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Whose Line Is It Anyway? coming back on TV


chuck

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They need to mix the skits up more too. There's only been 1 or 2 scenes from a hat, 1 or 2 props, 1 3-headed broadway singer, and yet a countless amount of singing games, Sideways, and Helping Hands...

Where's the Party Quirks, Whose Line, Stand Sit Lie Down, 90 Second Alphabet, Questions Only....



Also: Does anyone know why Ryan Stiles never performs in the Sideways game?

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Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's it. He had a few hip/back injuries on the old show...

About the guest stars, I think they're hit-and-miss, but it seems to just be a promotional gimmick to get more people watching. I noticed next week's episode will have the four of them with no other guests, and I seriously doubt they'll keep having these D-listers come on for all 24 episodes next season. I agree about mixing up the games, but I'm sure they'll get to most of them eventually...on top of the ones you mentioned, Jason, there's also been the Dating Game, Forward Reverse, Weird Newscasters, Hollywood Director, Living Scenery, and now the green screen news game. It's only been 7 episodes, and a lot of the ones they've been repeating are because they're the only ones the "celebs" can do, but they've at least made the effort to put in one new game every episode. I just hope that number will start going up next season.

Also I hope they get Brad, Chip, and Greg back to be in the 4th chair. I loved seeing Jeff Davis a couple episodes ago, that felt the most like old-school Whose Line. And it'd be nice if they could get Drew Carey to be a guest at some point.

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I noticed next week's episode will have the four of them with no other guests,

That's what Jason said about episode 5, and it ended up having a guest. I don't know where you guys are getting your information, but maybe they wait to release the name of the guest until right before the show is released.

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http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/whose-line-is-it-anyway/episodes/195603

If you notice on the 8/20 episode, it just lists Keegan Michael-Key with no other names, as opposed to the other episodes where there are two names (the 4th chair and the special guest). That includes the 8/27 episode where it's back to a celeb guest, so I don't think it's because they haven't announced it yet. It's also the same here: http://www.cwtv.com/shows/whose-line-is-it-anyway/episodes

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  • 2 weeks later...

Man, episode 8 with Keegan Michael Key was great!! Thank god they finally did an episode without a "special guest" D-Lister. And Key was really funny! Maybe I should check out his show sometime.

Only 4 episodes left this season!

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  • 1 month later...

Wow, I haven't checked in here in a while. I haven't seen episode 12 yet, but I've seen 9, 10, and 11

Episode 9 with the boxer lady was pretty funny, especially Ryan Stiles during Helping Hands

Episode 10 with Maggie Q, I don't remember much about

Episode 11 with the two lingerie football league players was hilarious. Even though the interaction with them was basically the same as when they had the swimmer girls on a few episodes back

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She has nothing in Ming-Na Wen. Seriously! I saw Agents of SHIELD and I can't believe that's a 49-year old. Wonders of wonders!

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Watched episode 12 last night. The "Mrs. Butterworths" bit was one of the funniest of the season! I starting cough uncontrollably from laughing so hard!

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  • 5 months later...
  • 3 weeks later...
  • 8 years later...

I got to see Colin and Brad's improv show a few years ago, they were great. Maybe I'll try and catch Ryan/Jeff/Greg's tour this year. 

 

I've only occasionally been watching the new one the last few years but sad that it's cancelled. I think the CW version might have had more episodes altogether than the ABC one?

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Nope!

 

The Drew Carey version had tapings from 1998-2001, and they released 219 episodes cut from them between 1998-2007.  There's still tons of footage left unaired, including at least 3 more episodes they could cut from the Robin Williams taping.

 

The Aisha version has had 46 tapings so far in 9 blocks (April 2013, January & March 2014, January & March 2015, January and April 2016, February 2017, and February 2019), which they've so far cut 172 episodes from (168 have aired so far, while the remaining 4 begin airing in February).  The 4 new tapings about to happen in January/February 2023 will bring them to 50 tapings total for the Aisha version.

 

 

At a taping, Aisha introduces every game as "our next game", and then at the end after all the games are played, they have her record 5 extra "welcome to Whose Line" intros, a least 6 "Our first game tonight is" intros for games they think might be worthy episode openers, and 6 "end credits" with various winners.  Oh and Scenes From A Hat goes on for a very long time so they can put portions of it in every episode they cut, especially if they reference a bit from another sketch or vice versa. Same with Greatest Hits.

 

Each taping lasts for 4 hours, and they typically can cut 4 episodes from each, sometimes they have cut 5 episodes from one taping!

 

 

In the Aisha version, there's only 3 tapings left now from which they've only aired the initial 2 episode cuts - the Lauren Cohan / Wilson Bethel taping from April 28th 2013, the Kat Graham / Michael Weatherly from January 24, 2014, and the Misty May-Treanor / Cheryl Hines taping from January 19th, 2016.  It's pretty shocking they haven't made a 3rd episode from those yet, when so many other tapings have had their 4th and 5 episodes aired.  One of them (May-Treanor/Hines) was a Wayne-free episode while he was doing Kinky Boots, so maybe that's why, no idea about the other two though.  I'm hoping all 3 of these will finally get their 3rd episodes within the next 4 episodes airing soon.

 

Most of the remaining episodes have had 3 or 4 episodes cut from them, but two tapings have already led to 5 episodes: the Gina Rodriguez / Karla Souza taping from March 28th 2015, and the Chris Hardwick / Adrienne Houghton taping from February 2019.

 

 

Anyways, assuming they eventually cut 4 episodes from all 50 tapings, that's 200 episodes, so they'll only manage to go past Drew's 219 episode count if at least 18 more of them have enough good footage to warrant a 5th episode.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm so pumped for Thursday night's taping!

 

The first taping of the year had Jeff Davis in the 4th seat, they used Aisha instead of an audience member for living scenery, and they did Superheroes and Press Conference!

 

 

Whose Line 2023-01-21.webp

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I thought they might have ditched the guest stars as it’s the final round of tapings, but hey ho. 
 

Surprised they’re still doing Helping Hands in this COVID world.

 

Also, no Hoedown. Boo!

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Yes and apparently on Saturday for Helping Hands, Colin did the hands through the guest and Ryan was in the usual guest spot!

 

And yea it does seem surprising to not do Hoedown with Jeff in the 4th chair :(

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i've listened to hours and hours of Jeff Davis on the Harmontown podcast, and yet I've never seen a single episode of him on Whose Line that I can remember.  By the time he started appearing in the show a few seasons in, I'd gotten to high school and was spending weeknights chatting on AIM instead of watching TV :lol:

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9 minutes ago, Alex said:

Also weird that Jeff isn’t included in the duets.

 

Well, the two guests were Wayne's daughter and Jimmie Allen, so I guess they thought it made sense for Wayne to sing with them :)

 

7 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

i've listened to hours and hours of Jeff Davis on the Harmontown podcast, and yet I've never seen a single episode of him on Whose Line that I can remember.  By the time he started appearing in the show a few seasons in, I'd gotten to high school and was spending weeknights chatting on AIM instead of watching TV :lol:

 

He's the only person who has been a 4th chair at all 10 taping blocks of the Aisha version, but it looks like he was only in 9 Drew Carey version episodes, aired in 2000, 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007

 

Gary Anthony Williams will also be in all 10 taping blocks if he's one of the final 3 fourth chairs

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Oh snap it's Greg Proops tonight!!! 

 

Also, can confirm Mixed Messages truly is real people's real text messages! 

 

Sound Effects is usually a random Aisha pick, but due to covid they have to pick people ahead of time so they can be tested first. They picked two ladies I've been in line with the whole time! 

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Gary Anthony Williams was the 4th chair on Saturday's taping, with guests Alison Hannigan and Mark Ballas

 

uEScWJn.jpeg

 

Hannigan did Song Style, Dubbing, and Helping Hands / Ballas did Duet, 3-Headed Broadway Star, and Living Scenery

 

And look, they did Deleted Scenes (Scenes Cut From A Movie) and 90-Second Alphabet!  And Wayne was in the field for Newsflash!

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They had 3 guests at the final taping Wednesday night, instead of the usual 2. Nobody online has spoiled who they were yet that I've seen, only that none of them was Drew Carey

 

2023-02-01.jpeg

 

 

Episodes cut from these final 4 tapings begin airing Friday March 31st!

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Well they had more variety in the other 3 tapings this year, like Aisha performing in Living Scenery, Wayne and Ryan in the field for Newsflash instead of Colin, Colin's hands being through the guest instead of Ryan for Helping Hands, Greg as the Hollywood Director instead of Colin, guests joining in on Props, etc.  Plus rare games like 90 Second Alphabet, Number of Words, Superheroes, etc.

 

Plus the final episodes taped won't necessarily be the final episodes aired anyway.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if this is it for the Aisha version, but a streamer picks up a new iteration with a new host, with Mangum and Davis as permanent chairs and a huge rotation of the other 2 chairs

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I'm glad they did a Three Headed Broadway Star, that was always one of my favorites but they rarely do it on the CW from what I've seen 

 

Kinda bullshit that Drew hasn't come back! Whether they haven't invited him or (more likely) he's declined. 

 

But that would be forgiven if they managed to get Clive Anderson lol 

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When I saw Guest 3 was doing 3-Headed and Helping Hands I thought it might be Drew (despite them being in a Duet also), but alas

 

I think the performers on this show are so talented, even doing the same games a hundred times they keep it fresh

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Definitely, probably because they figured it was easiest to be funny regardless of special guest.


The biggest issue with the whole Aisha version is the special guests at all, but at least they eventually were able to air tons of episodes without any due to the way they film

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Yeah totally, that was another thing where the first couple reboot seasons, it was all guests and it got a little tiring because there were only so many games you could do. Except for somebody like Robin Williams or Whoopi Goldberg on the old show who could do anything as a fourth seater. 

 

I can't remember how many people were quite similar on CW, even though some could surprisingly hold their own. I guess Keegan-Michael Key is a good example of somebody they could have had as a big celebrity guest with range but instead made a worthy fourth seater. But that's what was annoying is they would also have celebrity guests with him! And obviously when they brought Chip Esten back as a celeb guest and then he did some fourth seat eps later, we all know he has the goods.

 

But the reboot def found itself when they could start cutting those tapings more frequently into "regular" Whose Line eps. 

 

That said I think Kathie Lee Gifford was the hardest I've laughed with the new Whose Line. 

 

 

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Totally!  If CW lets them, they'll eventually have more episodes without special guests, than ones with.

 

After 50 tapings, there's been 98 special guests (it's not 100 because all three Keegan Michael Key tapings only had one guest, then the final taping had 3 guests)

 

If they can eventually cut 5 episodes from every taping, that's 98 episodes with guests and 152 without.


Of course, a bunch of 3rd episode cuts ended up featuring a guest again anyway, but at least in those instances they only come out for 1 game, maybe 2, and there isn't too many of those.  Though one episode labeled as not having one did have Ricki Lake in it anyway IIRC so who knows.  

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BTW here's the 52 4th chairs of the Aisha era (there's 52 despite only being 50 tapings, because Wayne and Ryan missed 1 episode each)

  1. Jeff Davis - 12 (2013-2023)
  2. Gary Anthony Williams - 10 (2013-2023)
  3. Jonathan Mangum - 8 (2013-2023)
  4. Greg Proops - 7 (2014-2023)
  5. Brad Sherwood - 5 (2014-2017)
  6. Heather Anne Campbell - 4 (2013-2016)
  7. Keegan-Michael Key - 3 (2013-2015)
  8. Nyima Funk - 2 (2013 & 2014)
  9. Chip Esten - 1 (2019)

Josie Lawrence, Kathy Greenwood, Denny Siegel, and Karen Maruyama are the only Drew era 4th chairs that never came on the Aisha version (other than special ones like Robin Williams, Stephen Colbert, Whoopi Goldberg, Kathy Griffin, Ian Gomez, Kathy Kinney)

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While I remember watching the original British episodes on Comedy Central 30+ years ago and would have loved to see some of the old regulars pop in for these final tapings, I can understand why they aren’t.  Pay how much to fly them over and stay here for a few days for how much potential screen time?  With how rusty they would be?  And how many Americans would even recognize them?

 

Besides, this is only the end of this iteration of Whose Line.  It’ll be back.  Really cheap to make; practically designed for the streaming era. 
 

Most memorable line— from “Scenes from a Hat”: The Good News and the Bad News, “We’re going to name a disease after you.”

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Cool new interview with Colin:

 

https://www.vulture.com/article/colin-mochrie-whose-line-interview.html

 

The craziest part of the interview:

 

Last year you tweeted that the upcoming Whose Line season would be the final season, but the CW said that’s “not accurate” and that “no decision has been made at this time about next season.” So what did you mean by your tweet?


Everyone at the show — producers and actors — are calling this the last taping. The short answer is that if it comes back, it probably won’t be with this cast. There is a complicated relationship with the show. The cast loves each other, and the actual shooting is always fun. We are all grateful that the show gave us a showcase and allowed us to be able to tour. The downside is that we never received fair compensation for the success of the show. We provide the content but don’t get paid as “writers.” We never received residuals for a show that’s been shown around the world since its inception. Seeing announcements about the sale to the show overseas or to HBO Max can get irritating.

 

I hope I don’t sound bitter, because I learned long ago that this business is not fair, and being bitter about it gets you nowhere. I also find it odd that any publicizing of the show comes through our social media. Every day a tweet shows up: “You guys should bring that show back!” Every season for the last nine years we’ve had to remind folks that we are on. So the short answer is, as of now, this is the last season with this cast. The longer, more vague answer is that it’s like the Mafia: It keeps pulling us back, so who knows?

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