An improv comedy show hosted by comedian Drew Carey, the show is a gathering of Whose Line Is It Anyway? veterans and fresh faces, as well as new guest stars. The format has changed somewhat, as Carey is not the solitary host and others take turns explaining the games. The setting is at the MGM Grand theatre in Las Vegas instead of a sound stage in Hollywood, which gives it more of a traditional stage improv feel.
Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza debuted on GSN on April 11, 2011, running for one season of 40 episodes. However, Drew Carey still owns the rights to the show, and has expressed interest in bringing it back. Meanwhile, most of the old gang went to London and filmed a summer 2012 series for ABC, Trust Us with Your Life, based on the "Day In The Life" improv game. In 2013, Whose Line? itself was revived with Ryan, Colin, and Wayne returning, but not Drew.
Clips and whole episodes can be viewed on YouTube.
Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza provides examples of:
- Adaptation Distillation: The new game "Two Headed Expert" is basically "Three Headed Broadway Star" and "All in One Voice" meshed together and without the musical aspect. Until this one,
anyways. - Adaptation Expansion: "Song for a Lady" is much more elaborate than the traditional Duets, involving asking the audience member about her hobbies and education and what country she'd like to visit, among other things. Also counts as Adaptation Distillation compared to the even-more-elaborate "American Musical" game from the old UK Whose Line.
- Similarly, "Options" does this with the classic "Film TV Theater Styles", incorporating "Number of Words" and "Change Letter".
- Aerith and Bob: Ryan favors names like Gary and Phil. Jeff prefers Tamberline and Amantha. Note that the latter is a corruption of Samantha, which prompted Chip to take it up to eleven with Tevan (Steven), Tan (Stan), and Burnoose.
- It works with nicknames too. Audience member Jen's husband Bob calls her Shortcake. Jen calls her husband...Bobby.
- From a game of Sentences, Jeremy and... Jawarhalla.
- One game of Moving People had Greg finding two audience members, Sara and Tappley. "You musta met a dozen of 'em..."
- Anachronism Stew: Two different attempts at a caveman setting quickly devolved into this. A third one had Jonathan as a caveman riding a raptor, and Wayne busting out his Sassy Black Woman act while acting as "tribal women" in "ancient history".
- The Announcer: Rich Fields, with whom Drew worked for a couple years on The Price Is Right.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: "VOLCANO!" "New choice." "GEYSER!" "New choice." (Beat) "FREE STEW!"
- Ass Shove: in several gags and at the end of this one. Notice how Drew shakes hands with Ryan and doesn't shake hands with Colin...
- Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: A game of "Greatest Hits" was supposed to be about the lumberjack.But after the song was named "Flap My Jack", the performance was about pancake flipping instead.
- Audience Participation: Many games involve bringing in random audience members to assist in the games. One confessed she was drunk but Colin quickly stated "Being drunk doesn't really hinder being on stage."
- Audience Participation Song: Flap my Jack and Bail Me Out.
- Objection Overruled had people's hands waving.
- Badass Boast:
- Klaus wins and you lose.
- Bears Are Bad News: In one "Sound Effects":Brad: "I'm just gonna pick up this rock..." (Steve Kamer makes an odd sound) "Actually, it's a hibernating bear! I like to use a hibernating bear that looks like a rock so that when it's coming in, it's a big surprise to the enemy! They'll think, "Just a rock." But no, it's an angry bear that's been woken from its sleep in mid-hibernation!"
- Berserk Button: In a game of "Playbook". Don't mention Suzanne!
- Colin jabs Ryan with a nose joke in a game of "New Choice".
Colin: "Why... don't you make the nose even bigger?"Ryan: "Are we really going to start?! 'Cos I will..."- This also doubled as a Callback, alluding to all the times Colin made fun of Ryan's nose in Whose Line.
- Big "WHAT?!": Jonathan (and Drew) in a game of Forward/Reverse.
- The first time around, Drew says:
Drew: Oh no! I forgot my mop! I'll walk back!- When it gets reversed, it winds up as:
Drew: I'll walk back!
Jonathan: Oh!
Drew: Oh, I forgot my mop!
Jonathan: What! ...?- This happens two more times, ultimately resulting in:
Drew: I forgot my mop!
Jonathan: What?
Drew: No, I'll just walk over there and get it!
Jonathan: What?
Drew: I forgot my mop! What?
Jonathan: What? - Big "YES!": The reason why audience members need a bell and a horn to guide the cast through the game First Date. This is lampshaded in Episode 30.
- Bilingual Bonus: The song Mi Casa has some actual Spanish words in it, spoken by Brad and Wayne. Jonathon proceeds talking in French in response to the Spanish conversation.
- Black Comedy: In a game of Sound Effects, Colin had to start the race because the guy who usually started it... died.
- "Lethal Injection". That is all.
- Brand X: In one game of "Kick It":Jonathan: Put on MapQuest.
Greg: MapQuest?
Jonathan: Or a... a... a non-brand-name map program.
Greg: I'll put on a generic global positioning system, shall I? - Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: In "Options", the cast sometimes have to combine styles with hilarious results, leading in one game to a Kazakhstan Tarantino musical.
- "New Choice" expands on the old "Quick Change" game by going "All previous choices!"
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: FREQUENTLY asks the audience for suggestions.
- In one game of Kick It, one character stops rapping prematurely and complains about the previous comment. The other character then says "He didn't say 'Word'!", which breaks the wall, because they were cast as fictional characters.
- The game controller then says 'Word'. The first character then says "well he did NOW!"
- On a musical game, Kathy Kinney and Jeff Davis jump from a plane, but only Jeff dies, because Kathy is pregnant with his child and pregnant women don't die on TV.
- In one game of Kick It, one character stops rapping prematurely and complains about the previous comment. The other character then says "He didn't say 'Word'!", which breaks the wall, because they were cast as fictional characters.
- Brick Joke: Probably unintentional, but you can't deny that Drew has been part of the evolutionary scale before.
- In one game of New Choice, in one of those huge sections where Jonathan says "new choice" over and over again until they say something he enjoys, Ryan says to Greg "I want you to wear this" which is then replaced by a new choice. Later in the game, Greg is caught in a stream of new choices of his own, one of which is "I'm wearing it."
- "Songs of the Stripper". Jeff started off with the line "Hey there mister, Hey there son", and two verses later Jonathan added "the stripper is his mom".
- Buffy Speak:
- "I've got to put some new tires on my car. It's a high-performance vehicle. Fortunately, I have a uh... putter-onner thing that works mechanically."
- "Merit badge stuff..."
- "Huge office ball clacker..."
- "Wings and snakes going around like that..."
- Busman's Holiday: Poor Sylvia the reflexologist; she came to Vegas from Canada, and has to massage Jonathan's feet.
- Butt-Monkey: Jonathan and Sean, mostly. Sean has been in both "Mouse Trap" games.
- Jonathan briefly became this during one game of Freeze Tag when he humiliated himself with a seal rendition of Flight of the Bumblebees. The others then spent the rest of the game making him the butt of as many jokes as they could, including mocking his jacket, smacking him, and feeling him up.
- They did it a second time in a different episode, same game, when Drew ended up on Jonathan's back. Jonathan comments that it's "not so bad." The others then proceed to make sure that Drew stays on Jonathan's back for as long as possible. You can see it on Jonathan's face when he realizes he never should've said anything in the first place.
- The same sort of thing happened when Jeff was in Downward Dog the entire game of Freeze...until he said Freeze, and tagged himself out.
- The same sort of thing
- In this game of "Freeze", an audience member yells "freeze", surprising the cast. They bring him on to the stage, and the rest of the game is spent making butt jokes and getting all of the cast to sit on him.Jonathan: That has never happened before, and I reckon it never will again once this airs.
- Jonathan is often also stuck with the more strenuous or squick-inducing impressions, like the seal playing "Flight of the Bumblebee" and the cow that milks herself.
- Jonathan seems to have adopted Butt Monkey status. During their second game of the Mouse Trap Game, several people throw mouse traps at him and Drew actually goes out of his way to get one caught on Jonathan's finger.
- Whoever is playing "Mouse Traps" becomes one, too.Jonathan: I dropped my towels. Can you reach down and pick them up for me?
Sean: Sure, buddy. (starts rigorously patting the ground) - And now poor Jonathan has had his balls squeezed by Drew Carey while Jeff purposefully stalled on choosing a new option for the scene. Like the piggybacking example above, this was Jonathan's fault when he called Drew's hand a cup.
- In one "Forward Reverse", Drew "punches" Sean, knocking him to the ground...Drew: You're right. I'm sorry. Let me help you up. (Sean gets up)
Jonathan: Reverse.
Drew: Let me help you up. (Sean lies back down)
Jonathan: Forward.
Drew: Let me help you up. (Sean gets up)
Jonathan: Reverse.
Drew: Let me help you up. (Sean has a pained look as he lies down)
Jonathan: Forward.
Drew: Let me help you up. (Sean gets up)
Jonathan: Reverse.
Drew: Let me help you up. (Sean lies back down)
Jonathan: Pause. Switch places.- Jonathan got his vengeance that day.
- Colin is becoming one again. He's been the subject of many a hair joke. 'The Bald Gynocologist' anyone? Not to mention Jeff messing up Colin's hair in a game of Freeze.
- A joke played soon after was "Table for Satan's grandfather?"
- Colin's Butt-Monkey-ness was expanded in a game of Options. Kathy was speaking in three words, while Colin was speaking in seventeen words.
- Jonathan briefly became this during one game of Freeze Tag
- Call-Back: From the British version. The game Playbook (Every Other Line in the UK Whose Line)
- Cannot Tell a Joke: "What is the difference between a rabbi and an Irishman window? One is a pane of glass, and the other's a Jew. ...Think about it."
- Captain Obvious: In "Two-Headed Expert" from episode 11, Jonathan and Chip explain that "boooooks aaaare for people... that... read!"
- Another game of "Two-Headed Expert", has Jonathan and Sean say, "I'm a person who steals from people. That's called stealing."
- Catchphrase: Invoked in "Two Headed Expert", where Ryan and Jeff inadvertently learn that responding to everything with "Yes, PRECISELY!" makes their job a lot easier.
- Cheap Heat: An audience member hailing from Cleveland is asked what his favorite thing is about his hometown, to which he replies "nothing". Drew replies, "How about me, you son of a bitch?!"
- Chekhov's Skill: Apparently, Drew can break dance.
- Chewing the Scenery
- Confession Cam: Some episodes add this to the usual formula by interviewing the audience participants at the end.
- Crazy Cat Lady: Brought up by Jeff during the infamous "Garbagemen" sketch. The cats sounded more like a stomach upset.
- Creative Closing Credits: Opening rather than closing, but the cast members have their names on assorted signs, cards, game machines etc. throughout the resort. It's done alphabetically, so if you're alert, you can tell who will be featured. Drew's face is quite appropriately on a Joker, as is Bob Derkach on the nametag of a dealer, but you'd think putting Chip's name on gambling chips would be an obvious one...
- Crowd Song: "Thiiiiis iiiiiis yoooour birthday song, it isn't very long-"
- Curse Cut Short: "This is Mrs. Finstead. We are enlarging-" "New choice!"
- Deadpan Snarker: The Whose Line Alumna. They're used to bad suggestions and poor audience participation. Occasionally they seem to revel in them.
- Demoted to Extra: Colin on every episode of the American Whose Line, but appears infrequently on this show. This is likely due to being busy with "An Evening With Colin and Brad", which is also why Brad is an infrequent performer.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Often in "Options", whenever "Shakespeare" comes up as a subject.
- Did They or Didn't They?: Played for laughs in ep. 38 when the Price is Right models guest star, and Jeff is shown leading one of them back off the stage. One Beat later, they come back up, with Jeff wiping his mouth off and the model playing along.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: "New Choice" seems designed to trigger this.Drew: I wouldn't call it 'drugging you' per se... I would call it... preparing you...
Jeff: New choice.
Drew: I would call it... getting you ready...
Jeff: New choice.
Drew: I would call it... making you amiable...
Jeff: Less creepy choice! - Dirty Old Woman:
- Audience member Jeannie in one "Song for a Lady" game.
- The redheaded cougar, Pam.
- While she is sitting on the stool, Jeff briefly looks down and loses his place in the song.
- And later when he stands behind her, she turns (toward the audience) to face him. He has to physically stop her from flashing the audience, the cameras, and her two kids.
- Don't Explain the Joke: Drew is guilty of this all the time.
- Tends to happen a lot in Question This and some other games, when one player makes a wisecrack so obscure that the other winds up voicing his thoughts as he pieces it together.
- Evil Laugh: When Ryan and Kathy are doing a scene about garbage collection, one joke has Sean laughing out loud. The way the mics pick him up (and then fade away) it sounds like Sean has something truly terrible in store for them.Kathy: Uh, Ca... Captain Jack, I heard that you won the... the best... dance...er at the dance... contest at the... garbage... collection... party.
Ryan: Now where'd you hear something like that?
Sean: HAHAHAHAHA... - Explaining the Soap: "Sentences" and "New Choice" sometimes rely on the audience coming up with cheesy soap opera titles rather than the usual suggestions.
- Fake Nationality: Often. Sometimes the cast begin losing their accent, or don't have a recognizable one at all.Ryan: (talking to "Nigel the British anchorman") Yes, I'm just wondering why... Yes, I just thought you might have a British accent. That's what's throwing me off.
- Fictional Holiday:
Sharananana, the Jewish holiday originating from Calabasas in the '60s! And involves a native American dance... - Forced Tutorial: To make sure the audience members don't just stand up there without doing anything, as they sometimes did on Whose Line, they get a lot more instruction in the 'moving people' and 'sound effects' games, and get to practice it once to make sure they understand.
- Four Eyes, Zero Soul: for some reason, Jeff's portrayal of an 'evil ski instructor' in "Question This" involved glasses.
- Funny Background Event: The other players' reactions to the insanity is another Whose Line staple, and this time there's extra cameras on hand to catch them - unless they jump off the stools and out of frame, on occasion.
- Gangsta Style: Invoked in a game of "Two-Headed Expert" in episode 11, when Chip and Jonathan shoot either the Eiffel Tower or Puff Daddy and point out the trope.
- Genre-Busting: The last number in a CATS musical to be sung in just three words at a time? Kung Fu Vaudeville?
- Groin Attack: See Butt Monkey above.Jonathan: Let me just put my cup on before we start hitting some balls-
Drew: ALL RIGHT! - Heterosexual Life-Partners: Chip and Jeff. They're often paired together in games, always sit next to each other when in the background, and generally have a bromance going on. According to Jeff, he and Chip "have this brotherly ESP connection."
- Hoist by His Own Petard: In the "Mouse Trap" game in Episode 10, Ryan steps into the scene partway through so he can direct Drew and Sean into more of the mouse traps, only to get snapped by one himself on his way back to his seat.
- Hookers and Blow: Played for Laughs in one "Question This":Greg: "The category is "Things you would find in a casino"..." (Beat as audience calls out their answers)
Jeff: "I heard hookers and cocaine."
(later)
Greg: "The category is "Periodic Table Of Elements"!" (See above.)
Jeff: "I heard hookers and cocaine again!" - Hotter and Sexier: While it isn't any less raunchier than the original Whose Line, GSN has cut and censored far less for broadcast.
- Some of the Lighter and Softer approach from Drew Carey's Green Screen Show has been retained though, like the time they get a kid to voice Sound Effects, and Ryan calls out Jeff for even suggesting "Howard Stern".
- Darker in the literal sense, too; The venue is pretty dark, and the cast wears mostly blacks and grays.
- In the Style of: "Options".
- Incredibly Lame Pun: Most are in "Question This". This clip probably has the worst of them.(audience suggested "Winnemucca")
Drew: (buzzes) What do you get in Las Vegas if you bet a "mucca" and your number comes up? (beat) You Winnemucca.
Ryan: Uh no, we... we all get it.- In Sound Effects from episode 31:Colin: I'll keep throwing cumin.Brad: We'll back slowly around this hill. You just keep "cumin" round the mountain.
- Chip's mention of 'Cow-aroke' in a game of Story had the cast mooing their disapproval.
- In Sound Effects from episode 31:
- Inherently Funny Words:
- A game of "Sentences" churned out the phrase "sex-butt", which Ryan started milking for all it was worth.
- "Jawarhalla". Jeff kept repeating it in a game.
- From one game of "Questions":
- A game of "Sentences" churned out the phrase "sex-butt"
- Instrumental Theme Tune
- Interspecies Romance: Between a cow and a pig in a game of Story.
- It Makes Sense in Context: Arguably every skit the improvisers do evolves into this.
- I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine: This Game of "Moving Bodies" has Drew bring up three of The Price Is Right models to help him, Colin and Ryan play the game. Rachel Reynolds helps Ryan, Gwendolyn Osborne-Smith helps Colin, and Manuela Arbelaez works with Drew. Funny moments abound as at least once it almost goes Off the Rails.
- Large Ham: EVERYONE!
- Little Known Facts:Jonathan/Chip: In eighteen... twenty... seven... the Brai-llish... invented the Eiffel Tower!
- Little Professor Dialogue: One audience participant was an eleven-year-old kid throwing around words like "omnipotent" and "internal bleeding."
- Look Behind You:
- Used in episode 11's "Two-Headed Expert" (see above for link) twice when "Jorge" wanted to make an escape.
Chip/Jonathan: Look! It's... uh, Puff Daddy!
- Lyrical Dissonance: Used quite frequently.
- An Elizabethian song about strippers in a game of Hits Compilation.
- A jaunty tune after the revelation that Kathy was dumping Colin for her brother in a game of Bob's Call.
- In fact, this is a big part of the humor in Bob's Call.
Jeff: I'm gonna DIE today, when I fly away! I'm gonna go splat, like that! Then I'll fly away! Hey! - Mad Scientist: Played in an extremely hammy way by Ryan and Jeff in a game of Two Headed Expert.
- Meaningful Name: Ryan's 'old school rapper' name, Tone Loc + Mos Def = Tone Def.
- Milking the Giant Cow: In every skit, but most often seen in "Two-Headed Expert".
- Mouse Trap: One game involves two blindfolded and barefoot players, and a stage covered with these.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Singing a song about going to the bathroom. And prostate exams. And flapjacks.
- Mythology Gag:
- Ryan's use of 'Gary' and 'Phil' and jokes about how they got to be in the show have come up on occasion.
- He got everybody else doing it. Colin called Drew 'Phil' in a game of "Playbook", and even Jeff called people 'Gary. One skit involved 'Phil' the Cyclops and his friend 'Gary'.
- Also, Colin still has is way of getting his way out of things by fainting, being quiet and such. A "Question This" sees the return of his animal abuse jokes:
"I'll pick 'Things you wouldn't feed an elephant'..."- Heck, Drew pulled a Colin by fainting in a game of "Options", when he was unable to come up with a rhyme.
- Ryan mentions kidney stones again in an episode.
- Colin's bald jokes are back!
- In a game of "New Choice", Chip says to Drew, "You remind me of someone who used to be fat on TV."
- When Chip starts using two of the stools as turntables, you know Props is sorely missed.
- Similarly, the "Sound Effects" game that eventually morphs into an informercial.
- Ryan mentioning that his audience partner never turns his head till halfway through "Moving People". Yes, that was in 'Whose Line'' as well.
- Colin's dinosaur impression is seen again.
- Burnoose.
- In the same episode, Jeff makes fun of Keanu Reeves again.
- Colin's Scottish accent was heard again in episode 33.
- Oddly enough, Ryan is more prominently the woman in a scene now, not Colin.
- There's a couple of lesser-known ones - references to Ryan's resemblance to Neil Patrick Harris have been upgraded to "Doogie Howser Sr." now, and Jeff acted as Christopher Walken again in a "Freeze Tag" game.
- One from Drew Carey's Green Screen Show: Jonathan has crawled around seal-like several times in "Freeze Tag", which he last did on Green Screen as a "merma-beest" (wildebeest with fishtail for hindlegs).
- The improvisers making fun of the audience suggestions is similar to the way Clive Anderson did in the British version of Whose Line.
- One game of "Sound Effects" (re. ep 17) ends with another familiar gag:
Heather: Hold on, I have to blow (this flute) into the right part...
Jeff: If I Had a Nickel... for that! - National Stereotypes: In a game of "Two Headed Expert", Chip and Jonathan as an expert on the Eiffel Tower accidentally out themselves as Spanish, then try to pass for French by claiming that the Premier of France is Jerry Lewis.
- Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: From a game of Story. A kid is thrown into outer space by an exploding Les Paul guitar and transforms into an invisible green giant that can fly.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Averted with Jeff's Keanu Reeves in "Question This".
- Jonathan as George Takei in one "Hits Compilation" falls just a little short.
- Non Sequitur: A main source of humor for the Playbook game. And in Sentences every now and then.Ryan: "Helen, she say to me (reads) Purple Monkey Sit In The Tree!"
- And sometimes in "Two-Headed Expert", because the actor in each pair is trying to predict what the other is going to say.Chip/Jonathan: Look! It's... Puff Daddy!
- In one Bob's Call, Kathy was singing about her attraction to her brother. Colin, unable to think up a rhyme, said something about peeing in a urinal.
- And sometimes in "Two-Headed Expert", because the actor in each pair is trying to predict what the other is going to say.
- Noodle Incident: In a game of New Choice, Colin's claw hands were given to him by a renegade chicken. Don't ask!
- Not What It Looks Like: Colin playing Yahtzee in a game of Freeze looks like... something else.
- Oh, Crap!: In episode 35's "Freeze", Drew is sitting on the ground, and Jeff is on his hands and knees. Drew announces, "I've been in the desert for a while. Better get back on the donkey!" Ryan and Jeff make him freeze before he can sit on Jeff's back. A few scenes later, Jeff is still in the same position, and Drew returns.Drew: Better get back on the donkey!
Jeff: OH, GOD! - Off the Rails: "Sentences" can become this, since the audience writes lines the performers don't look at beforehand, and must use them when they're pulled out of their pockets. The "Ice Age" set with Ryan and Jonathan had "I can't believe my man is cougar material!" — and Jonathan trying hard to keep a straight face.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping
- Operator from India: Wayne plays one in a game of Question This. After he gives his Overly Long Name he gets a call, at which point he switches flawlessly into a white American accent and answers the phone claiming to be "Bryce", going back to the Indian accent when the call is finished.
- Orphaned Punchline: One Greatest Hits game involving "songs of the big game hunter" led to Chip singing about shooting an elephant and going "how he got in my pyjamas I'll never know". It should be the back half of an old joke that starts with "I once shot an elephant, in my pyjamas."
-
Out of Order: Each session of Improv-a-ganza gets spiced into more than one episode, resulting in the mentions of a small town called Elco and a guy named Smoke, in the "Question This" game from episode 9, "originating" from episode 16.- It occurs in the first episode. In the last rap of the "Kick it" session, Wayne mentions visiting "diamonds in Budapest". The audience reaction is almost certain to be at odds with a first-time viewer's reaction since the origin of that joke wouldn't appear until several episodes after.
- Overly Long Gag: "DUST...STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORM!" Repeat in varying tones for about five minutes. To be fair, the "jazz ballad" suggestion probably didn't give them a lot to work with.
- In Diana's "Song for a Lady", Jeff breaks down and sings lots of "Oh Yeah"s. He does this until Chip acknowledges Jeff is getting carried away.
- Overly Long Name: That great funk song about real estate: There's A Leak in the Bathroom and There's Only One Bedroom, Oh My!
- The mambo song about steel workers, Our Love Is Like White Hot Revits In My Pants.
- '80s synth-pop theme Wipe the Window, Hang the Freshener, Let's Go.
- Piss-Take Rap: from the new "Kick It!" game to stuff like this with Jeff, Chip, and Jonathan, which amazingly went on for more than two minutes.Ryan: I'm so white!
- Precision F-Strike:Greg: "So what happened is, we were on the street where we came across this kidnote and he said "I love you guys, I've seen your improv and your comedy, and I wonder if there is any tickets to the show", and so I told him... "No f—k off, we're sold out..." "
- And Jeff towards the end of the gangsta rap "Lethal Injection":
"You killed 40 people and you didn't even care, Yo Mutha———, LIE DOWN THERE!"- Jonathan, in one game of Options, when the option was Poetry:
"Roses are red, violets are blue, the handcuffs didn't work, hey hey, f—- you!" - Prison Rape: Towards the end of this game:Drew: "If I get caught, I'll be thrown into prison, and somebody's gonna throw me up against the wall and say (reads from paper) 'How would you like to create a new version of Frankenstein with me?'"
- Promotion to Opening Titles: Zig Zagged.
- Pun: In this game of "Freeze":Ryan: I'm gonna have to put her down.
Brad: No!
Ryan: You're a bad cow. Bad, ugly cow!
Brad: You think messing with her self-esteem is going to help?
Ryan: Oh, you didn't think I was actually going to shoot her.
Brad: Yes.
Ryan: No, no, I just wanted to put her down.- Jonathan in "Song for a Lady":
"She's a nurse, and he's a cop; that's like cardiac arrest!" - Ripped from the Headlines: a song in "Hits Compilation" titled "Bail Me Out", namedropping Madoff to boot.
- Running Gag:
- Thanks to the venue, jokes about gambling come up a lot.
- Jonathon being the Butt-Monkey has become a recurring theme.
- The Sea Hawks and the Jets.
- High-fives that miss.
Ryan: "You knocked over the ottoman!"- Drew's weight loss has come up a few times.
- Apparently "Freeze Tag" has drawn consistent input from yoga enthusiasts.
- Jeff seems to be a Red Hands champion.
- "Celebrity" hosts in "Hits Compilation".
- Especially popular in Freeze Tag: "Ladies and gentlemen, Cirque du So-Gay" (Kathy seems to prefer "Cirque du Who-knows-what")
- Drew choosing 'Scientific Names for Body Parts' in Question This.
- Ryan using the name Roger in games with soap opera themes.
- Drew being a stripper.
- The mistreatment of cats.
- Anyone being forced to redo their last lines far too many times in New Choice would inadvertently wind up blurting out "I love you" or "Iiiiii love a parade!"
- Not an intentional one, but when asked for a number between one and five, several audience members have responded with six or seven.
- Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: during "Sound Effects" (but of COURSE!) and some other games, like the time Heather Anne portrays a Southern Ditz in "Question This", and her "buzzer" goes "Bippity-boop!" instead."I say the sound so I know that I buzzed..."
- There's also a Feet of Clay moment when announcers Rich Fields and Steve Kamer turn out to be about the same level as the usual audience members in this aspect:
Drew: Is your sword going clank clank clanky clank?
Brad: Not without the help of your sword!- In episode 35, Greg and Jeff go "gloogloogloogloogloo" and "DING" when demonstrating how pudding can fluff panties.
- Schadenfreude: Much during the Mousetrap game.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Played for laughs when one session of Freeze Tag leads to more and more people clinging to Wayne's back.
- Done by Jeff in another game of Freeze Tag after Jeff was forced to remain in Downward Dog for the entire game.
- Same with Jeff in a later game.
- Sequel Escalation: The fan favourite Sound Effects game now leads to the audience members speaking and singing on top of the sound effects. Case in point.
- Shout-Out:
- One game of "Options" had someone suggest Black Swan, leading to an impromptu ballet and same sex kissing. Another one had the suggestion of The Princess Bride instead, which the players were more familiar with if Drew's "Inconceivable!" was any indication.
- The official website ran a competition called "Drew's Clues Sweepstakes".
- A song titled "Our Love Is Like Pork" ends on the line "That'll do, pig, that'll do".
- One paper used in "Sentences" in ep. 12 actually says "scruffy nerf-herder".
- "It's a Lethal! Injection! (What?) It's a Lethal! Injection! (In the butt!)"
- "I've got a tattoo with snakes and wings going around... It's a good thing they're not on a plane!"
- Greatest Hits of the Bank Manager Trainee provides us with, "Gimme one dollar! Gimme two dollar! Gimme three dollar!" (beat) "Gimme seventeen dollars!"
- One game of "Moving People" ended with Drew and Greg singing the intro of "Bad Romance".
- One game of "New Choice" had Greg deliberately avoid one of the two stock phrases mentioned in Running Gag above by busting out his pipes and singing "I love... Springtime..."
- One game of "Options" had someone suggest Black Swan, leading to an impromptu ballet and
- Small Reference Pools: An audience suggestion to perform a scene in the style of Train falls apart when none of the cast members involved of the sketch had heard of the band.
- Audience member Wendy claimed to have grown up in a town called Forks - and Twilight jokes were noticeably amiss. Similarly, the suggestion of "Kazakhstan" in "Options" led to Drew and Jonathan talking in an incomprehensible gibber rather than a Borat impression.
- And in one "Bob's Call":
Drew: (singing) "They're gonna pull your nose off - And put nails in your feet - Cos that's Transformers!" - The Smurfette Principle: Noticeably missing from the lineup are Kathy Greenwood from Whose Line and Julie Larsen from Green Screen - instead, we have Kathy Kinney and newcomer Heather Anne Campbell taking turns to be the one woman on the stage. More astute viewers will have noticed how their names get the exact same spot in the opening credits.
- Special Guest: Rich Fields from The Price Is Right and this show's intro, and Steve Kamer from Inside Edition, get to participate in "Sound Effects".Steve: "Tonight... Charlie Sheen, on Inside Edition..."
Ryan: "Thanks for reminding me I'm out of a job."note - Three of the Price Is Right models participated in the first ever 3-man "Moving People".
- Spiritual Successor: To Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Green Screen.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: In one game of "Bob's Call", Ryan insists he only collects women's shoes, he doesn't wear them, what are you talking about.
- Take That!: "Snooki, you don't even know these guys!"
- A few have also been directed at the New York Jets, from the cast and the audience.
- The game Sound Effects has the improvisers making fun of the audience's sound effects.
- Episode 14. Brad's idea of a supermodel pose involved forced vomiting.
- To the Olsen twins. "They've got big heads and little tiny bodies. Look, if I put this pumpkin on my head, I look just like Mary-Kate!"Ryan: Let's throw darts at your Olsen twins poster. I'm going to hit the anorexic one.
Jonathan: New choice.
Ryan: I'm going to hit the one with talent.
Jonathan: True choice.
Ryan: I'm just gonna hit one. - A game of "Freeze Tag" brought up Nick Nolte and Lindsay Lohan.
- New Jersey.
- Technology Marches On: one "Hits Compilation" had Jonathan mentioning that they were switching to USB keychains instead of CDs.
- Tempting Fate: Special guest Charlie Sheen, anyone?
- Jonathan suffered from this trope, often saying or doing things that would result in retaliation from the rest of the players, such as saying "This isn't so bad" as he picked up Drew in a piggyback (resulting in him keeping Drew or others on his back for the rest of the Freeze Tag game) or in Styles, trying to use Drew's hand as a protective cup, resulting in Drew squeezing his netherregions.
- This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: "Eight seconds, bitch!"
- And one session of "Two Headed Expert", quite conveniently:Drew/Jonathan: (alternating) "I am sure [Cancun] is one word too... BIATCH!"
- In "Options", Drew must speak in three words, and Jonathan must speak in eight:Drew: Shall we operate?
Jonathan: Yes, the operation area is over here... (needs one more word) Biatch.note - Every now and then the "Options" game uses number-of-words restrictions, leading to this just to make the count:
Jeff: (Shakespeare style plus 12 words) I cast you away into the woods, to fend for thyself (long Beat) sucka! - And one session of "Two Headed Expert", quite conveniently:
- Toilet Humor: Chip, posing on one leg with one arm raised: "This casino has weird urinals."
- Options in #7 immediately took this path thanks to the first (rejected) suggestion:
Colin: "...name a place where you and your friends might meet... A toilet? What friends do you hang out with, sir?" - Troll:
- One game of "Moving People" starts with an over-enthusiastic woman from the audience getting rather touchy-feely with Drew - cue Ryan quietly stepping in for her and groping Drew's ass for quite a long while, before he finally notices.
Greg: "He would have stood there all day!"- Certain games like Forward/Reverse and New Choice WILL lead to this.
- Unsound Effect:
- The Little Professor Dialogue above was in response to one woman going "magnificent" and "powerful" to represent flexing biceps in Sound Effects. And flexing buttcheeks go "Beyoncé" for some reason. And apparently, Doctor bills and $1,000 damage are sound effects too.
- It happens again in a later episode before a game begins:
Wayne: Let's say that Greg is knocking on the door. You'll make the sound with your mouth. Try it right now, go.
Audience member: Knock knock knock.
Wayne: She's from the Land of Literal.
Ryan: Better than "door door door". - The Little Professor Dialogue above was in response to one woman going "magnificent" and "powerful" to represent flexing biceps in Sound Effects.
- Unusual Euphemism:Jonathan: (In the style of Dr. Seuss) I do not like you you you you, don't put your hands on Thing One or Two.
- In one game of freeze:
Colin: You cur! You worthless, senseless thing! You block! You...monkey.- From "Question This":
Ryan: "The answer is 'Tahiti'!" (Drew buzzes in)
Drew: "What did I use to oil up before every show? (rubbing his nipples) My Tahiti's!" - Videogame Cruelty Potential: "Mousetraps", for the pain involved (the cast have resorted to throwing them and ordering each other to walk across the stage), and "Reverse" and "New Choice" because callers can yell "reverse/forward" or "new choice" any time they want, as often as they want.Jeff: I can say forward/reverse as much as I like, just to torture them.
- Waxing Lyrical: One of the less awkward audience submissions in "Sentences" led to Jonathan saying out loud "Man I Feel Like A Woman".
- From one session of "Freeze":
"This is Jeff Davis reporting live on the scene... It is indeed raining men." - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?:
- Invoked in episode one by Greg during Colin's explanation of "Moving People" - which doubles as a Continuity Nod to Drew Careys Green Screen Show, where Greg had a similar problem with the same game.
- Jeff said this in a game of Sound Effects when he picked audience members who proceed to make sounds that don't make sense.
- Also, in the game with the prostate exam, Ryan says this to Colin. Sure enough:
Colin: "He's dying!... I may have gone too far up!... CLEAR!!"- In the game of Options starring Kathy and Colin, Mexican dialect was brought up. Cue Colin speaking with a Scottish accent. While Kathy had a French or something-or-other accent. At least Colin had the excuse of being a tourist.
- For some reason, they decided it was a good idea to put a microphone into the hand of a post-Two and a Half Men Charlie Sheen.
- What the Hell, Player?: A game of "First Date" wherein the couple being featured disagreed about the sequence of events. They ring the bell and honk the horn at the same time, leaving the cast at a complete loss.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: In a game of Options starring Drew and Colin."Freeze. French dialect."
- Jeff in a game of Sentences.
Jeff: Also, I started out English and now I moved to kind of south of the border.
Ryan: I can never figure you out! - A Wild Rapper Appears!: "Kick It!" inserts snippets of rap into scenes which are otherwise played straight.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Heather Anne as a ten-year-old kid, abandoned by her parents years ago and raised by her neighbours, and develops telekinetic abilities that can burst people's heads and pull out kidney stones.
- Writing Around Trademarks: The actual game called "Whose Line" was changed to "Sentences" because "Whose Line" is tied directly with the trademarks of Whose Line Is It Anyway?.
- Had the same name on the Green Screen Show. Probably for the same reason.
Chip: "This is the game show where the contestants must give all their answers in the form of a question, and we have changed the name so that we don't put ourselves in legal... jeopardy."
