Austin Improv

Mo Daviau wrote: Fortunately, nobody has ever yelled "show us your tits!" midshow.

*stores this away for later use*

Some names...

Players to be Named Later (Retired) - We were sitting around talking about people that were going to be in the troupe, and it was like this. Well, of course it will be you and me and Paul, and various players to be named later...and it stuck.

Catch 24 - An interesting thing about this is that we really spent an entire day working on it, and all it took for it to happen was an accident by Jeremy, and a bathroom visit by Craig, and the rest is history.

Gravy - The deal was that we wanted to put together the cream of the crop, and I think it was Craig who said something like "cream gravy?" and the name was born.

The Knuckleball Now - Our first meeting was supposed to be at David Modigliani's house, but this was smack in the middle of the Red Sox ALCS run that saw them work over the Yankees in four straight after losing three in a row. Now, Modig and I are big Red Sox fans, and Craigy is a big baseball fan, and I think Mike Dolan (who used to be in the troupe) just had an anthropological interest in the game. So, Dave called us all and asked if we could watch the end of the game at Guero's, since it was in the 9th inning at the time. We all went, but the game lasted 14 innings. It was an amazing bonding experience for us all. Anyway, that night, Tim Wakefield was on the mound, and he's got this masterful knucleball pitch. The next week, we all came up with names for the troupe, and the only similarity was that all four of us had mentioned the knuckleball in our list. And so, TKN was born.

Another top contender for We Could Be Heroes: Hugh Downs Presents

and let's not forget the craigy masterpiece Hugh Downs Syndrome

True to form, ColdTowne Heroes name selection process involved a 10 hour drunken BBQ debate.

Other names that were on the list, but not really considered:

Darkie Knife Fight
StillBorne Creek

ColdTowne was a random combination of words that we liked. We happened to be listening to a parody of the song "We Built This City (On Rock and Roll)" that was recorded for a Starbucks management conference. It refered to the Barristas as "Everyday Heroes." We laughed a lot, and Everyday Heroes tied for first place with ColdTowne. After some more drinking, debating and a two hour long organic opening that drew some noise complaints from Chris Trew's neighbors, someone said "Whatabout ColdTowne Heroes?" The motion was carried, and then we moved to Austin.

Kittens in a Shotglass
This is still around in spirit. Part of the reasons we call each other the kittens. That and our "lick-clean" parties.

Don't forget to add Crackers by a Lakeside to our list of possibles before Parallelogramophonograph was chosen.

in the spirit of last saturday's maestro warm-up, someone NEEDS to name their new troupe Southern Fried Chicken Bling. it's a moral imperative.

CLAIMED, I will be registering Southern Fried Chicken Bling as a new troupe name for the Cagematch in May or June or July.

That's right, Southern Fried Improv from Austin, TX...all shiny and shiyat!*

If you'd be interested in mixing Hee-Haw with Jay Z with Ron White and Larry the Cable Guy performing brief longfrom improvised plays about southern issues like segregation, queers getting married & our savior Jesus Christ, please contact me.

That's all.

*shiyat could be (or should be) a Hebrew word for something.

haha.

phlounderphil wrote: If you'd be interested in mixing Hee-Haw with Jay Z with Ron White and Larry the Cable Guy performing brief longfrom improvised plays about southern issues like segregation, queers getting married & our savior Jesus Christ, please contact me.

If I'd be interested? Where do I sign up!

My personal favorite from the BBQ debate was "A More Perfect Union" which we liked because we were on two different student teams and wanted to play together so bad and it took so long for our theatre director to let us.

Team 1 was "Let's Settle for Mediocrity" and contained:
Michael Jastroch
Arthur Simone
+ a couple of other not as committed people

Team 2 was "One Hand Clapping" and contained:
Tami Nelson
Chris Trew
Dan Rubin
+ other people who were not as into doing improv

After months of debate, the more committed people from both teams were slapped together. There was 9 of us. The hurricane removed 4 of them.

Whew!

I'm partial to "der Hodenkrebs"

"der Hodenkrebs" means "The Testicular Cancer" in German.

Jastroch wrote:Other names that were on the list, but not really considered:

Darkie Knife Fight
StillBorne Creek

I fought the good fight for 'Stillborn Creek.' I was also a big fan of 'Born Still,' but the catholics in our troupe were clearly nervous about the name. All the more reason to take that name!

'Cold Town' was also the name of a town I built in the icy top of a Civilization 2 map back in 1997. It had access to two whales and a yak.

I don't know the whole story bc I wasn't there for the "aha" moment, but I know that...

There were several weeks of name throwdowns in drinking fests at bars -- none of which were acceptable by the entire group. Finally just when "Baron Von Squiggly" seemed to be winning out, James Roberts had a brainstorm and suggested the one name that would stick. He then swayed the group by reminding the guys that at some point they'd want to be able to tell their prospective dates they were in an improv troupe and then there'd be that inevitable question, "What's your troupe's name?"

So we became "The Leading Brands".

Another new troupe name that came from doing Picket Line (just like Soutern-Fried Chicken Bling):

Knee-High Grass Honky

We'll be doing Fred Sanford prov as if he were a contributing writer to High Times.

Jeremy, Ace, and I did a show with one of our favorite Chicago improvisors, Mark Ratterman. We had just been talking about changing our name, and I threw out Man Handle.

Anyway, I got to do one show as a troupe that I named, called Man Handle. Awsome.

I thought one of the best improv comedy names was String Cheese Theory. When I think of "Theory" I think "Conspiracy." And when I think of cheese, I think of other dairy products, like "Butter."

"Conspiracy Butter."