Whose Newsletter Is It Anyway?
Even if you don't read the newsletter this week just watch the dang clips.
When I first watched Whose Line Is It Anyway? I knew magic existed in the world. A short-form improv show hosted by Drew Carey and starring Wayne Brady, Colin Mochrie, and Ryan Stiles, the original America run of Whose Line ran from 1998-2007, and was then remade in the early 2010s with most of the original cast. Spun off and borrowing cast members from a British show of the same name – as so many American shows are – Whose Line did a lot to introduce improv to Americans who didn’t live in Chicago, LA or New York. It also made Wayne Brady a household name. To my 11-year-old self it represented the funniest thing to ever exist in all possible worlds.
Before I spend the next couple hundred words expounding on the genius of Whose Line a few caveats for those improvisers reading this. Whose Line is short-form improv. This means that it revolves around short, usually a couple of minutes long, “games” that have rules that the improvisers have to follow. This differs from long-form improv, the type of improv you will probably see if you go to a show at iO in Chicago, UCB in New York or LA, or many of the new theaters that have popped up in recent years. Without getting into the excruciating details or long-term feuds between practitioners of the two camps, just know that some people complain that Whose Line Is It Anyway? practiced and promoted fake improv. These people are joyless slags and don’t deserve happiness. Whose Line is improv, and improv done well. And to promote a much hotter take, the only difference between long- and short-form improvs is the amount of time it takes to do. All the other supposed differences between the two amount to mere trappings. Caveats over.
Improv is a fickle beast. Even more so than sketch and stand-up, seeing improv live improves the experience exponentially. Improv thrives on the electric energy of both audience and actors knowing that the show could go off the rails at any moment. And it often does. Any Chicagoan worth their salt has seen umpteen horrible, awful, life-draining improv shows. But, the ever useful but, they have also seen some improv that changed their damn life. Despite all the flaws and horrible things that have come out of the improv “industry”, it still delivers bigger laughs and lasting memories than most art forms in my opinion. A good improv show sticks in your mind, an experience most people don’t forget. Unfortunately, until Whose Line, TV cameras couldn’t capture that energy.
Whose Line succeeded where other attempts at televised improv haven’t through a combination of talented cast, game choice, and onstage comradery. Wayne Brady, Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles, and the rotating cast of guests like Chip Esten, Greg Proops, Brad Sherwood, Kathy Greenwood, Jeff Davis and others all have incredible comedy chops. Even though they had the advantage of filming for TV, which allows for multiple takes and runs at games, time and again the cast showed that they had the chops. Colin Mochrie – in my first draft I had it typed out as “Colon Mochrie, which, lol – and Wayne Brady in particular stand-out time and again as stars of the show. Key to their success relied on the ability of the show to prove that the actors did indeed make it all up. The editing of the show remained deceptively simple, generally long wide takes, that proved that the cast could handle the rigors of producing comedy on the spot. If any of the thousands of lesser improv lights had been chosen, the show would have fallen apart.
The producers also took the lessons they had learned from the British version of the show when they put together the American one. Short-form improv relies on the quality of the game as much as the talent of the cast. If no one clearly explains the rules of a game than the section falls apart. Both the cast and the audience need to understand the structure of the game, and where the jokes lie. Whose Line succeeded by picking the right games, and the right actors to play them. The show quickly discovered Brady’s talent for musical performance and chose games that allowed him to thrive. They also used games like “Scenes from a Hat” and “Party Quirks” that allowed people like Greg Proops and Colin Mochrie to get one-liners in as fast as they could think them up. A perfect alchemy of planning and knowing their performer’s strengths.
The key to the show however, the one thing that truly made it successful was the comradery between the performers. As anyone who has seen a live improv show will tell you, a literal baby could tell if the cast likes each other or not. Improv thrives on the improvisers being ready and willing to mess around with their each other, pushing each other’s buttons, and trying to make teammates break on stage aka “corpsing.” Whose Line had that chemistry. While all of the main regular cast clearly liked each other, Mochrie and Stiles had it in spades. More than once they Stiles elevated bits by just messing around with each other. This friendship, and inviting the viewers to be a part of that friendship, made the show magical. It felt like they invited you in on a secret, a secret that just you and your friends who watched the show knew about. And nothing beats that. Whose Line felt like a chance to just relax and watch your funniest friends joking around. Nothing can beat that.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t also mention Laura Hall and Linda Taylor, the two main musicians who provided the improvised music for the games that needed it. The show would have been nothing without them. I didn’t even have to look up their names when typing it out, because those names have forced themselves into my memory. The GOATS.
Sometimes I write these little newsletters and they end with a moral. I won’t do that for this one, though you could probably find one without digging too hard. I just wanted an excuse to put up some clips from one of the best things ever put on TV.