New Whose Line! Episode 3: The Unoriginals

Featuring Wayne Brady, Keegan Michael Key, Colin Mochrie, and Ryan Stiles!

Plus Special Star Guest Candice Accola, background singer from Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert!

a review/wall of snark by Jessica (in green) and Tails (in red)

Planet Hollywood Director: On a space station, Ryan examines an alien lifeform with android assistant Keegan, when mother....alien Wayne bursts in to attack them. Colin directs, instructing them to redo the scene as bitchy fashionistas and as guests on the ever-relevant Jerry Springer Show.

• I’m pretty sure that this is a game from an unaired Keegan Michael Key episode of Drew’s Line, where the performers coincidentally wore the same outfits they wore for this new taping, and now they’ve digitally inserted them onto the New Whose Line stage and replaced Drew’s intro with a newly shot intro by Aisha. How else could you explain every single thing about this game?
• There were still some things that have changed over the years. Colin’s “angry director” has much less of an edge to it. Oh Colin, please say you’re not too old to be our favorite angry Scotsman! I will gladly supply you with throat lozenges!
• My first impressions of Keegan: He’s good at making sound effects, and he makes a convincing robot. I can’t wait to see the many other talents he’ll bring to the table!
• Keegan looks as though he’s not sure whether he wants to be doing Data or C-3PO, since when you’re trying to play a robot with a slowed accent and a sense of politeness, there certainly isn’t a lot of choice there! 
• Have you noticed that Wayne’s main role in non-musical games is to burst in and attack people? So far in the new series, he’s done it as a zombie bartender, a Bond villain, and now a proud mommy. This is racial profiling, isn’t it? They’re having Wayne Brady take these roles because he’s a big, intimidating black man, aren’t they?
• Since I didn’t see Colin get handed any slips of paper, I’m curious as to if he was coming up with these suggestions himself. Considering Ryan’s plaid that looks like a paper towel pattern, Keegan’s 50s-era futuristic shirt, and Colin’s overripe-grape shade of purple, I don’t think fashionistas are really the way to go, Col.

Here’s Some Items We Custom-Made To Look Kinda but Not Too Much Like Naughty Body Parts: It’s Wayne and Colin (pair of fuzzy grey strips of floppy bacon on sticks) “vs.” Keegan and Ryan (pair of elephant earplugs with holes in them that defeat the purpose).

• Despite taking a break of nearly a decade from playing this, Props is more or less the same as ever... and I’m not really a Props fan in the first place, so that’s not a good thing! Still, Colin’s team often has a couple ideas just silly enough for me to enjoy, like Old Mr. T, or the (implied) brutal murder of a beloved cartoon character. (It’ll grow back - cartoon bunnies are like real-life starfish.)
• The props were sort of lacking this time around, but there’s not a whole lot you can do with corn holders and off-brand Swiffer dusters, and the game itself is getting old. Though I would like to congratulate the show’s 10,000th reference to Madonna’s pointy boobage!
• Notice how Wayne instantly straightens out his fuzzy bacon strip after Colin’s “tribe of erectile dysfunction” joke. And he did the same kind of thing in last episode’s SFAH, with his Amazing Inflat-a-Cock. Obvious overcompensation! But don’t feel too bad, Wayne; Ryan does it too. If nothing else, I’m sure your tiny penises are perfectly adorable. Like Diglett!
• If their penises are that long and floppy, don’t you think the problem is not only the weight, but the fact that anybody would pass out from lack of blood to the brain if that thing got an erection? Think, man!
• Just listen to the unreasonably enthusiastic CHEERS AND APPLAUSE after the Coneheads joke! I think every young person in the world who still remembers the Coneheads, by some bizarre coincidence, ended up attending the very same Whose Line taping!
• “I’m confused.” You can slowly see it dawn on Colin that he has the prop facing the wrong way, but even when he does it’s not quite right, and he still gives a “what’s wrong with you people?” look to the audience. I think even he has problems believing that there are people who still enjoy this game!
• I find the joke about Dracula’s plaque-ula interesting because it ties into the vampire theme, that nobody was technically supposed to know about. But Aisha definitely knew, because it’s gotta be somewhere on those cards. Ryan and Wayne probably knew, because they’re big important Executive Producers. Keegan and Colin possibly knew, because how many other things are there to talk about while you’re waiting for games to be set up and whatnot? And we in the home audience obviously knew, because the CW has been flaunting THE EXTREMELY FAMOUS CANDICE ACCOLA in promos for weeks now. Basically, I’m saying that this is an improv show where every single person, including you, knows a hell of a lot ahead of time!

Vampire High School Musical: Wayne sings to Expectedly Special Star Guest Candice Accola, who is the star of (read: a supporting character on) a CW programme called The Vampire Diaries, in the style of Latin pop.

• In theory, I like the fact that this song is mostly about how Wayne has never actually seen The Vampire Diaries, like me! In reality, I’m too busy being annoyed at how he compensates for that by just singing “my sexy vampire” fifty times in a row. Perhaps he would’ve been better off forcing her to sing against her will too!
• What, you’re not even going to offer her a chair? RUDE. Candice is nice to at least join in with the dancing, even if she does look creeped out for most of the game. You can also see the moment where Wayne is like “Wait, you’re actually gonna turn around so I can ‘stake you from behind?’ I didn’t think you’d really do it!”
• I do, however, like the way Ryan nudges Colin after Aisha’s French pronunciation of “on pointe”, as if to say, “Dude, you’re Canadian, and there are French people in Canada, so you must LOVE this!”

The Emperor’s New Hats: It’s Wayne and Keegan on the black stool “vs.” Colin and Ryan on the white stool (which is also black).

• This is the first Whose Line game that doesn’t involve an audience suggestion, host suggestion, specialized prop, unexpected musical interlude, or unique element of any sort, isn’t it? It’s just four horny old guys reciting all the sex jokes they’ve memorized over the years. OH MY GOD WHOSE LINE ISN’T REALLY COMPLETELY IMPROVISED IT’S THE SCANDAL OF THE CENTURY! (No, but seriously, this is pretty much the bottom of the barrel as far as improv games are concerned.)
• The game has become so oversimplified that it even seems like the performers are just stealing material from each other. Why would you waste your time coming up with something original when you can just use the same set-up the other guy did with a different payoff?
• On the bright side, seeing Colin embarrass himself horribly is always good fun. I’m honestly curious what the joke was supposed to be in his head, because I can’t imagine a version of it that isn’t total homosexual filth. He made a hand puppet sex joke in the last episode too, come to think of it. I think what Colin’s really embarrassed by is just how close he’s coming to revealing the true depth of his shameful puppet fetish.
• “And so how big are your hips? Oh jeez, was it that creepy, I creeped myself out!” Keegan, I sorta interpreted the audience’s silence as “you weren’t funny” and not “you wanna find out if the girl has childbearing hips.” You need more creepy old man training! True creepy old men don’t stop when they make people uncomfortable!
• The colorful splotchy backdrop is actually some kind of STATE-OF-THE-ART IMAX MONITOR THAT CAN DISPLAY CHEAP CGI HEARTS! No wonder two boxes of hats weren’t in the show’s budget anymore - this sounds expensive! What a time to be alive!

Sir Edmund Livingscenery: Colin and Ryan are two intrepid mountaineers facing various obstacles in a bid to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Keegan and Uselessly Special Guest Candice Accola stand in as various objects to be used (invariably) suggestively.

• Congratulations to this episode for managing to feature an incredible three of my least favorite games! Y’know what? From now on, if there’s a round of Props or Dating Profiles or Living Scenery in an episode, you can just assume I didn’t like it and grumbled bitterly at my TV screen or computer monitor the whole time unless I say otherwise. Okay? Okay.
• I’m getting kind of sick of this game, which I didn’t even really like to begin with, and I wish there were other situations they could put these guest stars in. They’re obviously going with the easy “stand there and look pretty” route, but they didn’t give the audience members that same courtesy before! Let the actors be crappy or surprise us, that’ll give them more fodder than just “be creepy and wiggle around on her butt!”
• “I’m gonna fire a mortar out of the mortar.” Okay, Ryan, you can call either of those things a mortar, technically, but choose one and only one. Got it? Oh, by the way, lots of people climb Mount Everest these days. You could’ve very well killed fifty or more people in that avalanche! Won’t someone please think of the Sherpas??
• Poor Ryan, even for him all the guest star games are running together too. “Are we doing Dubbing or Living Scenery? The second one? Okay.”
• Ryan also confuses magic 8-balls with ouija boards for a second. Despite his blazing white, increasingly Dr. Wilyish hair, Colin is by far the less senile of the two. Not only that, he’s far stronger than Ryan as well! Either that, or KEEGAN WEIGHS LESS THAN A TINY LITTLE GIRL.
• I’m starting to think that having more women and other bald men on the show was part of Colin’s contract. He’s having way too much fun getting revenge for these kind of jokes.
• Candice didn’t get actually get to say words during either of her two games, but she got to endure jokes about men twice her age wanting to put their penises in her butt in both of them. And that’s almost as good, right?

Credit Bleeding: Wayne, Keegan, Colin, Ryan, and Ass-Humpingly Special Star Guest Candice Accola are high school students gossipping about which of their friends are vampires.

• Hehehe. “Mark Levenson”. I wonder if he’s upset that Candice couldn’t even get his name right, or if he’s just pleased that a pretty girl tried to say his name at all.
• Ryan’s all “I’m just gonna do my Bela Lugosi impression and hang out in back.” Good on you, Ry.
• As someone who’s never seen The Vampire Diaries, read The Vampire Diaries, or absorbed the essence of The Vampire Diaries into my bloodstream via osmosis, this feels much more sensible to me if I pretend that “vampire” is some sort of colorful teenage slang for sluts.
• I really hope Candice's dialogue here isn't what you actually see on The Vampire Diaries, otherwise Clueless called, they're a much better movie.

GOD JUST TELL US WHAT YOU REALLY THOUGHT OF THE EPISODE ALREADY ALRIGHT?

• This was exactly what I was hoping the Whose Line revival wouldn’t be. There’s styles and jokes similar if not identical to episodes from nearly a decade ago! If not for Wayne’s throwaway references to Honey Boo Boo and Justin Bieber fans - okay, and the presence of Aisha Tyler - would you even know this episode was from 2013? And then there’s the sex jokes with absolutely no semblance of spontaneity. It’s not shocking and outrageous if you’re just DIRECTLY TELLING THESE GUYS TO DO IT. Also, despite my early optimism about Keegan, as it turns out, he was only so awesome at the first game because he is little more than a sound effects robot - a technical marvel no doubt, but not really good for improv shows that require performers to do things other than make sound effects and be robots. (On the bright side, I’ll almost certainly enjoy next week’s episode much, much more!)
• I greatly enjoy familiarity, but upon repeated viewings I started to see really clearly what’s wrong with this episode. While I love that it still has that Whose Line style we hold close to our hearts, these new episodes feel so calculated. It’s getting to the point where I can guess what games will be played and in what order every time, and if we’re already getting sick of that by episode 3, how will it be in episode 12? They need to figure out a way to keep things fresh and new.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• It’s too bad that they discontinued host games for the new season, because this episode would’ve benefitted from sending Aisha out into the field for a rousing game of Newsflash. Tons of fun indeed! Also, all you potential 8-bit Whose Line fangame creators take note: Wayne, in his ensemble from tonight’s episode, could accurately be represented in sprite form with only two colors.
• Aisha Tyler is still an incredibly enthusiastic host, so enthusiastic that commercial breaks seem to make her think that she needs to ANNOUNCE IT INCREDIBLY LOUDLY! I know the host needs to project their voice when they’re about to announce commercials, but it’s sort of jarring when she’s talking at a normal tone of voice two seconds prior. We’re hearing you loud and clear, Aisha. I’m glad you’re having fun.

NEXT WEEK ON NEW WHOSE LINE: Be sure to catch back-to-back episodes featuring Kyle Richards of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills and the United States Olympic synchronized swimming team! It's most certainly not an hour of television designed to burn off their two worst special guests as soon as possible, nosiree!

New Whose Line! Episode 2: Glee Club It!

Featuring Wayne Brady, Heather Anne Campbell, Colin Mochrie, and Ryan Stiles!

Plus Special Star Guest Kevin McHale, from a holiday-themed Febreze commercial circa 2007!

a review/wall of snark by Jess (in green) and Tails (in red)

Scenes from a Hat . . . AFTER DARK: It’s Wayne and Heather “vs.” Colin and Ryan as they act out: “Things you shouldn’t say right after sleeping with someone for the very first time”, “Lines you wouldn’t hear in a weight loss commercial”, “Things you can say about your favorite pair of shoes, but not about your partner”, and “Bad things to say when running for office”.

• “Okay, I guess we’re done, how would you like to pay for that?” Oh Ryan. For making so many jokes about prostitution, do you REALLY think that any hooker worth her salt would give up the goods without deciding on pricing beforehand? You had to have learned SOMETHING from Drew’s tenure on the show!
• Naturally, laughing at someone’s lackluster sexual performance, laughing at their tiny penis, or forcing yourself inside them because you thought they might be a lady would all be perfectly acceptable if you’ve already slept with them in the past. It’s only really awkward if you do it the very first time!
• It’s interesting how Wayne made the same “It’ll be better after the operation” joke during SFAH on the old WL, and the crowd reacted with the same laughter and applause expected. Maybe CW audiences are just more mature, further proven by watching the sophisticated and tasteful Perfect Score - Tuesday nights after Whose Line!
• Or maybe they found Wayne’s joke distasteful because they’re under the impression that Drew got a sex change operation and is now an attractive black woman, and they’re just like, “Dude! He’s right there!!” Whatever the case, I’m just curious about what this means for Ryan’s Deranged Crossdressing Pervert Guy that he played in, like, every other scene on Improv-a-Ganza. If they’re not okay with that anymore, then NOW how will he work through his many, many, MANY issues??
• It’s actually sort of jarring to see political jokes on the new Whose Line, when I’ve been so used to hearing Tony Slattery’s delightful jabs at a newly-deceased Richard Nixon! And amazingly, the Mitt Romney joke somehow seems MORE dated by today’s standards.
• Dayum, Mitt Romney, you totally just got STILESED! You’re not just gonna take a lighthearted crack on a quasi-popular TV improv comedy show lying down, are you? Huh? ARE YOU??
• The end game banter really cements the fact that I like Aisha as host, since she’s finally making it so that it’s not entirely small dick jokes. Small dick jokes have been done to here and back, and we don’t have nearly enough thinly-veiled queef jokes out there! Comedic equality means everybody’s uncomfortable!
• And seriously, how great are everyone’s reactions to that? Wayne seems genuinely shocked and perhaps even a little uncomfortable; Colin just looks confused; Ryan smiles because it reminds him of a Two and a Half Men joke, and that gig pays better than this one; and Heather, probably being a major squeaker herself, laughs knowingly.

We Need To Sing About Kevin: Wayne sings to Exceedingly Special Star Guest Kevin McHale, who stars on “television phenomenon hit show Glee”, in the style of the long-forgotten game, Gospel.

• Surely Kevin deserves credit for stepping up and actually singing after Wayne pretty much forces him into it, even if his singing didn’t really say “gospel” to me, so much as it said “country being played on a record player at the wrong speed, after one too many beers”. (Then again, ALL country music takes place after one too many beers.)
• Surely Wayne also deserves credit for suggesting such a thing; as he certainly let Kevin sing more than he allowed people like David Hasselhoff to - most likely for good reason.
• Fans of paying more attention to the seated performers than the ones actually playing the game will love this, because Heather and Colin’s sit-dancing is nothing short of adorable. Even Ryan manages to crack a smile and tap his foot a bit! Almost like a non-crazy person!
• This is almost making me wish they’d involve more interactive styles in the future. Something fun for the whole family, like headbanging or moshing!
• By the way, this game is just called Song Style now. It only took them 23 years to realize that they haven’t used multiple styles for this game in, well, 23 years. Who knows how much longer it’ll take for them to realize there’s only one Ryan Stile!

Glee Dub It!: High school choir teacher Ryan is helping Awkwardly Special Star Guest Kevin McHale rehearse for the lead role in a big singing competition, when Kevin’s archrival Wayne comes in to prove that he can perform better. Colin provides Kevin’s silky smooth voice.

• For the sake of leading off with positive positivity, I think any gave involving Colin singing is automatically hilarious, and this was no exception. He spends at least half of this game just letting off a loud, booming “MOOOOHHH”, and somehow it never stops being funny! Ever! It’s almost unfair!
• Kevin should be grateful to this show for teaching him the stylings of “Old Canadian” cow yodeling. Ryan may not think that draws in the crowds, but what does a guy like Ryan Stiles know about comedy anyway? 
• Kevin is actually pretty good at this, too! He actually bothers to pay attention to what Colin says, so he actually throws in some specific physical actions rather than just absentmindedly flapping his gums. Notice, for instance, the way he throws in an awkward wobble when Colin’s voice wavers, or the way he accompanies the aforementioned bovine bellowing by actually contorting his face like a cow. (What? Someone being compared to a cow non-insultingly? That’s practically unherd of!)
• The insulting is saved for when Rextel shows up and decides that he deserves the role of primadonna lead with an accent! The gauntlet is thrown for a “sing-off” and Kevin rightly adjusts his trousers to be sure he’ll be able to hit those high notes!
• It’s actually rather sweet how Ryan steps in to keep his good buddy Colin from passing out during the “sing-off” (which Wayne handily loses by making the rookie mistake of never bothering to sing), and also, to keep the studio audience and the folks at home and himself from having shattered eardrums.

Double-O-Sideways Scene: Colin is James Bond seducing Heather, a beautiful Russian spy, when acrobatic master criminal Wayne enters to attack them. The styles used include poltergeist film (or Poltergeist film?) and Cirque du Soleil.

• I have the same complaints against this game now that I had last year when it was on Trust Us. It’s only really novel the first time you see it, then all you can focus on is the way it goes nowhere and all the styles are designed to keep it that way, because everyone’s too busy crawling around a giant gym mat. By the time they get to Cirque du Soleil, they seem to have forgotten entirely that there’s a crude, minimalistic line drawing of a bed in this scene. It’s as though playing two improv games at once is sort of difficult!
• Physical comedy like this I think works better in live shows, rather than taped performances. Once you realize “Oh, it looks like Colin really IS doing a handstand, hooray!” you wonder what else you can really get out of it. It’s at least clear that Wayne lives to play this game, as he constantly makes the ceiling entrances his own.
• The one good thing about this game is the way Ryan’s forced to get out of his seat and sit on the stairs, like a particularly gangly bum. The only thing that would’ve made it better is if they’d let the camera awkwardly linger on him throughout the entire game instead!
• Colin appears to be playing the little-known French version of James Bond, if his accent is any indication. One would think that his Scottish heritage would come in handy for more than just Scotty or Braveheart, but no!
• “Excuse me, I’m working on kicking your butt!” ~dialogue that isn’t any of the Bond movies, but totally should be!

The Helping Hands That Smiles Back (Until You Bite Its Head Off): Ryan is a carny at the local fairground, hard as that may be to believe, and Grass-Regurgitatingly Special Star Guest Kevin McHale is a tourist visiting his stand, which is just an awkward mishmash of vaguely carnival-themed things. Colin provides Ryan’s hands. Well, and his forearms too.

• I like the way the props department decided that a “tourist” costume comprises a blue zip-up track jacket. Please tell me where was actually a debate about this before the taping, with different members of the show’s production crew arguing passionately about what shitty whitebread article of clothing most wholly conveys the essence of tourism. And please tell me that this season will get a DVD release, with commentaries, so I can listen to the cast and crew rehash said arguments for my amusement.
• I didn’t realize how much I missed seeing Ryan being made to eat something disgusting! He shovels in a (thankfully fake) goldfish that’s sure to give performers flashbacks to their fraternity hazing, then pulls a Mr. Burns on election night. (Like with the ibuprofen, I wonder how long it took them to pick up the half-chewed fish from the carpet?)
• The mere act of getting up to play Helping Hands has given Ryan a spontaneous sore throat! And it’s obvious that his sore throat is the only reason he didn’t make this character Kinda-Sorta-Italian. But do you suppose that Kevin had the forethought to be British specifically so this game would still reach the requisite Helping Hands Bad Accent Quota? Either way, it wasn’t enough but I appreciate the effort, guvna.
• I don’t know what surprised me more, the fact that Ryan’s popcorn trick actually worked, or the fact that Kevin had no qualms about catching and eating something that came from someone more than twice his age who just finished chewing up a plastic goldfish? Also, Ryan seemed to come down with some sort of ailment in the middle of the game, so hopefully Kevin doesn’t come down with some voice problem that really makes him sound like an old Canadian!
• So, what the hell was the “circus flatbread”? I’m as baffled as Ryan! If I had to guess, it looked kind of like a funnel cake, but made of foam rubber, and freshly steamrolled. Hopefully next time the props department will remember that Colin can and will pick up every single thing they put it out and shove it down Ryan’s esophagus. (Not that he really minds.) Now that they’ve solved the tourist uniform dilemma, there should be nothing standing in the way of them not trying to kill him, right?

Credits That Also Don’t Acknowledge Jonathan Coulton: Udder-Explodingly Special Star Guest Kevin McHale joins Wayne, Heather, Colin and Ryan comprising the members of a glee club preparing for a show.

• Ryan looks weirded out by the rest of them trying to sound like opera singers, while at the same time channeling his Show Stopping Number dance moves. It’s like he doesn’t know any other dance move besides “extend arm and leg at once and hope it looks good”.
• If you can make out what everyone’s saying when they’re all shouting incoherently at the same time, well, your ears are much better at being ears than my ears are, that’s for sure!
• When Ryan makes the obvious joke that Kevin, who plays a character in a wheelchair is suddenly walking around and standing, the others seem to react in horror rather than elation. Perhaps medical miracles are an underused genre in horror movies! (Insert your own Human Centipede joke here.)
• Can we cut it out with the credit readings that are blatant references to the thing the special guest is known for, that was surely already the subject of one or two games earlier on? Can we please? Can we please get rid of that so we don’t have to deal with Aisha making half-hearted winking jokes about it TWICE in each episode? It’s one of the very few things she does that I actually find grating, so please. Dan Patterson, I will give you a cookie if you just do this one small favor for me.

GOD JUST TELL US WHAT YOU REALLY THOUGHT OF THE EPISODE ALREADY ALRIGHT?

• A sizable improvement on the first episode. The guest star managed to show me not to judge an actor by his cover, and it all seemed to flow much better. My only real complaint with this episode is the choices of games, namely things like Sideways Scene that I think can be removed in favor of better things. And can we please get ourselves a Hoedown on this show? Laura Hall and Linda Taylor’s new hairstyles need more screen time!
• In a grand Whose Line tradition, yet another episode is firmly above average in my eyes primarily because Colin finds something really annoying and then does it a lot. That’s not to say there weren’t other games I like, as Scenes from a Hat and Helping Hands were good fun too, but... c’mon. MimimimimiMOOOOHHH, guys.

FINAL THOUGHTS

• Am I the only one who really thinks that Colin needs a better shirt color? Pink has never really been a good color for him, especially that salmony shade. It makes him look older and like his flesh is just sorta blending in with it. Put him in light blues or just make him suffer through those Hawaiian shirts again. That’ll get ya some cheap laughs!
• And why does Aisha get the most pathetic Whose Line-branded coffee cup ever? I swear they just printed out the logo on regular paper and taped it to a regular black mug! I know Whose Line’s main allure to networks is that it’s incredibly cheap to produce, but c’mon, guys. She does daytime TV, on a real network. She’s used to so much more in her televised drinkware. Spring for the extra twenty bucks to get her a real mug. You’ll thank me later.

NEXT WEEK ON NEW WHOSE LINE: Special Guest Star Candice Accola stops by to read embarrassing secrets from her Vampire Diaries, while Keegan Michael Key makes his debut as fourth-seater and searches for even more fruitful ways to humiliate himself!

New Whose Line! Episode 1: Rise from Your Low-Rated Grave!

Featuring Wayne Brady, Gary Anthony Williams, Colin Mochrie, and Ryan Stiles!

Plus Special Star Guest Lauren Cohan, from National Lampoon’s Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj!

a review/wall of snark by Jess (in green) and Tails (in red)

Let’s Masticate a Date: Gary is the taco-munching bachelorette. Wayne is a shock jock on-air with his posse. Colin is a love robot who is recharged by kissing people. Ryan is Colin’s bickering parents who are trying to teach him the facts of life.

• Even in its latest incarnation, Whose Line is still producing completely organic and not at all contrived excuses to make men kiss each other! I’ll bet you probably didn’t even realize that’s what they were doing here, because this one’s particularly subtle.
• You know Whose Line is back when Colin’s kissed Ryan and Wayne within the first four minutes. Just the look on their faces lets you know this is a matter of course for them now. One can only hope “Ryan’s Lip Lube” is eventually available to the general public, presumably after the giraffe-testing controversy dies down.
• Do you think Gary felt disappointed at all that he wasn’t included? I’d like to think he had to cry himself to sleep that night, unable to cope with the despair of never getting a chance to taste Colin’s old, dry Canadian lips...
• Gary drowned his sorrows in gravy, no doubt.
• Ryan Stiles’ incredibly sensitive take on alternative lifestyles: “It’s not right to kiss other men. That’s what women are for!” (SO COME KISS YOUR MOMMY INSTEAD COLIN)
• I think it was a good move to start the episode off on a familiar game, especially one that we haven’t seen for a while! We didn’t have a lot of laughs but we had our guy-on-guy action, and isn’t that what Whose Line is all about? Personally, I’d like to see one where the kissing quirk isn’t Colin’s and goes to someone else, maybe even the fourth-seater. I’d wanna see who he/she goes for first.
• Yeah, this was a pretty standard and none-too-original LMAD setup, but nostalgia isn’t all bad. And at least they’ve scaled the quirks back from the elaborate character biographies they used in the last batch of Whose Line tapings. In fact, Gary’s guesses are far longer than the quirks themselves! Admittedly, I would like to see a performer - doesn’t necessarily have to be Ryan - try to portray one person with multiple personalities as well as a distinct second person who does not, and have it be perfectly clear who’s who.

The Walking Dub: Ryan and Extremely Special Star Guest Lauren Cohan are young lovers/zombie apocalypse survivors taking shelter in an abandoned nightclub, where they meet Lauren’s ex-boyfriend Wayne, a bartender who himself is slowly turning into a zombie. Colin provides Lauren’s voice (but she’s still free to do any kicking herself).

• When Ryan says he’s gonna grab his bow-and-arrow, I wonder if he didn’t actually mean a crossbow, which would perhaps be slightly more useful against zombies. These are the kinds of brainless mistakes that will ensure he’s one of the first to die/undie when the Totally Real Zombie Apocalypse comes! (As a White Mage, I’ll be just fine.)
• Lauren has obviously been so traumatized by her daily run-ins with zombies that her physical instincts kick in! It’s more of a “yo, personal space” foot-shove than a kick, though. C’mon, that’s even less dignified than Liu Kang’s whoopity-whooping bicycle kick.
• She dresses like the oldest daughter from an early 90s Miller-Boyett sitcom, and she shatters ribcages about like one too!
• It was strange to see Colin doing the voice for this game instead of Wayne, but this actually made me happy to see that they’re letting the roles be switched up. I’ve often wanting to see more of the performers in other settings to see how they do, like when Colin hosted exactly one game of Party Quirks on the US version.
• The more I hear jokes about how these guys are old people who will be dead people someday, like Colin’s, the more aware I become that someday they actually will be dead people, and those jokes will suddenly be incredibly awkward and uncomfortable. And they’d be about a thousand times more awkward still if it’s all caused by Ryan finally snapping and taking everyone else out, as he occasionally looks like he’s ready to. Enjoy the morbid, depressing dead person jokes while you can, is what I’m saying.

What’s in the Baggie in the Bag?: Wayne is a crime victim who has been knocked out and is just now regaining consciousness, as purse-toting police detectives Ryan and Colin look him over and examine the crime scene. Tonight’s purses, courtesy of audience members Katrina and Sherry, contain such exciting things as beverages, shoes, glasses (regular and sun), dental floss, and all the powerful black market narcotics you could ever want.

• “No pulling out a ham sandwich from your pocket.” Take that, Archie Hahn! (It’s doubly funny, because I imagine Archie Hahn primarily subsists on dry enriched-white-bread-and-pressed-ham-product sandwiches. And self-loathing.)
• Ryan giving Wayne several things to drink made me think he was gonna give him really stale coffee or smuggled-in booze. You couldn’t even pretend it was something interesting? Comedic opportunity wasted!
• “I’m a Part-Time Woman” sounds like a great title for a country song, though we’ll have to wait till the rednecks of America get a little more comfortable with the concept of crossdressing first. Seeing how undeniably stylish Ryan and Colin are with their purses can’t hurt, can it?
• Ryan has obviously missed his calling as a magician - look at how he managed to conjure up that shoe! All he needs is hot coffee poured on his hand and he’s ready for Vegas, baby.
• Laugh all you want at the idea of pigeon witnesses, but I think that was actually a plot element in Mr. Monk Goes Home Again. Well, I guess that pigeon was more a piece of evidence or a victim than a witness per se, but close enough. The point is, pigeons are endlessly useful to the astute investigator, so why not reward them with drugs?
• This was an interesting new game, but I honestly wonder if it was entirely thought through. I certainly hope the women were allowed to refuse having their bags brought up, though I think they did ask for volunteers. At first glance, it looked like the pills scattered on the floor by Ryan were actually ibuprofen, so they should probably be grateful nobody pulled out tampons!
• Don’t be silly, Tails. I’m sure they wouldn’t allow dangerous weaponry in the studio! My favorite thing about this game concept is that it’s a completely unique take on the idea of audience suggestions. I like it, even if it amounts to little more than Ryan and Colin digging through ladies’ personal possessions and pulling out things and nervously asking, “Is this funny? Anybody? No? Well, um, what about this?”

Senselessly Segregated (and Sexual) Scenes from a Hat: Gary and Wayne are forced to stand by Aisha on the left side of the stage while Ryan and Colin get the right side all to themselves, as the performers collectively act out: “Things you can say about your lunch, but not your girlfriend”, “Things you don’t want to hear just before moving in for a kiss”, and “Unlikely lines (read: group poses) from hair commercials.”

• How great is Colin’s moderately ashamed look to the audience after the doesn’t-spread-like-it-used-to joke? “Enjoy your reprehensible filth, assholes!”
• Somehow Gary manages to make every joke, even the sexual jokes, about the fact that he’s fat. Achievement unlocked?
• “Hey look, two weenies!” Thank you, Gary, I appreciate the implication that a one-weenied girlfriend would be a perfectly acceptable thing. This is exactly the sort of progressive social outlook you’d expect from a Blue Collar TV alum.
• I’m noticing that they finally seem to be allowed to get away with more in the sexual jokes, which is refreshing after the constant censorship of the old version. The suggestions did seem a bit plotted, but knowing this audience, they probably had a ton of those thought up. Something I’d like to see happen in the future is something that the old Whose Line tried to do for a while - switch out the hats! So much opportunity!
• In later episodes, I recall Drew explaining that the Aggressively Patriotic Hat had been supplemented with “some of our own” scenes, but here Aisha seemingly implies that the Subtly Colored Hat contains only audience suggestions. Either the audience is savvy by this point, like you said, or she’s lying to everyone like a lying liar. Alternately, they just made Dan Patterson sit in the audience with the commoners while he wrote them down, so it’s technically not a lie. (Is he still directly involved in this? Probably not, but it’s more fun to imagine that he is.)

Night of the Living Scenery: Ryan and Colin are two thrillseekers at a luxury Aspen resort, about to try out a variety of extreme sports. Wayne and Rib-Shatteringly Special Star Guest Lauren Cohan exist only to be objectified.

• TOBOGGANING IS THE MOST EXTREME MOTHERFUCKING SPORT IN THE WORLD BECAUSE SOMETIMES YOUR HANDS GET STUCK AND YOU HAVE TO BE PRETTY MOTHERFUCKING HARDCORE TO RISK THAT SHIT
• It’s completely obvious that Wayne really missed playing grab-ass with Colin, as he does it right out of the gate. I’m no tinhatter, but I seriously think that Wayne’s got it bad for that Canuck. They’ve even got more or less the same haircut, and only couples do that, am I right? And Colin goes ahead and picks him when he could have the pretty lady! That tease.
• While I didn’t care for this game - I never really like Living Scenery - I will say that I hope Colin and Wayne eventually confess their true feelings for each other, freeing themselves to express their love using the full spectrum of normal human sexual behavior, rather than continue to put adjustment dials on increasingly unlikely items. I mean, Wayne, if you think this is fun now, try experiencing a twistjob sans pants. You’ll never go back!

The Walking Dead-its: Colin and Nipple-Bruisingly Special Star Guest Lauren Cohan recite a list of people who have turned into zombies, as the others turn into zombies behind them, in what is surely a sly reference to the popular and long-running Resident Evil video game series.

• Why doesn’t Colin have an Executive Producer credit yet? Ryan and Wayne have them! Aisha Tyler will probably get one if this manages to run for more than one or two seasons! Why not Colin? It’s because he’s Canadian, isn’t it?
• I actually didn’t notice Ryan going off to fetch the rest of the audience to mob the stage, which led me to believe they came on their own and that’s sorta frightening. No wonder Colin gave such a girly, pants-to-be-darkened scream.
• See? I TOLD you it would be extra-awkward if Ryan Stiles ended up being responsible for everyone’s death - and surely leading an army of audience-zombies counts! It’s going to be VERY difficult to rewatch that round of Dubbing ever again . . . . . .

So, what about Aisha Tyler? Was she any good?

• I was pleasantly surprised to see how well she seemed to fit in! She’s bubbly, she has the air of knowing what she’s doing, and I was actually sorta disappointed they didn’t use her for any games, which I hope they do. She’s good at bantering with the performers and keeping it from becoming a sausagefest, though I will say she should probably tone down the “I’M HAVING SO MUCH FUN YOU GUYS” voice, since it comes off weird if she’s not careful. But I’m really liking her so far!
• Despite my early pessimism, I too have to admit that she’s actually a pretty great fit for Whose Line. She’s a calmingly confident presence with the ability, unique among this show’s hosts, to diffuse situations where the guys start leaning maybe a little too misogynistic. Which is neat! For whatever reason, Drew always came across as the sort of guy who objectified women. To a degree. Y’know. With money. Don’t make me come right about and be libelous, guys!

And what of the new fourth-seater, Gary Anthony Williams?

• He sorta strikes me as a one-trick pony, but it’s obvious he was having fun and that’s nice to see. He seems nice and he managed to give me some laughs, but I’d like him more if he didn’t make every joke about his obvious girth. Drew Carey he ain’t.
• Were you aware? Gary Anthony Williams loves food so much that he can’t go more than a sentence or two without mentioning some sort of food item, in as stomach-churning a fashion as possible! On the bright side, he seems like a nice enough guy and he appears to have enjoyed himself, so he’d be welcome to return someday. Maybe staple that stomach first, though.

And the episode as a whole?

• It wasn’t perfect and they have things they need to tweak, but it did my heart good to see the gang back together. I think they need to give more variety to the quirks and hat suggestions, and maybe try to figure out how to do the purse game without jeopardizing someone’s medication, but other than that this was a decent start and one that kept a lot of people watching through to the next show! And since ratings are kinda really important (please don’t let this die please PLEASE) I’d call it a success!
• This episode’s downfall is that it all feels very familiar. Of course, that’s entirely intentional - it just makes sense to start off with an episode that says, “The Whose Line is it Anyway you remember is back, and comfortingly the same as ever!” And, I’ll admit, despite the tiringness of some of the let’s-make-guys-do-sex-things-together suggestions, it worked for me, for tonight. It just feels nice to see Whose Line back...

Final thoughts?

• Seeing Whose Line back really made me realize just how much I missed it. The show itself had been off the air for 9 years and ABC Family stopped showing re-runs, and while my obsession has waned significantly from my adolescence, the show will always have a special place in my heart. It’s what shaped my sense of humor, it helped me through rough spots, and it led me to meet the best thing that’s ever happened to me, who also helped me write this. Y’know, the same stuff I spouted when I saw Whose Live. I’m glad to see it back.
• It’s funny that Aisha should mention Twitter in Wayne’s intro, because seriously guys, have you read this dude’s tweets? He types like someone’s mom! It’s no wonder he’s the only improviser they actually bothered to dress somewhat appealingly tonight - he brings Whose Line the MILF-y sex appeal that it so desperately wants and needs.

Animal Crossing: New Leaf ~ A Joint Review

Hello, loyal readers! Tails here.

And Jesseh. I’m also here, and I’m also essential to this, so don’t forget about me!

And we’re doing a joint review of Animal Crossing: New Leaf for the Nintendo 3DS!

This was actually my first Animal Crossing game, so I can’t say I’m really clear on what their, um, old leaf entailed, or whether this leaf is even really new by comparison, as opposed to simply refurbished.

That’s why two reviewers are better than one! I’ve played the previous instalments from the GameCube, DS and Wii, and I can tell you that...it’s not really that much of a new leaf. More of a “smoother leaf”, but I don’t think that’s as marketable a cliche.

But did you play the Japanese-only one(s) for the Nintendo 64? No? Then you can’t be TOO smug about it!

I suppose you’ve got me there!

See? I’m essential to this. I said I was, and now I’ve proven it.