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Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Whose Line Is It Anyway? US title screen </small>
Genre	Improvisational comedy
Running time	22 minutes
Creator(s)	Dan Patterson Mark Leveson
Starring	Clive Anderson Drew Carey See Participants
Country of origin	Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg United Kingdom, Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States
Original channel	BBC Radio 4 Channel 4 ABC ABC Family
Original run	Radio: 1988 Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg United Kingdom: September 23, 1988–1998 Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States: August 5, 1998 – present
No. of episodes	Radio: 6 Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg United Kingdom TV: 136 Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States TV: 215 (as of November 10 2006)

Whose Line Is It Anyway? (sometimes abbreviated to Whose Line?), is an improvisational comedy show. It was originally a British radio program, but later moved to television, first as a series made for Britain's Channel 4, and subsequently as another version made for American television.

The show consists of a panel of four performers and comedians who create characters, scenes and songs on the spot based on audience suggestions or pre-written prompts from the host. The show takes the form of a fake game show where the host arbitrarily assigns points and chooses a "winner" at the end of each episode.

Contents 1 History 2 Participants 3 Atmosphere 4 Games 5 Differences between UK and U.S. versions 6 Running gags 7 DVD release 8 Other countries 9 See also 10 References 11 External links

[edit] History

Whose Line Is It Anyway? was created by Dan Patterson and Mark Leveson in 1988 as a radio show on BBC Radio 4.<ref>"About the show", ABC website, last accessed March 14, 2006</ref> This early incarnation of the show is noteable as being where the subsequent mainstay of the performers reading the credits in a humorous or amusing style was adopted as a conceit that on radio it was necessary for somebody to read the credits, and that it might as well be done as part of the program proper rather than being done by a traditional BBC Radio announcer.

Later, they moved the show to television on Channel 4 with little change in format. Both the British radio program and the British television series were hosted by Clive Anderson during their runs. One of the early North American broadcasters of the British series was the Canadian youth channel YTV though many episodes were edited for adult language and content.

Early episodes of the British television series were primarily shot within the UK. However, as time went on, it became increasingly common for the series to be filmed within the United States. These episodes in the British series were otherwise very similar in terms of presentation and personnel as the UK-shot shows.

The show was brought to the attention of American comedian Drew Carey, who worked with regular Whose Line? performer Ryan Stiles, a co-star on The Drew Carey Show. Carey convinced ABC to air test episodes in the United States. The show turned into an inexpensive hit, and ABC kept Carey on as the host of the American version, which would go on to run on ABC for six seasons. It benefited from the low-expectations of its Thursday night time slot, as ABC was not expected to mount a serious challenge to what was then NBC's longtime Thursday dominance. While the network would regularly premiere two new episodes in one night, there were several occurrences in which some episodes were skipped or postponed until a later date because of the airing of other new shows or specials.

The American version was almost identical to the British series, though the rotation of games and the rotation of performers were both less diverse. There was also more involvement of the host in the activities and occasional celebrity guest appearances. While the points were arbitrarily doled out very deliberately by Anderson on the British series with the pretext that the points mattered, Carey took this to a different level on the American version by explicitly stating at the beginning of episodes that the points didn't matter and usually being correspondingly apathetic about assigning them during the show. (The vast majority of the time, he would simply award "a thousand points" to whomever he liked best in the scene.) Another difference is that the British version was first and foremost about improvisational theater, which meant that it would occasionally have games that were meant to show off its contestants' acting range rather than get the audience to laugh. The American version, however, scrapped these comparatively unfunny games and instead turned its primary focus to raw comedy, sometimes having games that didn't rely on improvisational ability in order to be funny. During the early years of the American show, there was some debate over whether the new version was the same quality as the original British series. Eventually the show was accepted by fans, because of increasing familiarity with the new format, and the American version building its own fan base.

The last season of the British version in 1998, with Clive Anderson still hosting, was taped in the same Hollywood studio as the American version. This season was first broadcast only in the U.S. on the Comedy Central cable channel. Re-runs of the entire British TV series had been running on Comedy Central since the early-1990s, though there were some edits for content, as well as leaving games out and re-arranging the order of the games. The British series re-runs moved to BBC America in April 2006, however, the network has not aired any episodes filmed before 1994. This, combined with a double-run (where two episodes run per night), causes many episodes to re-air less than a month after they were shown.

The American version was cancelled by ABC in 2003 because of low ratings, and it aired the remaining unaired episodes in 2004. But in that same year, ABC Family, which aired reruns of the show since 2002, began airing brand-new episodes because of the show's popularity on the channel into 2005. ABC Family also aired episodes from older tapings not considered to be good enough for previous runs from 2005 to 2006.

The show also provided the inspiration for Drew Carey's Green Screen Show, which premiered in 2004 on the WB.

[edit] Participants

The original BBC Radio 4 broadcasts consisted of host Clive Anderson along with two regulars, Stephen Fry and John Sessions, and two guests. Clive Anderson would stay on as the host when the show moved to British television on Channel 4 and the rotation of guests became more varied. Regular comedians from the British version included, as well as the radio regulars, a variety of British, American, and Canadian comedians, notably Eddie Izzard, Josie Lawrence, Paul Merton, Tony Slattery, Ryan Stiles, Sandi Toksvig, Colin Mochrie, Mike McShane, Brad Sherwood, Stephen Frost, Niall Ashdown, Caroline Quentin, Chip Esten, Jim Sweeney, Steve Steen, Rory Bremner, Jonathan Pryce and Greg Proops. Sessions was ever-present in the early days of the British television version (and contractually shared top billing with host Clive Anderson), with Stiles becoming a staple in later episodes. 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 song for the British television incarnation of the show was composed by Philip Pope.

The American incarnation of the show included Colin Mochrie and Ryan Stiles as regulars - Wayne Brady made appearances as a third performer more often than not, though occasionally a second 'fourth performer' would go on instead of Brady. Greg Proops, Chip Esten, Brad Sherwood, Denny Siegel, Jeff Davis, Kathy Greenwood, Kathy Kinney, Karen Maruyama and several others took turns as the fourth performer. Celebrities sometimes took the fourth spot, including Robin Williams, Kathy Griffin, and Whoopi Goldberg. As well, seven years before creating The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert took the fourth spot at a taping in the first season. Other celebrities made guest appearances for individual games, such as David Hasselhoff, Florence Henderson, Hugh Hefner, Jerry Springer, and Richard Simmons. In one episode, comic legend Sid Caesar made an appearance, and the applause and standing ovation for Caesar was so long that much of it had to be cut from the broadcast. Mochrie, Proops, Stiles, Esten, Brady, and Sherwood all appeared multiple times on the British show. Aside from them, Josie Lawrence also appeared twice on the American version as well.

Many of the sketches include music, and there have been a number of musicians during the run of the show. On the original BBC Radio series, the music was provided by Colin Sell, but when the show migrated to Channel 4, Richard Vranch (also of The Comedy Store Players) assumed the job of musician. Vranch did not move with the show to the U.S. In fact, during the final series of the British show, musician Laura Hall made her first appearance. She continued as musician in the first season of the U.S. show on her own, but in the second season and onward, other musicians were added to "jazz up" that part of the show. Joining Laura Hall often was multi-talented musician Linda Taylor, and occasionally other musicians were added, such as Cece Worral-Rubin, Anne King, Candy Girard, and Anna Wanselius. The popular sketches "Greatest Hits," "Hoedown," "Irish Drinking Song," and "Song Styles" relied heavily on music.

[edit] Atmosphere

Though Whose Line? has all the trappings of a game show, it lacks the true competition and the stakes of a normal game show. The host's duties are similar to those of a host on a normal game show. It is his job to award the meaningless points and to arbitrarily choose the winner.

Each episode begins with the host welcoming the audience to the show and introducing the performers. The host will then introduce the first game (for more on the games, see below). After completion of a game, the host will assign points to the performers as he sees fit, and then introduce the next game. At the end of the show, the host will arbitrarily choose a winner(s). In the UK version, the winner(s) would read the credits in a style of the host's choosing. In the early episodes of the U.S. version, the winner(s) would play a game with the host (Carey). After the first few seasons, the winner would sit at the host's desk while the host played a game with the other performers. Also in the U.S. version, after a one year absence, the show once again ended with one or more of the performers reading the credits.

The show was taped in front of a live audience, usually in two 45-minute segments with a 15-minute break in between. The actual episodes aired were cut down to approximately 25 minutes. A taping of the show would include several versions of the same games. For example, one might expect to see three or four 'hoedowns' instead of just one at the end, as shown on TV. The producers could harvest several episodes worth of material from one taping using this method. This could also produce longer-running than would fit in TV episode. The long length of the taping sessions could also occasionally wear down on the guests of the show.^{[citation needed]}

There was one show of the American version where the points did matter. During this show, Drew wrote down totals on the back of a scene card, and the winner actually was the performer with the most points. Also, during another taping, which became two episodes, in lieu of points, Drew gave away $100 bills, some of which were tossed into the crowd. In another episode, during a Greatest Hits sketch (songs of pregnancy), the one-millionth point was awarded, and balloons and confetti rained down on Colin Mochrie, the winner. In another episode, Carey had used a tape recorder to award points, this resulted in Wayne Brady, before Carey returned to the set after a commercial break, recording "My ass, my ass, my ass!" into it, which resulted in Carey playing Brady's recorded line instead of the "1,000 points" he had recorded.

Similarly, the only person to have "lost" all of his points is Tony Slattery in the British series. During a "Party Quirks" segment, Tony is stumped as to what the quirks of his counterparts are. Clive ends the game as a result of Tony taking too long to figure out the quirks, to which Tony yells, "Oh fuck off!" Clive jokingly responds shortly after, saying that "It's only a game!" and that Tony lost all of the points that he has ever gained from previous episodes of Whose Line?.

[edit] Games

Main article: List of games from Whose Line Is It Anyway?

The number and type of games played vary from episode to episode. The wide-variety of games alone helps to ensure that no two episodes are the same; however, some games have become more common over time, possibly because of their popularity: "Helping Hands," "Hoedown," "Song Styles," "Party Quirks," "Let's Make a Date," "Scenes from a Hat," and "Props."

Several games take the style of "traditional" scenes, but have a twist to make the game less-predictable. One of these games is Helping Hands. In this game, two performers act out a scene provided by the host; however, one of the performers cannot use their own hands, so a third performer stands behind the "handless" performer to provide their own hands. In later episodes, this game usually involved food (such as "making an ice cream sundae") so that "the hands" performer could force "the body" performer to eat nasty concoctions against his will (one particularly memorable scene involved Colin forcing Ryan to eat dirt out of a potted plant, as well as another scene where Colin forced Ryan to drink vegetable oil straight from the bottle).

There are also many games that require the performers to use their musical talents. The game Hoedown is performed when each contestant performs one of four stanzas in the style of a hoedown. The subject of the hoedown is usually provided from an audience suggestion. In spite of the fact that it has become a fan-favorite on the show, virtually all of the contestants, especially Ryan Stiles, detest the game. While they have usually been good sports about performing in it, the contestants tend to subtly express their active disdain for the game by interjecting insults pointed at Clive Anderson and (in the American version) Drew Carey while singing their parts. Another musical game is called Song Styles. In this game, a performer will sing a song about an item or audience member in a style provided by the host. This style is either given as a genre, or as a particular musical artist. Wayne Brady, Brad Sherwood, and Chip Esten traditionally performed the singing parts for scenes requiring only one or two singing performers, because of their excellent vocal talents.

There are also some guessing games. In these games, one performer must determine the identity of the other performers or of themselves. This style of game is seen in Party Quirks. In this game, three performers are guests of a party who behave strangely based on suggestions from an envelope. The fourth performer acts as the party's host and must identify the quirks provided to the others based on how they interact at the party. If their quirk is correctly guessed, the performer will leave the party. On occasion, the party host would be stumped, and Clive would end the game if it went on too long. A similar concept was behind the game Let's Make a Date, a parody of dating game shows, in which the fourth performer must guess the other performers' "quirks" based on their responses to his or her dating-related questions (allowed two per performer). A recurring gag in Party Quirks and Let's Make A Date sketches was that the show's writers would often give Ryan incredibly bizarre or seemingly impossible quirks to act out in usually vain attempts to stump him. As such, Ryan and Drew would often burst out laughing whenever Ryan read his card.

Other game styles include rapid-fire games. These style of games require the competitors to provide quick scenes that are only one or two lines long. One of these games is Scenes from a Hat. In this game, the host will pull suggestions for scenes out of a hat. These suggestions are written out beforehand by audience members. In response to each suggestion, the performers will improvise a one- or two-line scene. Props is another game in which contestants are put into teams of two, given a random prop. Switching turns by the sound of the buzzer, they must think of different scenes in reference to their respective prop. Another game is Questions Only, where two performers start, and would have to continue a scene suggested by the audience by only asking questions. When one didn't ask a question, or took too long to think of a question, they would be buzzed out and replaced by another performer, who would often continue the scene by taking it on a complete different tangent.

[edit] Differences between UK and U.S. versions

While the American version of the show is based on the UK version, there are still several differences between the two shows. One that is noticed immediately is the opening of the show. The U.S. version never had a traditional opening sequence, whereas the British version had a complete opening sequence which varied slightly over time. In early seasons, this sequence showed clips from the actual show. This later changed to show silhouetted actors performing scenes. The final opening sequence showed the scenes being acted out by animated figures made of lines, in a manner reminiscent of the Italian series La Linea.

Another difference comes in the amount of participation of both the host and the audience in the two versions. In the U.S. version of the show, Drew Carey, the host, was much more active in the show. The performers interacted with Drew during certain games, more so than in the British version of the show. Several games also involved more audience participation, most notably a new version of Sound Effects where audience members provided the sound effects for the performers.

The ending of the show also varies. In the British version, the winner(s) read the credits in a style of the host's choosing. The ending of the American version varied throughout the various seasons. Many episodes end with the winner(s) playing a game with Drew Carey. In the first season, the credits were not read at all. Later, this was changed so that one or more performers, independent of the winner(s), would read the credits in a manner chosen by the host.

[edit] Running gags

Running gags appear frequently in many episodes. Usually, the gags involve the participants and the host making fun of one another and themselves. Some running gags are confined to a single episode, in which notable jokes, comments, or mistakes from the performers and/or host are recalled in later games (such as one American show when Drew made a complaint about how cold it was in the studio). There are also several running gags that span the show's entire television run.

Running gags in the British version of the show include jokes directed at the host, Clive Anderson, and particularly addressed his short neck or baldness. There was often joking between the American performers and Clive in relation to the different idioms between British and American English (e.g. "elevator" vs. "lift"). Greg Proops was often the instigator of these jokes. Stiles continued the "insulting the host" tradition on the American version, with Drew Carey being the target by way of fat jokes or by other means, especially during the Hoedown segments, which most of the contestants loathed. Only once did the "insult the host" issue in the U.S. version ever involve the original host, Clive Anderson. In one sequence of Greatest Hits, Drew Carey referred to Wayne Brady as Brad Sherwood; Ryan Stiles responded by calling Drew "Clive."

The American version of Whose Line? carried over many running gags from the British version, but also created many of its own, such as frequently placing Colin in the position of portraying a woman in sketches. With a less-varied list of performers and games, a higher level of familiarity developed between the performers. This higher level of familiarity led to more running gags directed at the performers themselves. These jokes include frequent references to individual appearances, including Colin's baldness, being a Canadian, and vibrant shirts; Ryan's height, large nose, and flamboyant, 1950s style shoes; Wayne's being African-American; and Drew's obesity and large paycheck despite having little or nothing to do with the show. In addition, in the twilight of the series, Drew Carey and the regulars on Whose Line made frequent sarcastic remarks toward the hugely popular sitcom Friends, joking about how it was stealing away viewers from Whose Line, and fellow ABC "game show" Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, trying to one-up Regis Philbin and their prizes, often by giving out one billion points.

[edit] DVD release

In July 2006, Warner Bros. announced that the first DVD of the U.S. version of Whose Line? would be released on September 26, 2006. It is the first volume of the first season, and two versions have been released. One is a "family-friendly" DVD, which contains the episodes as they were broadcast on ABC, and an uncensored DVD, which holds material more suitable for mature viewers that did not reach the air. Both releases are made up of the first ten episodes of the first season, plus outtakes.[1] Currently the DVD is selling rather well, with the uncensored DVD reaching as high as #22 on Amazon.com's Top Sellers in DVD sales.

So far, the British series is not available on DVD, though the first two seasons are scheduled for an American release on February 27, 2007. [2] Also, British episodes were released on VHS in the mid-1990s.[3] Additionally, a play-at-home book was printed in 1989, related to the British series. [4]

[edit] Other countries

• De Lama's

In the Netherlands, a show based on Whose Line Is It Anyway? is called De Lama's. Besides a number of games from Whose Line Is It Anyway?, the show uses a lot of new games.

• Onvoorziene omstandigheden

In Belgium, a similar program was made under the name Onvoorziene omstandigheden (Unforeseen Circumstances), presented by Mark Uytterhoeven on één.

• Frei Schnauze

In Germany, this version of the US original entertains its audience with many similar games. The show started as a half-an-hour program and expanded to one hour in 2006. The host of Frei Schnauze is the German comedian Dirk Bach. Another similar show is "Schillerstraße" featuring many well-known German comedians.

• Hatten Rundt

In Denmark, a show called "Hatten Rundt" featured a setup very similar to that of "Whose Line?". However, the Danish show had much more emphasis on acting and much less on wild comedy.

[edit] See also

• Mock The Week
• Drew Carey's Green Screen Show
• I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue
• Thank God You're Here
• ComedySportz
• Theatresports

[edit] References

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[edit] External links

• The New Home of Whose Line, ABC Family Channel
• Official website of Hat Trick Productions, the U.K. makers
• Official website of U.S. version
• Flashpoint Studios Official Site
• Challenge TV Page: Whose Line Is It Anyway?
• Mark's Guide to Whose Line is it Anyway? - online guide, by Mark Longmuir
• "In A Style Of My Choosing" - the story of Whose Line Is It Anyway? from Off The Telly
• epguides.com British Radio Whose Line Is It Anyway? Guide
• TV.com's British Whose Line Is It Anyway? guide
• TV.com's American Whose Line Is It Anyway? guide
• "The IDIOTsite" A website dedicated to Whose Line is it Anyway?
  • Whose Line Wiki at Idiotsite
• Whose Line Is It Anyway? at the Internet Movie Database (Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg United Kingdom)
• Whose Line Is It Anyway? at the Internet Movie Database (Image:Flag of the United States.svg United States)
• Official Site of Whose Line Is It Anyway? on ABC Prime Time
• BBC America's Whose Line page
• "Whoserville" A Whose Line is it Anyway? fansitede:Whose Line Is It Anyway?

nl:Whose Line Is It Anyway? no:Whose Line Is It Anyway? sv:Whose line is it anyway?