| Greg Proops at Hilarities in Cleveland, OH (October 6th, 2011) |
[09 Oct 2011|03:23pm] |
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I was surprised when I found out it had been four years and seven months since the last time I had seen Greg Proops live and indeed four years and seven months since he had been in Cleveland (to my knowledge anyway). And I wrote a LiveJournal post about it back then, remember? A lot of the points I made in that post could be repeated here. I had forgotten about the neck discomfort thing. But our table was slightly further back this time so it wasn't too bad.
I was a bit confused about the scheduling. It was advertised that there would be a live Proopcast on Thursday plus stand-up over the weekend. So I had thought that I had to choose between seeing the podcast or seeing stand-up on one of the other days. I had decided on the podcast day but it turned out that he was also doing stand-up on Thursday but also podcasting later that night. So in case you get the chance to see Greg in your town and this confusion comes up, there you go.
The openers were [A guy whose name I can't seem to find yet, sorry guy], Ramon Rivas and Karen Rontowski. First guy was amusing enough except that he sure did comment that Ugg boots should make an "ly" at the end of them. Perhaps some day someone will break it to him that that doesn't count as a joke since everyone who has ever heard of Ugg boots has made that same observation.
Ramon Rivas followed the rule that if you are of any non-European ethnicity, you must make jokes themed on your ethnicity at some point in any of your acts. Well, he didn't do it a lot, but how refreshing it would be to have it not mentioned at all. I thought it was interesting that he brought up a Twitter hash tag game he invented and proceeded to recount some of the Tweets he made based on that game. Is repeating one's Twitterfeed in one's stand-up act going to be a thing now? On the upside, Ramon's hash tag game was #joannfabricsongs, and no, the world does not enough jokes about Jo Ann Fabric stores.
Karen Rontowski was funny....I'm sorry, I have to say it...for a woman. I'm not saying she wouldn't be funny if she had happened to be a dude, just that...American female comics tend to be of a, um, a certain brand of humor that erm isn't so great to me. Now British female comics are often hilarious. I don't know how to explain it, but...that's just how I find it. My mentionworthy thing about Karen was that - and I'm sorry that it's another gender comparison thing - she made Steven Wrightesque (or Mitch Hedbergesque if you prefer) one-off jokes, which is something that I don't see much of with the funny ladies. Or even the unfunny ones.
Unrelated to the comedy, Amanda and I held off on having dessert at home specifically because, upon looking at the online menu for Pickwick & Frolick's, we saw things such as "gelato of the day," "Pickwick's Signature S'more," and - are you ready? - "Vanilla Bean ice Cream, Chocolate Covered Hazelnuts, Crumbled Brownie, Carmel & Chocolate Sauce, Topped with Baileys Irish Whipped Cream." It turned out that the dessert menu items for the Hilarities table service were only "New York Style cheesecake" and "Vanilla bean ice cream." Would the vanilla bean ice cream turn out to be the same one with hazelnuts and brownie and Bailey's cream? I did not risk being disappointed. The cheesecake was good, but...*sigh* I had gotten my hopes up with the other possibility. Yes, yes, FWP, I know.
I'm happy to report that Greg's act was mostly different from the last time we saw him. I think Greg's at his best when he's working off script (yes, he's somehow funnier when he doesn't more time to think about what he wants to say). Perhaps it's because impromptu comedy tends to be funnier by merit of its very nature. Greg began the show wandering from one side to the other, and went off when he was surprised to see the limit of the microphone cord he was given. "I got more cord from my mother at birth!" He also got the chance to rag on a particular drunk couple of ladies who were sitting at...well at the table we were four years ago. I do wonder, though. When a headlining comedian gets sidetracked, does that make his entire act longer, or does he have a set time limit meaning some bits are passed over in favor of the sidetracky moments?
Overall I thought he was in top form. However, one miiiinor suggestion. Okkay, Greg: you know the bit where you raise your voice intentionally obnoxiously as if you're the audience responding to something you just said ("BUT GREG!...")? Maybe you could rely on that device a tad less, is all. I'm not really a fan of stand-up catch phrases.
At his surprise at how early the checks came to the tables, Greg offered the crowd advice on tipping. "Take the final amount of the bill, half it, then half it again. [silence from everyone else.] "'B-b-but that's 25%!' Yeah. You're in the city now." You rock, Greg.
After an approximately intermission-length wait we were treated to the Smartest Man in the World Proopcast portion of the night. I noticed that probably more than half of the stand-up audience did not stick around for this part. Now that's how you separate the "real fans," for lack of a less pretentious phrase. It did turn out that there was an extra five buck charge for the podcast hour, but come on. Is that why all of those other people didn't stick around? More likely they weren't terribly familiar with Proops in the first place to care, I posit?
There were maybe... by my memory count of the room...thirty people there, perhaps? Forty if I'm generous. But I liked that about it. Again, I know it makes me sound like "that guy," but there's something more pleasing about being part of an audience of like fans.
Before the show Greg went around to each table and handed out a CD, his Houston, We Have a Problem, to each! That was well worth the ten bucks alone. He came to me and asked, "Would you like one?" and then shook my hand. It was almost surprising how he goes from his stand-up character - a pompous jerk who demands that you laugh at everything he says - to, you know, just this guy. And it always happens when Amanda and I meet someone famous to us: my reaction being an awkward kind of stunned not-knowing-how-to-properly-react and Amanda chatting it up with said famous person(s) as if it's just anybody else. Amanda asked Greg how he felt about the little placard on the table advertising his show - which spelled his name as "Gregg." Whereas onstage Greg could've angrily ranted about this, real life Greg took it fairly in stride. To the effect of "Oh, you know. It happens. And sometimes they spell "Whose Line" with "W-H-O-apostrophe-S." And funnily enough, that same placard did indeed credit Gregg as having appeared on "Who's Line is it Anyway?" And I'm not even sure whether he knew it...
Anyone who's listened to the Proopcast knows that it's a bit over an hour long and more relaxed and more free-form (though also structured, if that makes any sense). If you haven't heard it...well, here's an iTunes link and here's a non-iTunes link. I need not talk about the one I attended because it's available for you to download and listen to! It's the one posted on October 7th titled "Walls." At the one hour and four minute mark is the part where...well...I'll leave it up to you to hear it for yourself. Please feel free to leave a comment giving your answer to the question posed at that point!
Greg seemed to be mingling with a few of the other audience members after the show but because of the extra SMITWCast time it was too late for us to wait around to try to get a chance to ask for an autograph or whatever. It seemed too dark for a good Nintendo DSi picture too. But it didn't matter that I didn't get a picture because I was easily happy enough with the bonus CD and handshake. And the 1:04:00 thing.
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| Official Sheet Music |
[19 Apr 2010|01:50pm] |
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Though it took me three years to notice it, but it turns out that there is a book called "The TV Songs BIG BOOK," which features the sheet music to various popular (and not-as-popular) television theme songs, such as Monk (sadly, just the Randy Newman one), The Drew Carey Show (Moon Over Parma), Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (hmm, it would be interesting to hear that on piano), and - most significantly as far as this forum is concerned - "Whose Line is it Anyway?"
But, you may ask - which Whose Line theme song is it? Is it the catchy, fun and memorable British version theme which any fan could easily hum or sing on request? Or is it the less rousing, just barely melodic American version, which is hard enough to hear, much less remember, what with it nearly always drowned out by the audience and Drew's introductions or the cast reading the credits?
The filename in this download link gives away the answer:
http://www.4shared.com/photo/r2lMAePc/Whose_Line_is_it_Anyway__US__T.html
Still, I think it's interesting that WL got its own page at all, especially considering the book was published in 2007. Wasn't that even after the season 8 holdovers had aired?
But perhaps it's not as surprising that Whose Line is considered a noteworthy (heh heh) enough entry as it is that TTVSBB also includes the theme to The Rosie O'Donnell Show.
[cross-posted to the Idiotsite]
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| Greg Proops article |
[09 Apr 2009|06:13am] |
Greg Proops dispels 4 Greg Proops misconceptions"
... Like sometimes there’d be a female bodybuilder or a girl with a snake or fuckin’ Jerry Springer or something, and I always felt slightly insulted, like, “Are you kidding? I’m making stuff up off the top of my head here, with no script, and you bring out Jerry Springer?” ...
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| Whose Line is it Anyway? DVD News Update! |
[26 Feb 2009|02:58pm] |
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So the good news is that there will be a new uncensored DVD release this June!
The bad news is that the episodes were selected based on gay jokes, celebrity appearances, and kissing moments!
Hoo...ray?
[tvshowsondvd.com article]
Well it's better than no release for this year at all. It's just a shame that the show is to represented this way.
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| Mike McShane on Just a Minute |
[25 Aug 2008|11:51am] |
[Cross-posted to the Idiotsite board)
It's not often we hear an American on JAM!
I missed its original airing because I was a bit out of touch and didn't realize the new series had started a few weeks ago. Luckily, his first show (along with the others in the new series) has been made available for download here, thanks to "helmethead." Mike's is the one labeled with "Edinburgh Festival."
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| Downloadable things to listen to |
[02 May 2008|10:18am] |
Since I've postponed (you never hear of things being preponed, do you? Though nowadays a lot of people seem to get pwned) posting these, they may or may not be old news to some of you.
Back in late March, Greg Proops was on BlogTalkRadio with Olivia Wilder. The show is two hours long, but since Greg was late for the show, the first forty-something minutes are pretty much the host complaining about Greg not showing up. I'd say feel to free to skip that chunk, though she does at one point play a clip that seems to be from one of Greg's new albums. If you're a Greg fan, you're bound to enjoy the hour-and-fifteenish minutes of just chatting.
Also, Colin Mochrie was on a later Olivia Wilder show. What more can you ask for than two hours of Colin talking and answering live-chat fan questions?
Clive Anderson has a news podcast for the Telegraph website. It's mostly serious news with a few dashes of Clive-style humor thrown in. Each "show" is around twenty minutes long.
Drew Carey was a guest on this week's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! There are only a few days left to download the episode or listen to it online, though.
That's all I can remember at the moment.
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| A(nother) nauseatingly extensive Whose Line DVD review (Volume 2) |
[20 Oct 2007|08:00pm] |
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Whose Line is it Anyway? Season 1, Volume 2 has been released. This completes the first season, as there were only twenty episodes in the first season and the second volume contains the remaining ten. If you had to choose between volume 1 and 2, I would recommend 2, because I think the latter half of the season is more memorable and fun to watch. Highlight include the Emmy-submitted episode 119 with the Going Bald Hoedown, appearances by Ian Gomez and Stephen Colbert, Brad's Songs of the Ant Farmer, Wayne's first song to a man, and the episode with Greg and Denny.
So, for this release, improvements have been made. Bleeped stuff is actually unbleeped (though it wouldn't bother me a whole lot otherwise, I admit it is interested to hear the dialog uncovered). In the second half of the first season, there were three bleeps, and two of those are uncensored on this release: Ryan's "They're-never-going-to-allow-that" comment in Narrate at a pizza place, and Wayne's use of an L-word in the Birth Hoedown. This does make me look forward to future releases, to hopefully hear things that we couldn't figure out on our own.
Both DVDs in this release include bonus material. The first has four previously unaired games (well, one is a chunk of a game) and the second five games (one also kind of being a chunk).
I still wish the set came with an episode guide. It's not too much to ask for, is it? I mean, shows on DVD that don't need episode guides get episode guides. Not only do I have to consult an outside source or memorize the episode numbers to find the episode I want, but I have to figure out on which disc it would be! And I have to memorize which cut games are on which DVD as well. Nothing fancy, a black-and-white plain text sheet of paper would have sufficed.
The menu graphics are still a bit lame, but whatever.
The previous release had closed-captioning but no English subtitles; this one has English subtitles but no closed-captioning. The subtitles use the performers' surnames instead of their first names for some reason. Also, a trivial observation: In one playing of Telethon, the subtitles label an impression Brad does as "Willie Nelson," but in another playing Brad does the same impression but the subtitles say "Neil Young." Scott's website has it down as Garth Brooks. For the record, I'm convinced it's supposed to be Willie Nelson.
The French and Spanish subtitles are gone this time around, though. As I mentioned in my previous review, I actually found it interesting to see how certain things were translated, and I'm a bit disappointed that I can't do that for these episodes.
( This part only for those who have seen the DVD extra stuff. )
So yeah, even if I may have seemed negative, it is quite neat, and I would recommend it.
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| Playskool Advertising Meeting |
[25 Sep 2007|09:35am] |
(this post done in the style of Simon Rich)
-"So, we're ready to start a new line of commercials, but we were thinking that, instead of using a nobody, we could maybe use a celebrity guest."
-"I'm not sure if it's in the budget..."
-"Well, not an A-lister obviously. Someone relatively obscure, but still recognizable. I was thinking, as a suggestion, Ryan Stiles. He has two kids*, and he has experience doing commercials."
-"The name rings a bell, but...remind me, what's he from again?"
-"I think most people would know him from The Drew Carey Show."
-"I never really watched that one. What kind of character does he play?"
-"A weird, creepy, lonely sexual deviant with psychopathic tendencies."
-"Uh...huh."
-"Oh, he's also on that show Who's Line is it Anyways."
-"I love that show! He's the bald guy, right?"
-"No, he's the tall guy."
-"You mean the surly bitter one?"
-"Yeah."
-"...who makes dirty jokes all the time and gets bleeped the most?"
-"Yeah, him."
-"Oh."
-"Yep."
-"Okay then. Let's make some toy commercials.
*I think Ryan has three kids, but I'm not sure (go ask a real Ryan fan), so let's imagine this person is just not up-to-date anyway.
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| Mate Colin |
[26 Jun 2007|02:28pm] |
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Just when you thought you've seen enough digitally altered pictures of Colin Mochrie, Worth1000.com attacks with more, including some surprisingly well-done (albeit disturbing) ones.
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