I only caught the last half of this episode. The dark-haired chick was pretty funny, but Tom Green was floundering. I didn’t see the blonde or George Takei in their own skits, but the all-in skit at the end was hillarious. Especially when George Takei decided to follow the brunette’s lead 
.
All in all, it seemed like a fun show. It’ll watch it again.
The blonde one was the funniest. The brunette was the dirtiest, which wins points in my book when it involves a beautiful woman blowing a banana. Takei was the gayest, which is difficult when up against Dave Foley’s basic Canadianess. Green was not as offensive as I expected but still not all that funny.
I wonder whether that might be the actual point of the show — to see whether they can submarine improvisers.
I doubt it. It is more like tee-ball. Believe me real improvisation is much harder than what they are asking these people to do. I don’t mean to dismiss it if folks find it funny, I also found some parts of it funny. But it isn’t nearly as artisitc as real improv.
I watched George’s doctor improv and found it to be so painful that I turned off the television.
Not sure what happened with this–the first show was hysterically funny (last week, with Bryan C.), the second show (which followed last week) not so funny and if last night was any indication, it won’t be on long at all.
Monday nights was decent- Harlan something, who I used to think was actually mentally impaired, as a Sherlock Holmes type was extremely good- only one clinker response, and that I think was to avoid a Don Imus moment when asked to comment on a picutre of a native with a plate in his lip, which I thought was in surprisingly bad taste, given recent events, but he wisely deflected it. Even Jason Alexander was good- the other two, not so much.
As for last nights…sigh. Chelsea Handler? Tom Green? Not even close to being improvers, but “comedians” at least, and at least have those wacky shows where they annoy people in public unscripted, but I hardly call that improv. But Shannon freaking Elizabeth? Why, because she was once in a comedy (American Pie)- did these putzes forget she was there for her bosom, not her comedy? I turned it off at the point were she was asked why her restaurant had no chairs- “sitting on the floor aids in digestion”- stop it you’re killing me! I could have came up with that one. Just goes to show that improv is not easy, stand-up comedian does not equal good at improv, etc. At first I thought the point of the show was to have good improvers strut their stuff, now it seems the point is to have non-improvers see if they could possibly be good at improv, which seems ridiculous, but after three episodes they have run out of comics or actors with an improv background? Shannon freaking Elizabeth? What, was Elizabeth Berkely not available?
And it’s unfortunate to see a genius like Dave Foley have to pretend to laugh at stuff he can’t possibly find funny, like everything on last nights show. But I loved it Monday when choosing Harlan something as the winner, which he clearly was, he said- the winner is whoever can name three Canadian prime ministers. 
George Takei = not funny. Sorry, but I felt embarassed for him almost as much as I did for Tom Green, and I saw Freddy Got Fingered!
Shannon Elizabeth was pretty good, a little off. Chelsea Handler has great deadpan lines, but is otherwise a solid meh. Didn’t hurt the show to have her on, but could have done it without her, also. On the up side, she delivered one of the best lines, “What’s your name?” “Dave.”
He did deliver a great line, though: “Thank God I’m here!”
She, apparently, didn’t. She played to her strengths and they are, indeed, strong. :eek:
That was his ONLY great line… :dubious:
Hey, I’m not going to disagree with you. It was a strong start, but unfortunately, everything went downhill from there.
Let me also note that on Monday’s epsiode, Jason Alexander pausing 30 or so seconds to think of a line before delivering kind of defeats the purpose- it isn’t who can come up with the best line after much thought, but who can come up with it instantaneously. And are the background actors improv actors or just actors? It seems they were very hesitant to deviate from the script.
I watched more closely last night.
And in words I never thought I’d type - I didn’t mind Tom Green that much. Mostly because they kept trying to shove him back into the script and he kept not getting shoved (until the last minute or so).
But the scripting has got to go…it really doesn’t work.
So, we’ve concluded:
It’s less like improv and more like Mad Libs. The actors get small windows to insert yuk yuks and can’t deviate from the script. The skit with Tekei went something like this:
“Let’s look at his throat.”
“We got the x-rays you ordered.”
“I’d really like to look at his throat first.”
“But don’t you want to see the x-rays?”
Painful. Hire some actors who are confident enough to riff off of the comedians, and keep the scripting to a minimum.