As a kid who only had antennae for TV, my programming choices were limited. There was always PBS, usually ABC, sometimes NBC and randomly CBS. Besides that, the other choices were VHS copies of Space Jam, Toy Story and Babe, but one can only watch that trio of movies so many times. When I outgrew PBS kids’ programming, I started watching Whose Line Is It Anyway? At that time, I knew nothing about its history as a British program or any of the people who were on it. Hell, I only understood half of the jokes on a good day. It was the only choice I had amid the static oblivion, but I didn’t mind.
A couple years into high school, our part of New Hampshire had finally become technologically developed enough to get cable TV. All right, I’m probably exaggerating. The technology was probably already there, but with so few houses on my street, it wasn’t profitable for the cable company to run lines up there unless more households became customers. Either way, with the introduction of cable to my house, I cast away my long friendship with Whose Line and watched all this new programming at my disposal.
After realizing that a lot of the stuff I watched was crap, I decided to revisit Whose Line through the magic of Youtube. Some very dedicated users have created great compilations of jokes and certain games (Scenes From A Hat, Props) that can kill so much time. I’d link them, but I’m too afraid of being responsible for getting them removed. You can find them easily by yourself.
After watching a bunch of these videos, it led to a debate (with myself) as to who was the best person on Whose Line. It was easy to narrow it down to the big three regulars — Colin Mochrie, Ryan Stiles and Wayne Brady — but it became much more difficult to choose just one out of those three. We could go with point totals, but they don’t matter (Side note: While putting together this post, I found a website that tallied up all the Whose Line points. I don’t know if this person should admired or institutionalized). Here is my attempt to outline the strengths of each player and come to a conclusion as to the best. I expect disagreement, but I think you might agree with me that no answer is wrong. That’s not a cop-out, though. I DID choose one person.
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John Sessions.
Mike McShane.
RIP
Um….I don’t think he’s dead.
///think office space//
Greg Proops.
HA! Not really.
I saw him at the DC Improv like 3 or 4 months ago. I figured “he was on whose line, surely he will be funny.” Never before, nor since, have I not laughed so hard that I actually wanted to hurt a comedian. The guy sucks.
But look at my glasses… I’m hip !
Colin and Brad Sherwood have been touring with an improv show for several years, I’ve seen it twice and it was worth the price of admission both times, but only because the second time I won the tickets from a radio show.
how about the smartest man in the world Greg Proops?
Whoa, Colbert sighting!
Ryan Stiles was the best. The most consistent source of laughs, plus he could hold his own on the British version of the show.
It’s gotta be Brady. Not only was he conventionally funny like Colin and Ryan, but he was brilliant with the musical bits. The fact that he could come up with passable rhyming lyrics as often as he did is crazy, not to mention the fact that every Greatest Hits skit involved Ryan and Colin trying they’re hardest to screw with him.
And I don’t think there’s any question that Brad Sherwood and Chip tie for the title of “Best Fourth Guy”
DAMNIT, *their.
/it’s Monday, leave me alone
Ryan Stiles always made me laugh. Much of it is his complete awkwardness.
I once played poker with Ryan Stiles at a shitty casino in a strip mall in northwest washington. He had to wait for a seat to open and spent thirty minutes picking on the short stack to try to get him to leave so he could get a seat. He was just tearing into the guy nonstop. It started as a joke but it kept going on and on. Everyone at the table was in tears but the short stack didn’t find it the least bit funny.
/cool story bro!
Tulalip Casino is next to an outlet mall bro
It was actually the Slow Pitch in Bellingham.
The worst part of the show was Drew Carey. Granted, he was responsible for the US version making it to air, but he just kept getting in the way with his awkward segues and awful hammy participation.
The “special” guest starts mostly sucked too. Robin Williams was awful, but I enjoyed his Channing-off with Ryan Stiles.
Best moment – Colin’s Craig T. Nelson impersonation. Completely ruins everyone.
Yep. Enjoy.
shut up, Drew Carey’s laugh once broad a dead puppy back to life
That is admittedly a great CTN impression.
I think it’s racist that Wayne only did black people impressions.
My natural inclincation was to say Styles or Mockrie, but I think I have to give it to Brady. His song improv (assuming he didn’t really have a headsup on what he was going to have to do that evening) was always great.
Brady tried too hard and obviously had most bits rehearsed.
Stiles was great, but got lazy sometimes.
Mochrie was the best by far working his ass off for every single laugh.
/taking this waaaay too seriously
Isn’t it fun to debate this, though?
I’m still laughing at the idea of a guy named “Samer Kalaf” growing up in a state that didn’t even recognize MLK Jr. Day until 1999. That must have been hell.
Hah. It wasn’t THAT bad.
After watching Wayne Brady on Chappelle Show, there was no way I couldn’t like the guy.
I felt that way, then I saw him on 30 Rock and I hated him all over again.
Is Wayne Brady gonna have to choke a Rhelgy?
Tough choice: Ryan had the most consistent laughs, Colin had the biggest, and Wayne had the most raw talent. When it comes down to it though I think the answer is obvious.
That nice lesbian couple that played all the instruments.
Strong play.
I wish I could do everything with the help of Laura Hall and Linda Taylor
Richard Vranch or GTFO.
So much win in this thread
I agree with every single thing you just said, and I had intended to say most of them myself.
Mike > Joel
Oh, we’re not doing that? Then Brady, particularly the song where he has to keep his cool while clearly scared shitless by a python.
They all make me feel so handsome it’s hard to choose just one. I’ll go with Mochrie.
I’m going with Ryan Stiles. He killed it on both the American and (more importantly) British versions of the show.
Wayne had the hardest job and he did it beautifully granted. But I got the biggest laughs from Mochrie and the best laughs from Stiles so its a draw between those two for me.
I know we’re talking about the US version, but I feel like Stephen Fry deserves an hono(u)rable mention for the UK series. He was positively delightful.
He couldn’t rap for shit though. Remember “Maarrry had a little lamb”?
3. Stiles. The only flaw with Ryan is that when something goofy happened earlier in the show, he’d call it back as a punchline way too often later on, and used it as a crutch. Got annoyed after the first or second callback.
2. Mochrie
1. Brady. It’s hard to argue Brady since he really was the best all-around guy on the show. So in terms of ‘who was better?’ it has to be Wayne. That said, I’d take Mochrie if we’re ranking it just in terms of who was purely funnier, mostly because (as the article notes) Colin was able to make his ineptitude at certain games into comedy. For instance, he was notoriously awful at anything involving singing or rhythm, so when he had a hoedown verse, he’d do something totally out of left field that cracked everyone up. (I think even one of Colin’s verses even got Laura Hall laughing so hard she had to stop playing.) So while Brady was the overall better improvisor, Mochrie had more laugh-out-loud moments.
* “Bend a car? Pat Benatar!” and his snide look over at Stiles
* The whole animal porn joke, which was made even funnier by the ABC Family logo in the corner of the screen
Most valuable has to be Wayne, just in terms of his talent and versatility and his ability to do things the others — and probably most everyone else in the world — just couldn’t do. But in terms of sheer laughs, I’d rank Colin first, Ryan second, and Wayne third. Wayne’s musical stuff, as impressive as it always ways, wasn’t nearly as funny as Colin and Ryan’s banter and tendency to be wacky in ways that Wayne rarely got the chance to do. Colin’s work in segments like Film Director and News Flash (the green screen one), and of course the infomercial banter stuff, just floors me in a way that very, VERY few comedians are capable of doing.
Also, Jeff Davis gets an honorable mention for being the best of the irregulars (both in value, i.e., singing, and general funniness), and for being a known associate of St. Dan Harmon.
That’s the same Jeff Davis as from Harmontown? Christ, no wonder that podcast is good.
Give me Clive Anderson over Drew Carey any day of the week.
thisismecliveandersonsayinggoodnight
goodnight
I think we all agree that the weakest was Kathy shortly followed by the pretentious prick Greg Proops
I remember watching an episode of Mock the Week (I seriously recommend it if you enjoyed the British version of Whose Line, since it was made by the same people, but it’s political comedy so if you’re not into that stay away) and Proops was on it. This episode was broadcast during the Bush presidency and he started mouthing off about something relating to American politics and made himself sound like a total pretentious dick. It’s obvious he was bad-mouthing Bush to pander to the audience and it made him come off as a complete asshole.
I’m going with Colin. I’m sad you didn’t link the Newsanchor segments with Colin as Oswald Thatendald, Tito Throughthetulip, and Lars Lars PantsofFars.
Colin was the best. You should go on YouTube and look up my favorite bit they used to do, where they have Colin as a reporter in the field and he has to guess what’s behind him.
[www.youtube.com]
Wow. That is crappy video. Here we go.
[www.youtube.com]
I really can’t say. I liked all of them. It was one of the funniest shows on television. Unlike the crap that’s being pushed as “funny” now. For example “Comedy Central”, how can they call themselves that? The ONLY watchable show they have is FUTURAMA. That’s it! Tosh.0 should be taken behind the barn, and shot! All it possibly appeal to is Frat boys, and jocks. There is absolutely no talent there. None. Absent. All Daniel Tosh does is show cruel, racist, misogynistic clips that someone got off the internet. NOT FUNNY! Rant over.
Ha, this is great and timely. For some reason I was watching Whose Line all night a couple days ago. Seriously one of the funniest shows ever.
Replace days ago and insert the last 2 weeks straight for me. There is a guy on youtube who has like every full episode posted in order. Awesome.
I had a ridiculous crush on Josie Lawrence from the British version, so my penis votes for her.
I never appreciated this show when I was younger, even though it was hilarious. “If this was crap, you’d need a ladder to get that high!” classic