Drew Carey: Video: Whose Line is it Anyway? Weird Newscasters: Not Necessarily The News

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This post was originally posted at The New Democrat on Blogger

“Whose Line is it Anyway?” for anyone who’s interested in the full title of the show and, if you are, you probably keep score at home when you are watching bowling on TV. This is a show that is almost completely off the cuff. Four comedians or comedic actors on stage are given scenes to act out. Sounds simple enough, right? The trick is that they have to act out these scenes as strange characters.

Weird Newscasters is a perfect example. Two comedians are pretending to be news anchors but they have to play these anchors as weird characters. One is an alcoholic who won’t let the bar close down before he gets at least one more drink. One is a weatherman who’s doing the weather as a construction worker who gets turned on every time he sees a woman walk by. Another is a sportscaster who lets out big belches every time he talks about sports.

That’s what you see in this scene. This is a show that I would love to do myself or, at least, play the game. I could give myself my own character to play or take what is given to me. I would love to play the anchor of the 3 am news and call it the Insomniac News Hour, or something like that. There would be breaking news about Lindsay Lohan being pulled over for speeding and then a cut to “The Insomniac Classic Movie, “Attack of the Killer Lettuce,” or something stupid like that.

This is my favorite game on Whose Line because it doesn’t look a lot different from what actually passes as news today. They go on for days about things that should be one day stories or only be given brief mentions. Instead, they’re still being covered a week later by the same people and shows. News about Justin Bieber replaces really important issues like government spying on Americans and privacy. Today if you watch The Onion or Whose Line you might get the same amount of real information as you get from CNN, MSNBC or FNC.

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Drew Carey: Whose Line is it Anyway? SuperHeros- The Most Unlikely SuperHeros

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

Who’s Line is it Anyway had a segment called Superheros in which several comedian contestants played made up, non-existent (even in Hollywood), SuperHeros. To begin, one contestant would be given the beginning of a scenario about some made up crisis. For example, “Oh no, we are all out of Starbucks coffee,” or ketchup, “What am I going to do? I’d better call my SuperHero friends to help me out!”

The first actor would make up a SuperHero name and play a role that the host, Drew Carey, would pick from many suggestions given by the audience. An additional actor would join the ensemble every thirty seconds or so. The first actor would give the second actor a made up SuperHero name and the second actor would give the third actor a made up SuperHero name. The plot would be improvised in real-time until all the actors were involved.

So you would see four actors with these crazy SuperHero names and lets say the crisis is no more Starbucks coffee in the entire world. The first SuperHero would be Caffeine Addict Boy or something like that and he would bring in Latte Girl and she would bring in Alcoholic Man telling them that the situation is okay because he has a ten-year supply of scotch and bourbon so no one will go thirsty. And somehow all of these clowns would save the day and things would go back to normal for them.
Drew Carey: Whose Line- SuperHeros

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Artist Jennette Brown: Whose Line Is It Anyway- Chris Walken

Source:Artist Jennette Brown– Chris Walken, doing the news? 

Source:The Daily Press

“This is Jeff, a guest on Whose Line, he does a great impression of Christopher Walken. It’s hilarious! All ownership and copyright of this video belongs to ‘Whose Line Is It Anyway?’ and ABC Family. No copyright infringement intended.”

From Artist Jennette Brown

ABC use to have a show called Whose Line Is It Anyway, the American version of the BBC Whose Line show. And what it was five comedians including the host Drew Carey who would be given scenes and characters to play, but the comedians would have to act out the scenes with no script or lines. The comedians would have to act out the scenes off the top of their heads, almost completely spontaneously.

And they would do scenes like Hoe Down where they would have to do a song off the top of their heads, or Super Hero’s where each person would have this made up Super Hero with a name that no Super Hero, who is sane and sober at least, would have.

And one comedian would start out with a name and as each comedian would enter the game, the comedian who came before would give the next comedian a name. So let’s say Alcoholic Man would introduce let’s say Mr. Clutz who would topple to the floor as soon as he’s introduced. And Mr. Clutz would do is act and then introduce the next person and say: “Thank God you are here Scared Shitless!” or something like that.

My favorite skit that they did is probably Weird Newscasters. Especially the two anchors and these two people would makeup the news literally on the spot. And would say something like: “Our lead story tonight, 200 people reported missing or dead as a result of an attack by Killer Tomatoes.”

And the second anchor with a weird character to play like a news anchor being played by race car driver whose had too much to drink or something. And he or she would say something like: “This just in: alcoholism linked to drunk driving. Shocking I know.” And they would introduce the weatherman who farts every time he speaks or something like that. As well as a sportscaster who falls in love with every women he sees in the audience or something.

My favorite character on this show even though I don’t believe Chris Walken has ever actually physically been on this show before is Chris Walken. Because he’s a great comedian on the spot, who never needs a script to be funny, movies like American Sweethearts, True Romance and his appearances on Saturday Night Live are excellent examples of that.

And Jeff Davis from Whose Line, does a great impression of him and that’s what makes this show great and how you tell great comedians from good or average comedians. How funny are they when they have to be and when they don’t have a script

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