Tuesday, July 23, 2013

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!

3 comments:

  1. I think I disagree with you on liking this one more than the first, because I hated seeing more of the guest in this ep, and since I didn't love Colin's performance in Dubbing this time, more like found it a bit annoying, but I'm always interested in reading opinions different than my own so thanks for sharing what you enjoyed about this one. :)

    I did enjoy Scenes From a Hat, though I miss some of the more random suggestions and wish they weren't all things that could be used in a World's Worst playing. I loved Sideways Scene, since I always love that one, and Ryan's antics in Helping Hands made me laugh and cringe, so I call that a success in my book, lol. Are you sure that goldfish was made of plastic though? It looked like it was composed of some sort of rubbery substance to me.

    Anyway, I also enjoyed how everyone reacted in horror to the guest learning to miraculously walk during the Credits Reading. I wish they would go that route with Glee and turn it into a horror-type show, since that might actually make it interesting, lol.

    Also, Tails, I think Colin has looked good in pink shirts before. Remember the episode with 'The Cat'? I loved that shirt he was wearing from that taping, so I really think it just needs to be a darker shade of pink more than the lighter pastels he sometimes wears.

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    1. While I never like seeing much of special guests, if we do see more of them, I at least prefer that they be people who know how to say words and react to things, like Kevin, as opposed to being people who just stand there looking wide-eyed and dumbfounded, like Lauren. (Or Kathy Kinney on Improv-a-Ganza.) I mean, you could agree that an episode with three Kevin games is at least better than an episode with three Lauren games would be, right?

      Also, something to get used to - if there's a game that I generally think is a boring waste of space, like Dubbing, I will almost always enjoy it when Colin is openly antagonistic towards said game! Because I'm weird. :P

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    2. I... don't know. I'm very conflicted about how I feel over the special guests. I think I liked the ep with Lauren more overall than I did the ep with Kevin, because I liked that Lauren was silent and I laughed at her kicking Wayne, while I only laughed during Kevin at the Credits when they did the magically-able-to-walk bit. So I usually do prefer silent guests because I can then pretend they are just random people taken from the audience, who I don't mind seeing either and would actually prefer over actors and whoever else they bring on. But then on the newest episode, I actually found myself enjoying the special guest, especially in Helping Hands, which has rarely happened to me before. I guess sometimes I agree with you and like guests who can do things, while at other times I want them to be silent and barely there. So yeah, I'm very conflicted on this, lol.

      Oh, I see. Well that explains it, lol. I prefer when Colin is being antagonistic to Ryan and vice-versa. :P

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