It's A Sport, Not A Result

the fun of building, not the result

Photo by Chris Chow on Unsplash

On rare occasion - maybe three times - I’ve been asked to pitch an improvised show to a television development person. Someone will say “We’re thinking of doing an improvised show and we hear you know everything about improv. What are your thoughts?”

And it goes… terribly! I just end up lecturing them that they don’t know what improv really is, and I shoot down any idea that sounds even remotely fun. No, there shouldn’t be a trunk of props. No, the audience should not get to pick what happens. No, there shouldn’t be multiple takes. No, it shouldn’t be an improvised version of a famous media franchise.

Funny people should be allowed to make things up, end of pitch.

After twenty minutes, we shake hands, I take the bottle of water they handed me and I drive an hour back from the west side of the city.

Each time, my prickliness surprises me! Despite writing and thinking about improv all the time, I’m actually not very uptight about it! I’m not one to lecture students about the grand importance of the art form. And it’s okay with me if regular people tell me (usually uninvited) what’s wrong with improv and why they think it’s okay that they hate it.

But television development people? They drive me nuts. And I think I’ve figured out why!

What We Hate About Improv Is That It Seems To Be Made Up On The Spot

What they don’t like about improv… is that it’s improvised.

Like, they dislike the very nature of the thing. They think of improv as a process for comedy generation, and nothing else. An improv show is only as good as the quality of comedic scenes that result.

They’re not alone in thinking that. Second City (I believe) has generally used improv primarily as a tool to write sketches. Makes sense to me, it works great like that.

And Ian Roberts (my scene partner in our show High Functioning, and oh yeah he also co-founded the UCB Theatre) says the best compliment one can get after a show is that “it must have been written.” I understand that, too. That says to me that your improv was precise, controlled and left nothing unused.

But a huge huge huge huge part of watching improv is seeing the performers make it up. If funny people are doing it, even the “bad” parts are funny.

What If We Script Half Of Your Baseball Game?

The best metaphor is sports. If you are a baseball fan then you like the game, even when the players do badly! If you told me “the major league is editing out all the bad parts of the games, so you only get to see the parts where they are great” I’d be like “oh, so you just don’t like baseball?”

The television folks I have met want to completely control the result of improv. Let’s film 10 sets and only show the best one. Let’s edit out the bad parts. Let’s write the set up, and only let the improv affect minor specifics. Let’s take an existing script, and let just one person improvise their lines, but everyone else will bring the scene to its desired finish.

It’s as if people were trying to make a baseball game, but they assume that no one is actually good enough to play baseball well.

Can you imagine if Major League Baseball made the players do the game 3 times, and then only broadcast the “best” one? Or one where the audience was allowed to pick who pitched? Or where the game was completely written except one player got to actually play? Or they only showed the home runs and strikeouts?

Those could all be really fun! But it would not be baseball.

And sports — I hope this isn’t a total surprise — are really popular. Fans of a sport like to watch people play the sport.

We Like Baseball As Long As It Follows The Plot Of A Harry Potter Movie

Cut to me sitting in a television office. Me, who has spent his whole dumb adult life doing and teaching improv. Who really likes watching it. Who likes the type of people that are drawn to it. And then someone says to me:

“We like improv, but we REALLY like it if it’s just an improvised Harry Potter movie.”

By the way, there are GREAT improvised Harry Potter shows that I love. But when someone says to me that that’s the ONLY way they’re gonna like improv —- then you don’t like improv!

I think that’s why it really doesn’t bother me when someone tells me they don’t like improv. Or for that matter when they say they don’t like baseball! Like, I get it. It’s not for everyone.

But if you ask me to drive an hour and wait an hour and then tell me how much you love improv but you want to do a version where you know in advance what’s going to happen… then suddenly I’m Niles Crane seeing someone use their dessert fork to eat a salad.

What About “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”

What about the show Whose Line Is It Anyway? Did that show offend me?

No! It was a hilarious show with terrific people. The thing with that show is... they really are doing the games. Sure, the games were short. You could show a complete “game” in about 2 minutes. You COULD do them 3 times and show the best one. Still, the one you’re seeing on TV is funny people actually performing a feat (the “sport”). A brilliant show!

But long-form sets are 20 minutes, minimum. And the bad parts, so to speak, are part of the show.

Improv Looks Good On Screen Now

Ten years ago I thought filming a true long-form show was impossible because I’d never seen improv look good on screen. Video felt too removed from the show. Performers didn’t know how to project enough. The mimed props looks too silly.

Then as pandemic lockdowns were lifting, I saw Holy Shit Improv as filmed by Drew Spears Productions. And it looked… good!

HSI shows were the first long-form improv shows in Los Angeles to come back. They were performed at Silverlake Lounge — a lovely bar but a not-that-great improv venue. The casts were great, the improv was great, but the venue was just okay. Sound didn’t carry to the back of the room. The stage was small. We were so desperate for improv that the room was packed, but as I watched shows I couldn’t help but think… this is a frustrating venue.

Then I started watching the video screens. DSP was streaming the shows and also showing their stream on TVs to the back of the bar. It looked…. great! When I watched the stream at home the audio and video was… good!

It felt like I was there. In this case, it felt BETTER than what it was like when I was there.

That’s when I knew… hey, this could work.

My Gimmicky Improv Show

Okay, so just to prove that I’m not some nightmare artist who insists that televised improv must be a 45 minute monoscene in which the players only do silent object work for the first half hour, here’s my idea for a show that would be real improv but still fun for the uninitiated.

And it’s not my idea! It’s Cagematch!

Cagematch as I knew it was the show Kevin Mullaney developed at iO Chicago and then brought to UCB NY in that theater’s infancy. Two teams do improv and the audience votes on the winner. Winner comes back next week. It’s a compelling, crowd-pleasing show. Some of the best improv I’ve seen has been in Cagematches.

Get two teams. Treat it like a sport. Have announcers give you the rundown of the teams’ background. “This is a young team of people who are not part of any major theater.” “This is an established team from a huge theater. A few TV actors on this team.” Get really inside and niche. “We know Team A starts slow and brings it home — will they do it tonight?”

You could have “gimmick” teams as long as they are really improvising their shows. Have a musical improv team. Have a one person team. Just give the audience the story of the team.

Let the audience at home vote. Or let the studio audience vote. Winner comes back the next week.

Maybe restrict it to three person teams. Threeprov is some of the best improv I’ve seen, and it really lets the personalities of the players come through. Threeprov teams become adjectives. Like after “Hot Sauce” (Ben Schwartz, Adam Pally, Gil Ozeri) hit the scene back in the day with their super-fast, 4th-wall-breaking, big character play — their name became synonymous with a certain style. And that’s happened with many teams, but 3prov teams in particular — more so than 8 person teams — seem to embody a specific flavor and style.

Play by Play

Maybe let the announcers talk throughout the game a la “Play By Play” which is an improv show my brother and I used to do in NYC.

This is truly my most gimmicky pitch.

In Play by Play, you have announcers who comment on the game, a la Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Although this format comments on and yes, makes fun, of the improv. The players are still doing the feat of making things up to each other. And the announcers can let the audience in on what’s happening.

I’ve pitched this — and yes, I looked crazy — to people and they just stared at me. “But what happens during the show?” they say. And I’m like “They…. improvise. They make it up.” And one guy said to me “Yeah, that’s the part I’m worried about.”

And I start thinking about my drive home.

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Plugs, Ongoing

• High Functioning - Ian Roberts and I do an hour of improv EVERY SATURDAY 7pm at the UCB Annex. See this video for Ian and I showing you where the UCB Annex is.

• Clubhouse Fridays - WGIS’ weekly improv show. Fridays 7pm at The Clubhouse. Free!

• The World’s Greatest Improv School: The improv school I run with Jim Woods and Sarah Claspell. We’ve got classes online, in LA and even a few in NYC!

• How to Be The Greatest Improviser On Earth - My improv book, available at Amazon. Kindle or print. It’s a hodge-podge of advice I wrote in 2016 about doing improv. If you’re broke and want a free PDF version just email me and I’ll send it over.

• Screw It, We’re Just Gonna Talk About Comics - Comic book podcast, hosted by my brother Kevin and I. We are about to start coverage of the late 1990s iteration of Human Target by Peter Milligan. Subscribe for bonus episodes!

• Screw It, We’re Just Gonna Talk About The Beatles - monthly deep dive on a little known indie band from Liverpool called The Beatles. We’re doing Mind Games re-release. Subscribe for access to back episodes!