Improv
Sep202005
Filed Under Improv, Live Events
This past Saturday, the People’s Improv Theater and this site held our first Aristocontent, an evening of the filthiest joke told over and over again. Even with the joke told in a variety of differing ways (in song, as political satire and a tagteam telling featuring one player censoring the other), I had to admit I was a little worried people would be sick of it after a while. But the show went for an hour and forty five minutes and I didn’t detect any audience fatigue at all.
Thanks to all the participants: Andres du Bouchet (read his version), Joe Lipari, Shayna Ferm and Katherine Bryant from Fearsome, the sketch group Meat, Bob Powers (whose telling made me a little sick), Nate Kushner and PIT founder’s Ali Farahnakian who naturally segued into his version, casting himself as the agent.
Many thanks especially to Alex Zalben from Elephant Larry (who you should see if you haven’t yet), who came to me with the idea. So much fun. We’re talking about doing another one mid October. Watch this space or the Aristocrats Joke Database for more details.
Sep062005
Filed Under Improv
My good friend Mike Sacks recently conducted a fascinating interview with authors of a new (and only) biography of Paul Lynde. Most know Paul as the “Center Square” on the original Hollywood Squares, where he became famous for winking hilariously at his sexuality. Though it’s obvious that the quip are scripted for the game show, what struck me most about this interview was how the tension of only implying his gayness repressed many of Lynde’s natual improvisational gifts. It must have a special kind of hell for someone who was so good at tossing out written material as his own. Which probably explains why such explosive (and, in retrospect, hilarious) anger might result. Anyone who’d yell at a mother of a screaming toddler, “You keep this little girl quiet or I’m gonna fuck her!” is definitely worth a second look.
Jul252005
Filed Under Improv
Every once in a while I forget I’m not in Georgia and that I live in a city that can support a huge improv festival and still have sellout shows for other comedy events. Ain’t New York grand?
I couldn’t commit to a weekend pass to Del, but I did check out Neutrino at the PIT, an improv-film hybrid that’s spectacularly innovative and impressive. The group creates scenes on the streets of New York on the fly using audience suggestions and items. The scenes are filmed and rushed back to the stage to be organized as a cinematic Harold.
I enjoyed it once before but was a little curious if my good memories of the show were simply due to the luck of having an audience member supply the object-requesting improvisers with lube and cock ring. The subsequent scenes of one player attempting to get the other to out himself by having local businesses give him the items were hysterical. But with such a great coincidence how could they not make a great scene. How good were they?
I needn’t have worried, although this time an audience member did supply a mink scrunchy but admonished Neutrino member Bob Wiltfong that it was not a cock ring. (Either we saw the same show or Mr. Wiltfong loves to turn every object he receives into a cock ring.) Naturally the mink scrunchy was a cock ring for the rest of the scenes.
The group uses the local enviornment well, enlisting clerks and waiters from local businesses as players with hysterical results. The mink now-sex-toy turned out to be an cursed item for sale at the neighboring porn shop and the shopkeeper a manically laughing demon. All of the editing is done on the fly with any cutting back and forth from different setups, meaning the improvisers have to stop one part of the scene, run to a new position and do the next segment and then return exactly in position from the first scene. It was amazingly seamless and used with great effect with a scene where a woman imagines the amorous places her date might go. The threads are even attempted to be brought together in a fulfilling way, with a side player in one series of scenes commenting on another.
It’s an amazing high-wire act, even more so that “regular” improv because of the technical aspects. It’s amazing and well worth seeing even if your performance doesn’t include a scene with a cock ring. Check it out.
Feb222005
Filed Under Improv
Though they aren't pranksters with a point, the creators of Improv Everywhere have some inventive shenanigans that keep their victims from being, um, victims. I'm a little sick of stunts pulled just to annoy people... unless you have good targets (like the fashionistas and homophobes selected by "Bruno" on Da Ali G Show) the person who comes off as a dick is the joker himself. The most recent Improv Everyone joke, featuring a restroom attendant at a Times Square McDonald's, is a great example of pure entertainment that doesn't make anyone undeserving look like an idiot. Check it out.
Jul232004
Filed Under Improv, Sitcom
Comedy nerds will rejoice to hear about Trio’s first original comedy series Pilot Season (read the release here). Pilot Season will be about the people who struggle to try and get something of quality on TV every Spring. And fail. Though I’m over TV about TV, with talent the calibre of Sarah Silverman and David Cross involved, I’m interested. Plus I enjoyed the original movie the show’s based on, Who’s the Caboose. And they’re shooting it mockumentary-style, so hopefully we’ll get some Office-influenced uncomfortable moments in it. Trio’s pairing the show up with its next “Brilliant but Cancelled” month (something Pilot producer Sam Seder creator knows about with perennial Other Network fave Beat Cops). Mark your calendar or TiVo for September 6.
Jul212004
Filed Under Improv
Another thing I wonder while watching Crossballs: was the audience told what they’d be seeing? Do they know the show is a satire? It seems like it can take a while for the audience to laugh (that may just be because something wasn’t all that funny). But that might also be because they don’t know they are allowed to laugh. (The decision to have an audience is also curious… is it a variation on the laughtrack idea, i.e. those at home won’t know it’s funny unless we have people laughing?)
Are they buying this as a cross between Jerry Springer and Hardball? Or are they in on the joke from the getgo? It seems like it wouldn’t be hard to inform the audience what’s going on… it was done for Superstar USA if I recall. I’d love to hear from anybody who’s been to a live taping of Crossballs.
Jul202004
Filed Under Improv
Despite complaints from the left and the right, I have a hard time seeing anyone who appears on the show Crossballs getting all that upset. Mainly because I can’t believe they would still buy the show as real after seeing some of the exaggerated positions the fake guests take. On a show about vegetarians/animals, Matt Besser appeared as a German concerned about the purity of the German Shepherd breed. Incredibly funny and completely over the top. Though I saw a couple of smiles from the real experts, it appeared to be more from disbelief in the person rather than the context. They’d continue to debate despite this and other rather obviously demented positions.
I think Crossballs gets away with this because the host Chris Tallman is so willing to play the straight man to all of this. Any time one of the other players on the show makes an extreme statement, he’ll pipe right in with a “You’re wrong” or an “Are you serious?” that assures the real guests that they have another reasonable person in the room.
Suckers.
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