Austin Improv

The Office, Michael gets into improv

Season 2, Episode 9 - "Email Surveillance"
(can't find this one)

The classroom scenes feature a woman whom I recognize from the Groundlings show at OOB 2008. I'm sure Beth Burns knows her name. It's funny how you never forget a face once you spend a little tome editing photos of said face.

After seeing that episode of the office I went through a period where I was bringing lots of guns in to scenes.

Brian Boyko wrote:

Lants wrote:

Brian Boyko wrote:That's actually how I feel about most warm-ups. I know it gets everyone *else* into a group mind, and everyone *else* psyched up, but really, most of the time, I just feel stupid doing it, and actually think I play worse after warming up.

That's your fault for letting yourself feel stupid by not trusting everyone else enough to not feel stupid.

It has nothing to do with trusting the other people in the group. It has everything to do with the fact that I think it's stupid myself.

Lance!!

beardedlamb wrote:yeah, the whole episode is pretty funny. it has an improv subplot. i forgot about the word at a time story. the moment they decide to do an improv show is pretty funny, too.

"what is the most consistently funny form of comedy?"
"improv."
"improv."

Watching the episode now. Family Guy has gotten a lot better over the last year.

my favorite improv mockery in mainstream culture is michael scott taking improv classes on the office. i cant find it though. Marc?

That episode makes it hard for me to ever have one of my characters with a gun. I always fell self-conscious about it now.

Jon Bolden wrote:The classroom scenes feature a woman whom I recognize from the Groundlings show at OOB 2008. I'm sure Beth Burns knows her name. It's funny how you never forget a face once you spend a little tome editing photos of said face.

tome = time

editing = masturbating to

when they brought improv into the episode, i was holding my breath and cringing for fear they were going to drop the ball (as they're prone to do), but i actually thought it was a pretty deftly handled satire. like Jeremy, i thought they'd made up the "go bananas" warm up...but it SEEMED so much like a warm up game, i thought it was brilliant. now that i know it actually exists, it seems less so. lol! i loved Joe's enthusiasm for EVERYTHING. and i've definitely felt like Quagmire in the troupe naming scene a couple of times.

and to me, the point of doing utterly silly, stupid warm up games is the fact that they're silly and stupid...not to say that's what you should be striving for in a show, but to truly embrace risk you have to sacrifice ego and vanity. so acting like a banana, riding an imaginary pony or singing like Fred Schneider can help you open up and let go.

that said, i really, really, REALLY fucking hate Pony.