Whatever

I felt like sharing this but I have neither the tools nor skills to do a video edit, so please picture if you can this Irish drinking song about a date at the movies.

S19E1: Wayne Brady, Jonathan Mangum, Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles

All: 🎶Ohhhhhh aidy didy didy didy didy didy di🎶 WB: 🎶I took my lady to a movie🎶 JM: 🎶It was a double feature🎶 CM: 🎶The lights went down slowly🎶 RS: *monster hands* 🎶And there was a big creature🎶 WB: *distracted* 🎶I saw her—🎶 Laura Hall: *stops playing piano* Censor guy?: *off-camera* Hold it there, hold it RS: Creature rhymes, what the *bleep*? Creature rhymes with that Censor guy?: *comes onstage and says stuff we can't hear* RS: I moved my hand RS: He said feature and I said creature, that rhymes Aisha: *waves hands* WB: You ever doubted this *bleep* was made up, you're welcome WB: *bows* Laura Hall: *starts playing again* All: 🎶Ohhhhhh aidy didy didy didy didy didy di🎶 WB: 🎶Vamos a pelicula🎶 JM: *somewhat derailed* 🎶That is a language🎶 CM: *more derailed* 🎶And I love to use it🎶 RS: *pointedly* 🎶Look at the CREATURE🎶

I watched Last One Laughing: Canada Season 1, and while I didn't entirely enjoy the show since the format makes it kind of weirdly unfunny, I um. I mean I always appreciated Colin Mochrie as one of the world's great improvisers, but I think I may be in love with him now?

The perils of improv:

Ryan: [wants the answer "I don't know, what?" so he can do the cheesy Who joke] Ryan: What kind of bird always says the name of our next band? Colin: Colin: [can't say I don't know, has to come up with something] Colin: I guess... A tern? Colin: An arctic tern? Ryan: Ryan: [can't say bzzt wrong answer, has to yes-and] Ryan: And what kind of sound does an arctic tern make? Colin: Colin: [now has to say something that fits the riddle and is also funny] Colin: [bonus points for breaking Ryan]

WLIIA logic: A female guest star is supposed to choose between her two suitors, Ryan and Wayne, and Colin suggests a kiss-off. So who is involved in the kissing? A thousand points if you said not the guest star

I keep randomly giggling about the Whose Line I watched the other day, where in Let's Make a Date Colin is a robot who recharges by kissing people (why not) and goes for Wayne, and clearly Ryan has a vision of his immediate future and applies some lip balm

(Disclaimer: I've mostly watched Whose Line is it Anyway UK from the 90s, but I've seen a fair number of the Drew Carey episodes and a few of the Aisha Tyler ones. And I do love this show unconditionally.)

I completely understand the point of view that a lot of Whose Line is homophobic, especially shows from the earlier days. But I want to explain something.

Yes, none of the main cast was queer irl (though some guests were), or at least not out at the time. Yes, basically they played being gay for laughs. There are a few reasons for this that I think aren't entirely invalid:

So here's the thing. Although maybe not everything they did is unobjectionable by today's standards, I think it was an important step at the time toward queer representation. Even if none of the actors was queer, this show still played holy hell with gender roles in a way that hadn't really been done before on mainstream TV, at least in the US. And audiences were there. For. It.

This was a time when you hardly ever saw a same-sex kiss in a normal primetime TV show, but it would happen in this show, and the cheering would bring the house down. The "gay stuff" was funny, it was supposed to be, but it was more than that. People wanted to see it. People wanted it to be out there in mainstream media. The jokey, silly premise let it get past the censors, but once it was out there, it did something else. It normalized. I really think it helped pave the way for better representation.

(Which now lets us look back on those old shows and think how cringey they were. But that's one way to measure progress, is what I'm saying.)

I'm just saying I don't think Greg Proops got enough recognition for being snarky and awesome on Whose Line is it Anyway. Ryan and Colin (and later Wayne) were deservedly the scene stealers, but Greg was pitch-perfect at being the party host or the date chooser or the news anchor, and made everything at least 50% more funny.

I've watched more of the British Whose Line is it Anyway than the US version, but I think it breaks down approximately like:

Colin on British WLIIA: My goal is to make the other performers look good and have a successful show

Colin on US WLIIA: My goal is to make the other performers (and particularly Ryan) laugh so hard that they can't talk