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Whose Line Is It Anyway

Whose Line Is It Anyway? is an improvised and largely unscripted comedy game show. It was originally a British radio programme, but moved to British and then American television.

Format

The show consists of a panel of four improvisational performers and comedians. They make up characters, scenes, and songs on the spot, sometimes based on audience suggestions or with pre-written prompts from the host. The show is formatted roughly as a mock competition, with the host arbitrarily assigning points and choosing a "winner" at the end of each episode who would undertake a improvisational act based on the closing credits. In a typical taping, each 'game' is played between one and three times, always with different prompts and suggestions. Then the show is edited and only those scenes deemed the best are actually broadcast.

Participants

The show was created by Dan Patterson, and in its original form on BBC Radio 4, Clive Anderson presented the show, with two regulars, Stephen Fry and John Sessions, and two guests. It was later moved to the television station Channel 4, with little change in format except for a more varied guest rotation. Regular comedians from the British version included, as well as the former regulars, a variety of British, American, and Canadian comedians, notably Josie Lawrence, Paul Merton, Tony Slattery, Ryan Stiles, Sandi Toksvig, Colin Mochrie, Mike McShane, George Wendt, and Greg Proops. Sessions was ever-present in the early days of the British television version, with Stiles becoming a staple in later episodes and having some influence on the creation and success of the American incarnation. Many of the performers, including Merton, Lawrence and Toksvig were regulars with the Comedy Store Players, an improvisational group based at the London Comedy Store. The theme tune for the British television incarnation of the show was composed by Philip Pope.

The reruns of the UK TV series were aired for many years on the US Comedy Central TV channel, and were brought to the attention of American comedian Drew Carey (who had a working relationship with regular Whose Line performer Stiles). Carey convinced ABC to air test episodes in the United States. The show was an inexpensive hit, and ABC kept Carey on as the host of a successful American version. The American version is almost identical to the UK series, though it has a less diverse rotation of games and performers, and features occasional celebrity guest appearances. Regular comedians on the American incarnation of the show include Colin Mochrie, Greg Proops, Ryan Stiles, Wayne Brady, Chip Esten, Brad Sherwood, Denny Siegel, Jeff Davis and Kathy Greenwood. Mochrie, Proops, Stiles, Esten and Sherwood all appeared multiple times on the British show. For a time, the British version of the series (with Clive Anderson still hosting) was taped in the same Hollywood studio as the American version, though this version was rarely shown on US TV. After a couple of years of simultaneous productions, the British version of the series was retired.

Common sketches

Possible sketches include:

• African Chant: Wayne, backed up by the other three performers, must perform an African Chant with an audience member. Played only a few times.
• Alphabet: Two participants must enact a scene, but each sentence must begin with the letter following the first letter of the last sentence. Hilarity generally ensues when they get to X.
• Animals: Two to four participants must enact a soap opera-ish scene, but they are all animals.
• Film, T.V., & Theatre Styles: Two participants must act out a given scene, but the scene occasionally stops and a film or theatre style is given, and the participants must continue in that style.
• Film Noir: Two participants must enact a scene in film noir, ie. they must break the fourth wall, approach the camera, and tell everyone what's going on.
• Greatest Hits: Colin and Ryan must sell a compilation album, and Wayne (and sometimes the guest performer) must sing songs from the album when prompted.
• Hats: Two pairs of two participants receive a box of random headgear and must use them to come up with examples of the world's worst dating service videos.
• Helping Hands: Two participants must enact a scene, but one cannot use his hands; another must fill that role.
• Hoedown: The four participants must individually sing a hoedown about a given subject.
• Impossible Mission or Improbable Mission: Two participants are super-secret agents a la Mission: Impossible. A third is the voice on the tape, who gives them their assignment: a mundane task (ie. Get dressed or mow the lawn). Greg Proops is known for taking these boring tasks and making them exciting; he turned "Doing the laundry" into "Cleaning the visiting emir of Brufunkistan's burnoose without his knowledge."
• Infomercial: Colin and Ryan must create an infomercial for some type of self-help product using only items given to them in a box.
• Irish Drinking Song: The four participants must consecutively sing an Irish green screen as a field reporter. Random footage is shown to the audience, the news anchors, and the viewers at home. The two studio reporters (Ryan and the guest performer) give Colin clues to the footage.
• Party Quirks: Three participants are given a random quirk, and the fourth is a party host, who must identify the others' quirks.
• Props: Two pairs of two participants must come up with quick scenes that involve a random prop.
• Questions Only: The game will start with 2 participants. They must only speak in the form of a question in a given subject. Failure to do talk in a form of a question will result in being buzz out and the next participant coming in.
• Scenes from a hat: The four players improvise one-liner with random scenes that Drew reads from a hat. (ex. "Unlikely welcome signs to different states" and "Unlikely titles for Colin's autobiography".)
• Scene to Rap: All four participants must enact a scene, but can only speak as a rap.
• Song Titles: The game will start with 2 participants. They can only speak using song titles. Failure to do so will result in being buzzed out and the next participant coming in.
• Superheroes: One participant is a silly superhero determined by the audience, and is confronted with a bizarre world crisis. The other participants enter one at a time, and they each identify the next entrant. Superheroes from this game included Disco Kid and Captain Dog-in-Heat.
• Stand, Sit, Bend: Three participants must enact a scene, but one must be standing, one must be sitting, and one must be bent over. A variant is "Stand, Sit, Lie," where a participant must be lying down.
• Three-Headed Broadway Star: Three players must make up a Broadway hit song one word at a time.
• Two Line Vocabulary: Three participants enact the scene. One (typically Colin) can say anything they like, but the others (usually Ryan and the guest performer) are allowed to say only two specific lines, and nothing else.
• Whose Line: Ryan and Colin do a scene and must include two random lines that were given to them.
• Weird Newscasters: Colin, Brad, or Greg are the head anchor of a news show, the guest performer as his co-host, Wayne as the sports anchor, and Ryan as the weather anchor. Drew gives the performers (except Colin) a quirky personality.
• World's Worst: The participants come to "the World's Worst Step" and must step forward when they have an example of the world's worst (fill in the blank).

At the end of the programme, usually a single participant is selected to read the credits in a given style. In the American version, this was not done; instead, the "winner" of the episode sat at the host's podium while Drew Carey performed an improv sketch with the rest of the cast.