Whose Line is it Anyway? (seasons 1 – 9)

{5/5} “The show where everything’s made up and the points don’t matter. That’s right, the points don’t matter — it’s like the talent portion of a beauty contest.”

Whose Line is it Anyway? season 9 just finished. The first 8 seasons aired from 1998 to 2007. I haven’t seen much of the British version, which came first, so I’m just going to talk about the American version.

Season 9 only had 12 episodes, but it’s been renewed and 24 episodes are coming next year.

This is an improv show — the people on it make things up as they go along based on things written on cards the host has (that they haven’t seen before) and suggestions from the audience. The people on this show are very good at it.

Here are a few of the games:

  • Scenes from a hat: the audience gives ideas to the performers, such as “first drafts of famous movie lines”
  • Party quirks: 3 performers have strange quirks that they’re acting out, and the fourth is the host of a party who has to guess who the others are
  • Questions only: performers act out some scene, but must speak in questions only
  • Sound effects: 2 performers act out a scene, but all their sound effects are provided by 2 audience members
  • Greatest hits: 2  performers pitch a greatest hits album, making up songs another performer (or 2) has to sing

The regular players are Wayne Brady (The Wayne Brady Show), Colin Mochrie (This Hour Has 22 Minutes), and Ryan Stiles (The Drew Carey Show).

Wayne is a great singer, and is incredible at making up songs on the spot. All three of them are great at coming up with things that are funny no matter what characters or scenes are thrown at them. I love how they’re able to make each other laugh. Colin is the best at making the others laugh, while keeping a straight face.

Semi-regulars include Chip Esten (Nashville), Greg Proops (True Jackson, VP), Kathy Greenwood (Wind at My Back), and Brad Sherwood (The Dating Game). Special guests have included Stephen Colbert (The Colbert Report), Whoopi Goldberg (Star Trek: The Next Generation) and Robin Williams (Mork and Mindy).

The host for the first 8 seasons was Drew Carey, who’s now doing The Price is Right. The current host is Aisha Taylor (Ghost Whisperer). When Carey hosted the show he participated in a game with the other performers at the end of the show.

The host sometimes gives out points to the performers, but the points don’t matter — the host just picks a random winner at the end of the show.

Is the new season as good as the show was in the good old days? Yes, it’s still hilarious.

Created by Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson (creators of Mock the Week).

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 26th, 2013 at 9:16 pm and is filed under Reviews of TV shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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