMMIES IN CANADA.”
And then…he suddenly gets an idea: “Of course, we don’t always elect them like you do…”
BOOM. AMAZING. And the weird thing is, this was filmed before the 2016 election, so THIS ISN’T EVEN A TRUMP JOKE. WOW.

Scenes from a Hat:

“Things you can say about a city that you can’t say about your partner.”
Ryan: “ugh, I’m gonna be stuck in this for an hour.”
Jonathan: “you gotta go downtown if you want good refreshment.”
He’s getting a very basic fourth seater edit, but Jonathan’s still having a great show

“Things you don’t want to hear from the person you’re sharing a bed with”
Jonathan: [GENUINELY IMPRESSIVE SNORE]
and then Jonathan, giggling: “hey, you wanna go downtown for some refreshment?”
PFF

“Unlikely lines from country and western songs”
Ryan: “My Maserati needs a tune-up..”

Wayne’s cracked me up the more he divulged:
“Well I’ve got running water, and a house with four walls
and a roof and a job, and my teeth and my b[..]alls..”
I don’t even think HE was prepared for where the rhyme was going

Ryan, French accent, smoking: “I’m riding…ze range with you..”
It’s such a bizarre one, but it works. I wish Aisha didn’t feel she had to explain the joke.

Wayne, with a guitar buildup: “Let’s open up our borders!”
PFF

Alright SFAH, didn’t really pick up til the end.

Ryan and Aisha do some dirty yes-anding that becomes polite yes-anding about getting dinner. I do like her adding “Wayne woulda gotten free dinner if that muthafucka had showed up..”

Greatest Hits: Songs of the Big Box Supermarket

Aisha asks for ‘a place where you can buy food’, and comes up with this suggestion because people were yelling ‘Wal-Mart’ and they can’t do brand names. I am amused by “If you’re going to the Pet Store for food, sir, I’m worried about your health.”

Colin pokes fun at the very specific prompt for suggestions, suggesting Ryan “go to a PLACE WHERE YOU CAN BUY FOOD”, before shrugging. As it goes on, it becomes less general for suggestions and more specifically engineered so that the producers are essentially dictating what the suggestion is, and this is the closest anybody really mentions that.
Ryan: “where do they collect food on shelves around here?”
Colin: “…PET STORE?”
Ryan: “NO…what kinda IDIOT would suggest that?”

Ryan sets up scat with a very hacky ‘what would you say to get a cat to go away’ segue, and I love Colin’s expression, right to us, when he realizes what Ryan’s doing:

I love this.

So, instead of the usual ‘early jazz’ style, Wayne and Jonathan have been instructed to do an entire song while scatting, which is tricky. Wayne does let some words trickle in, but it’s a lot of scatting, and it lets this one come down to ability rather than lyricism. Although, Jonathan’s scatting is very funny.
So much of this is facial expressions and motions:

It works this well because these two have a long-standing improv relationship and can work off each other perfectly. I also love their little ‘under the counter bribe’ when Jonathan produces a thirteenth item, it’s so silly.

Very impressive number, and it let the humor emanate through nonverbals, which is awesome for this game.

Ryan, confused: “…there was no words in that, right?”
Heh
Colin: “no, all I kept thinking about was the republican debate.”
HAAAAH. And this makes it very topical, cause it was Spring 2016.

Ryan, randomly: “IGIGIGIGI…AAAHHIGIGIGIGIIG…”
Colin, confused: “…drowning dolphin!”
Ryan: “NO..”

This was somehow Ryan’s Irish accent, but Colin makes it funny by thinking it was his Popeye voice.
Ryan: “IS POPEYE IRISH?”
Colin: “I don’t know.”
Ryan: “he was always eatin’ green stuff.”
Colin: “Yeah, and Olive Oyl.”
RYAN, FOR A SPLIT-SECOND:

This is a look of completely being thrown that you do not see from Ryan often. I equate it to a look I saw from Robin Williams after a similar joke. Which is hysterically because he fecking PLAYED Popeye..

Ryan sets up Irish rock: “It’s a great music style, and one of the least-known WWF wrestlers.”
Ryan, they haven’t called it that for 20 years..

Ryan: “I think of that Irish rock classic, ‘Don’t Cut the Line Bitch.'”

I really like what this song does musically, just from the energy and accent Wayne brings, and how it fits right in with the stellar, Dropkick Murphys-esque backing Laura and Linda provide. I also like how Wayne and Jonathan work off each other in the chorus.

I do like Jonathan adding, after Wayne’s done this tirade about the woman cutting in line, “Is that your boyfriend…NEVERMIND..”

I also really like Jonathan and Wayne’s Irish scatting [“TITITIY-TIIIE”] in between verses.

Pretty good GH. Nothing too overwhelming, but some sentimental favorite banter moments, and some great highlights for the Wayne/Jonathan duo.

Overall: I think what I’m finding out about this season is that the weakest shows are gonna be the ones that feel the most middle of the road to me, and that’s what this one feels like. It feels like it’d be a breather show during S4 of the ABC version, and would just be an inconsequential show with some fun moments. The highlights of this one are Let’s Make a Date, Secret and some parts of Greatest Hits, and everything else sort of sinks into the background. Nobody’s fault, really, not every show can be iconic, and even at the time I thought this one was kind of an okay show. I still liked some parts of it, but I mostly enjoyed the little things rather than the huge, show-breaking moments. Also, Jonathan got a decent edit and stood out in GH and IDS, but the editors are still short-changing fourth seaters because so does the show.

Show Winners: Colin and Wayne
Best Performer: Colin threw people more than he was thrown [which says something considering IDS], and he was strong all night. Ryan was maybe one game away from lapping him.
Worst Performer: Wayne didn’t have as many standout moments as the others.
Best Game: Let’s Make a Date, the fullest, more overflowing game here, and the most classic-feeling.
Worst Game: Film Dub, which honestly SHOULD HAVE stayed on the cutting room floor.
Should This Have Aired in s12?: Honestly, it didn’t need to. It’s fine showing up during these seasons.

COMING UP NEXT: Another Greg guestless show? Don’t mind if I do!

Whose Watchdown is it Anyway: S16E07, or Your Biology’s Off

Seasonal Code: S16E07
Production Number: 345
CW Seasonal Code: S15E15

We head all the way back to the first taping we saw in Season 11, the Gary taping that gave us the very funny 11×01, featuring Cedric the Entertainer trying his hand at improv in Questions [and also Gary dominating Wayne during GH]. There was actually one more Cedric game left, so we have our second straight archived guest star show.

Scenes from a Hat:

“Unlikely things to read in a cookbook”
Ryan: “vegetable soup. First, take a leek.” [shrugs]

It really is that simple.

Gary: “okay, ‘have white lady come up to prepare meal for you.”
I love this one. Just a nice subversion of what was expected.
Wayne:

I love that move.
Gary even calls Aisha in. And then, as one more set-dressing:

I love this gag
I also love that after they all disperse, Wayne realizes Ryan was there, and what he was doing, and points it out to Gary.

“If people behaved like S&M enthusiasts in their regular job.”
I love the one lone guy who laughs after everyone else reacts, like a ‘HO-HAWW’. Aisha loves this too.

I love Gary and Colin’s, where Gary the barista throws the coffee in Colin’s face, and Colin replies with a very turned on ‘THANK you..”

Gary and Wayne’s ‘stuffing the turkey’ ass thing isn’t funny until Gary, in his french accent, starts nonchalantly making small-talk about his week as he stuffs Wayne’s ass.

Ryan: ‘lemme crush up this jalapeños…”

“DYAAAAAAAAIIIIGHHHH”
I laughed so hard at this. We all knew the pissing gag was coming back, but NOT LIKE THIS

Aisha: “this one’s for you, Ry, ‘pick-up lines that would never work.”
I like Ryan’s confusion as to why this specifically applies to him
Ryan, taking the gift anyway:

“Can I buy ya a drink” [resumes pissing]
IT JUST KEEPS WORKING

Wayne: “hey girl, it’ll be over before you know it.”
Ryan: “did one of the stars fall out of the sky, cause I can see Uranus.”
He’s had a few saved up, I bet

Gary: “I have hidden several candies around my body…[breaks]…if you find one that ain’t fermented, it’s yours..”
Gary is so underrated in this game, because he finds unsavory angles the other 3 don’t normally go for

Wayne: “they call me the Easter Bunny…”
And then he just…lets that marinate.

Wayne…then realizes the flaw. ‘I have nothin’ else, I just wanted to…”
Colin, on the other hand, goes right in, cause HE’S got a punchline: “They call me the Easter Bunny…because I only come once a year.”
TEAMWORK. That is why I love this show, cause you see these guys aid each other in getting the joke across the finish line.

A very strong SFAH to start us off, blessed with a great running gag from Ryan and lots of really good suggestions from all four, culminating in that great ending. It was structured like an ABC playing.

Duet: Wayne and Gary sing a Jamaican dance hall song to Cedric, “The Insurance Claims Adjuster”

This is a different, and slower tempo, backing than the eventual, iconic, Jamaican dance-hall one they’d do with Yvette Nicole Brown.

There’s nothing too revolutionary lyrically going on here, Gary and Wayne are doing some fairly standard rhymes and moves with this profession.

Cedric is given the floor to sing but he instead goes with a dance break
Gary: “now there’s one thing, as a matter of fact,
ya keep dancing like that, I’ll adjust your back!”
Finally a line that impressed me in this one

Wayne does lead this into a dance repeat bit that all three get in on, and it ups the energy and likability of the number.

Cedric does try some musical improv, and honestly does pretty well, going into a ‘as long as you pay your deductible’ refrain, which the other two build off. I think the most important thing is that he’s in on the number and is working with the energy of the song, even if he’s not as good of an improviser to make it better intrinsically.

Alright number. Definitely good energy, but it sort of went by nicely without doing much subversive or, honestly, funny. Cedric enjoyed himself though.

Wayne: “we were the oldest black singing group on the CW just then.”
Aisha: “I turned on the CW and it was UPN all of the sudden…”
Wow, THAT’s a throwback..

Props: Ryan and Gary vs. Colin and Wayne

This is a favorite of mine for the Gary-Ryan combo. Their ‘ahh, bats!’ one is great, because of how well timed the prop use is for both of them.

Wayne: “so it appears that the perp…cut Annie up and stuck her in these tubes.”
I like the occasional creative, slightly morbid ones we get in this game

Wayne and Colin’s ‘foosball by yourself’ one is silly because of Colin’s expression as Wayne bats him around. You can see Wayne cracking as he has to explain the joke.

I also like Colin’s airport scanner one, where he shoves the prop through Wayne’s upper legs. “Nope, nothin’ there..”

I love this reaction from both.

I’ve always loved the timing of this one:

Gary: “WHAT ARE THESE HIPSTERS DOING IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD?”
PFFFF. It’s so goofy. All Ryan’s doing is goofily bobbing around with a mustache.

Good Props. Some more elevated moments than the norm, and great stuff for both these pairings.

Newsflash: Ryan and Gary in the studio, Colin in the field in front of more extreme sports wipeouts

So already the rhythm begins. Someone falls. ‘oh’. And within 10 seconds, Colin’s caught on. “I tell you, for three hours I’ve been hearing THAT.”

Ryan, with an underrated line: “Colin, has anyone succeeded yet?”

I love that. ‘anyone actually succeed?’ MASSIVE CROTCH HIT.
Colin: “…ALMOST!”

As usual, the successive audience reactions just amuses Colin. “…LOOK HOW MANY THERE ARE.” It’s still really funny.

Ryan: “by the way Colin, you’re check’s at the desk you got sacked today.”
Colin knows he’s trying to give him a clue but he’s confused as to why that’d be a relevant in-scene move. “…what a horrible way to find out..”

I love the skiing wipeout where the poor guy keeps tumbling down the hill. Even Ryan goes “oh, WHEN IS THAT GONNA STOP?”

Ryan: “Colin, I don’t even wanna talk to you, I just wanna watch..”
I don’t blame him.

A routinely funny Newsflash. Obviously not a new concept for this game, but an amusing rendition or variation on it, and with enough fun new elements.

Greatest Hits: Songs of Dallas v2

Now we find out if they were hiding anything else behind ‘Everyting is Biggah’. And, ultimately, THEY TOTALLY WERE.

They reuse the ‘Colin and Ryan giggling’ setup shot from 11×01

I love Ryan’s description of a rap battle as someone who isn’t entirely familiar. Again, it feels like a Fred Willard Best in Show bit.

So…a Rap Battle song, where it’s Gary against a literal member of Freestyle Love Supreme. I wonder what’s gonna happen..

Literally Wayne’s first line: “I like you dude, don’t wanna put you down
This is a rodeo so you must be the only clown.”
HE’S CLEARLY DONE THIS BEFORE

It’s here where Wayne throws in “I took yo mamma and rode her like a bull.
The best I ever saw/put my spurs on and hollared ‘YEE-HAW'”

So Gary now has to rebut: “You’re messing with me now
I took your daddy, had him milked like a cow.”
WAYNE:

I love that. IMMEDIATELY confused.
Gary does have a strong rest of the verse, finishing off on ‘I ain’t no clown, you President Bozo’, but you can tell Wayne’s stuck on the milk.
Wayne: “I know that you didn’t like that, you got mad
I’m still a minute past when you milked my dad.”
PFFF. And this is the hook.
“…that wasn’t part of the song
You’re biology’s off, that’s just wrong.”
I love that. Your biology is off.
“I’mma try to school you now
…..DUDE, you milk a COW.”
So goddamned funny. And it’s lifted by Wayne’s confusion and disappointment, in character, in Gary.

And then it turns into an apology rap battle, as Gary tries to console a crying Wayne.
Gary, seamlessly: “have a cup of this. IT’S YOUR DAD’S MILK.”
BOOM

I love this. Just when Wayne thinks he’s ending the game with the upper hand, Gary steals it right back from him.

So the song ends, and obviously it’s a classic and I think everybody knows it. Wayne’s still cracking up. Aisha still hasn’t recovered:

And now Ryan and Colin have to follow that. Colin’s visibly still shaken.
Ryan: “Oh, what a wonderful, touching song…and what a shame that America will never see it.”
THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK.

Ryan: “…why would one gentleman want to milk the other’s father?”
Wayne and Gary both crack again. They’re all still stuck on it.
Colin: “I was told to respect…family remembers.”
Ryan: “yeah, and if not respect, ‘not milk.'”

Colin: “THERE’S SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE ON THIS LP.”
Ryan, still recovering: “NO KIDDIN’.”

Colin begins to set up the Muppets number
Ryan: “oh, we have a children’s song? THAT ONE wasn’t…”

Colin’s first funny move is giving the Muppets song the title ‘G is for Gun’, which, already we’re in for something insane.

Gary, nailing this: “It’s time for lots of good stuff
It’s time to have some fun
It’s time to reach in my pocket, because G is for Gun.”
THAT ALONE IS FUNNY

They’re doing some easy Muppet gun control gags, like Oscar the Grouch as a crime lord and Count von Count tallying up the bullets in his gun, and they’re both having fun. Plus, they’re using this to go on really fun musical runs in the midst of the biting social commentary.

Gary: “They call me Snuffleupagus, look at my trunk
I use it to handle my 9mm, ya crazy punk.”
It’s coming off incredibly simply for both of them

I like the ending, where Gary and Wayne count off the number of gunshots, and Wayne finishes with “this is our given right”, which is a punchy, and funny, finish to this.

I can’t believe this, but just as good as the other GH from this taping, which was also excellent. This confirms that Gary had Wayne on the ropes for all 4 songs, and brought out the best of these two as well, even the extremely iconic rap battle one. The banter in response to the ‘dad’s milk’ bit is just as funny as the actual moment it happens, and both songs are insanely well-regarded by fans. I love this playing, probably more than the first one, which is saying a lot because I adore that Cajun one. But my god, Songs of Dallas may be an all-timer GH playing in full.

Overall: You know what we haven’t had in a while. A guest star show where the guest game is the single most disposable part of it, and that’s exactly what this is. When it was on the Australian group, I wrote off this show as a middling guest show simply because of the Cedric game, while making the mistake of writing off the non-guest games. I should be judging this as a guestless show that has a guest game by mistake. The single best things that happen in this show are in guestless games, like the pissing runner in SFAH, the duo tomfoolery in Props, Colin’s strained excitement in Newsflash and almost the entirety of Greatest Hits, which deserves its status as a classic Whose Line game, as it was crowned basically the night it aired. This is a very fun portrait of the taping, with a lot for Gary to do, great moments for all performers, callbacks to the Drew era, and a big finish that jumps off of a prior CW classic moment. It’s a really satisfying show, even if it isn’t perfect, or lacks a true improv scene game [besides Newsflash].

Show Winners: Colin and Wayne
Best Performer: Gary Anthony Williams, not just for GH, but for strong work in SFAH, Props and Duet. Dude had a strong, well-edited show and it was about time.
Worst Performer: Similarly, as Gary summoned the energy here, a lot of the time it was at the expense of Wayne, who had both more stumbles and more times where he deferred to others.
Best Game: Greatest Hits, by far.
Worst Game: Duet. I would have honestly been fine with Duet not airing and us getting another game in its place.
Guest Star Rating: 8/10, perfectly adequate at musical improv while having fun.
Should This Have Aired in S11?: It’s mostly Greatest Hits that makes me say this, but yeah, the masses needed to see Clowns in a Barrel in its initial taping rollout.

COMING UP NEXT: A long impromptu hiatus mandated by CW that pissed off a lot of fans, followed by a return to a season 12 taping featuring Jonathan, with some juicy guestless stuff ready to air.