Once upon a product pitch scene, I played a character who was mentioned again later in the show as having developed a tumor by using the company's product. I called the company with an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice and said "it IS a tumor".
You did WHAT?!?!
Discussion of the art and craft of improvisation.
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- TexasImprovMassacre Offline
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You did WHAT?!?!
Ever made a move in a show that no one else on stage seemed to notice, but it was still personally satisfying?
Once upon a product pitch scene, I played a character who was mentioned again later in the show as having developed a tumor by using the company's product. I called the company with an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice and said "it IS a tumor".
Once upon a product pitch scene, I played a character who was mentioned again later in the show as having developed a tumor by using the company's product. I called the company with an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice and said "it IS a tumor".
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- kbadr Offline
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In the first villainy show, a childhood friend gave me a handkerchief that I sniffed and stashed in my shirt near my chest. At the end of the show, I got stabbed in the heart and as I slumped over, I pulled out the blood-soaked handkerchief and sniffed it before I snuffed it. I don't think anyone noticed.
You work your life away and what do they give?
You're only killing yourself to live
- TexasImprovMassacre Offline
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awesomekbadr wrote:In the first villainy show, a childhood friend gave me a handkerchief that I sniffed and stashed in my shirt near my chest. At the end of the show, I got stabbed in the heart and as I slumped over, I pulled out the blood-soaked handkerchief and sniffed it before I snuffed it. I don't think anyone noticed.
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- beardedlamb Offline
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i screw up on purpose sometimes because the audience eats that shit up. its kind of like falling on purpose out on the street. you get the satisfaction of knowing you created the laugh and you get the personal secret of knowing it was on purpose.
i also like to talk to bill during scenes where the audience is laughing so hard and for so long at something he did we have to just stand there holding for laughs.
i also like to talk to bill during scenes where the audience is laughing so hard and for so long at something he did we have to just stand there holding for laughs.
one of my earliest I.O. memories was during a cagematch being in the background of a group scene, playing some sort of monopoly/checkers/trouble/superfection hybrid board game with Jason Sudeikis.
There were so many other things happening in that scene and bigger star power standing in front of us.
We were just making the game up as we went, rolling dice, moving pieces, popping bubbles and pushing springs, heightening and laughing ourselves silly fairly confidenty we were the only ones paying attention to our slice of the stage.
There were so many other things happening in that scene and bigger star power standing in front of us.
We were just making the game up as we went, rolling dice, moving pieces, popping bubbles and pushing springs, heightening and laughing ourselves silly fairly confidenty we were the only ones paying attention to our slice of the stage.
If you disrespect your character, or play it just for laughs, it will sell some gags, but it's all technique.
It's like watching a juggler-- you'll be impressed by it, but it's not going to touch you in anyway. "
-Steve Coogan
It's like watching a juggler-- you'll be impressed by it, but it's not going to touch you in anyway. "
-Steve Coogan
Tons of them. I love to amuse myself. I tend to infuse a lot of my comedy with literary references from my days as an English major.
One time, when doing an entire scene in gibberish I instead did most of the actual prologue to the Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English. I've dropped several Christopher Marlowe quotes in Shakespeare scenes. I've named everyone in a scene after characters in various Elizabethan plays from The Spanish Tragedy to Volpone (and sometimes used themes from the plays plot to inform the scene's plot). I also went down in Category Die once for saying 'Stearns' for "types of bears" and I think only about 10% of the crowd got it.
Though, one of my favorites was when I playing a history teacher in a Pgraph After School Improv show. I listed out the 11 states of the Confederacy in the correct chronological order of their secession from the union (and pretty speedily, too). When Kareem tried to pimp me to do it again, I did, but I purposefully switched two of them so it would be close, but not quite the same list in case anyone knew the correct order. I also gave completely historically accurate battle facts about the Battle of Antietam (army sizes, major Generals, casualty figures, details about the battlefield, etc). Most people probably thought they were just made up numbers, but they weren't.
Same thing in the Couples Maestro where I was a Civil War antiques dealer. I listed actual calibers and models of Civil War weapons, actual combat unit designations, and actual pieces of unusual equipment. The only made up stuff in the entire scene was the clearly made up parts about wearing Crocodile heads and what not. Anything that sounded like it might even have possibly been real, was.
One time, when doing an entire scene in gibberish I instead did most of the actual prologue to the Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English. I've dropped several Christopher Marlowe quotes in Shakespeare scenes. I've named everyone in a scene after characters in various Elizabethan plays from The Spanish Tragedy to Volpone (and sometimes used themes from the plays plot to inform the scene's plot). I also went down in Category Die once for saying 'Stearns' for "types of bears" and I think only about 10% of the crowd got it.
Though, one of my favorites was when I playing a history teacher in a Pgraph After School Improv show. I listed out the 11 states of the Confederacy in the correct chronological order of their secession from the union (and pretty speedily, too). When Kareem tried to pimp me to do it again, I did, but I purposefully switched two of them so it would be close, but not quite the same list in case anyone knew the correct order. I also gave completely historically accurate battle facts about the Battle of Antietam (army sizes, major Generals, casualty figures, details about the battlefield, etc). Most people probably thought they were just made up numbers, but they weren't.
Same thing in the Couples Maestro where I was a Civil War antiques dealer. I listed actual calibers and models of Civil War weapons, actual combat unit designations, and actual pieces of unusual equipment. The only made up stuff in the entire scene was the clearly made up parts about wearing Crocodile heads and what not. Anything that sounded like it might even have possibly been real, was.
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- DollarBill Offline
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The other night, one of the members of my playground group came to see my set at iO. I was bored in the opening so I made a joke just for him and then I looked right at him when he laughed. Somehow it became the central theme of the show. I was pretty satisfied with myself.
They call me Dollar Bill 'cause I always make sense.
at after school improv rehearsal this week, there was a scene going on in a lunch room (maybe it was a lunchroom, maybe not?) where kacey, the hot girl, was trying to get homework help from the nerd guys. I was just a girl who walked in singing to herself and sat down at my own table to eat lunch. I took a lot of time pulling out my food and eating it slowly and with realism. At one point I poured some chips from my bag into my hand, crushed them between my palms, and then licked the crumbs off for several minutes.
Parallelogramophonographpargonohpomargolellarap: It's a palindrome!
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- Asaf Offline
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In the most recent You're Not My Real Dad show, Dave and John were two guys driving around looking for a store that just sold inflatable sex dolls. Tom and I stepped out and started blowing up dolls. Then we did a split screen going back and forth. While the focus was on Dave and John, I would often be taking the dolls I had blown up and would rub them on my head so I could then stick them to the wall.
Sometimes its just for me.
Sometimes its just for me.