Some improv group came to perform for us in 8th grade. Big mistake. Bunch of Irish, Italians, Puerto Ricans, Domicans and blacks from the Bronx watching that was a complete fucking disaster. The homophobic heckling was vicious and relentless. Afterwards, a priest took the mic and screamed and hollered at us for a half hour with his big fat gin blossomed Irish moon face and made us all sit in detention together in complete silence in the auditorium for hours after school. No one dared utter a word. You didn’t want to be dragged off alone into the upstairs rectory.

Improv Comedy is how you end up with all that terrible riffing in Ghostbusters 2016. I've always been curious about going to an improv class to see what I could say to get banned while obeying all their "Yes And... " rules.

This. "Two buddies just riffing" judd apetow style comedies are fine, but it doesn't have to be EVERY comedy. If a movie is plot-focused, constant ad libbing is just distracting. Also women suck at improv. They always revert to vaginas. 100 percent of the time.

I might be in the minority here so please correct me if I'm wrong but members of the fairer sex aren't the greatest at that sort of thing.

I think Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates is distilled from someone else's improv. It kind of works. I didn't want to like it but most of the movie was pretty good.

Forgetting Sarah Marshal, though, was shit.

40 year old Virgin was where this style of comedy peaked, in my opinion. It's been downhill ever since.

"I'm just gonna ramble off saying esoteric things with my uncertain cadence so I really create that 'AWKWARD' comedy people really crave..."

I swear, this sub houses the most astute and articulate consumers.

An acute observation, a douchenamedbag.

You could say we are... prosumers.

Make sure to use at least 3 layers of irony and end it with "Is that a thing?"

If you like gay cartoons, Bojack Horseman shits on stuck up Improv assholes in Season 2.

The old Trey Parker Matt Stone show THats My Bush had my favorite take-down on shitty improv that I can remember with a horribly cringey improv team George W Bush hires to perform a fake execution. Theres a great part with Kurt Fuller as Carl Rove finally loses it because of how much he hates improv and goes on a great angry tirade and how much he hates improv and hopes they all die horrible deaths. Damnit it was great I was gonna provide a link so I wouldnt have to be one of those TL;DR faggots but fucking YouTube let me down

Just want to tag your post and say First Lady's Persqueeter is the funniest episode of television in history, and Fuller's awesome in it. "It should be FUMIGATED AND BURIED!!!!!"

Here, the "Gut Busters" thing starts at about 11min in (I think, I'm at work can't watch it all):

http://lavamovies.com/tv-series/that-s-my-bush/s01e02/

Rick and Morty has a bunch of improv though. A bunch of back and forth dialogue by Justin Roiland makes it into the show. And they also have that interdemensional TV episode every season. Also the way they write South Park is basically just Matt and Trey riffing in the writers room with their "writers" and then Trey writing it out as a script.

Rick and Morty is gay and everyone who likes it is an insufferable faggot.

Shut your dumb face. It's a fucking animated show. I don't give a fuck about the faggot reddit fanbase hyping it to oblivion and calling it deep. It's good enough and I'd rather watch it then Family Guy.

Insufferable.

Faggot

Whereas you are sufferable, very straight man.

You're joking right? Or do you honestly think Ants In My Eyes guy is an example of funny improv?

Whose Line, both versions, had some funny bits. At least I remember it being funny when I watched it in the 1990's.

Whose Line had its moments. But those guys are the best of the best and they're still only good for about 2 minutes of funny with 30 minutes of trying.

also keep in mind, they record way more than what makes the air. I've never been to a taping, but i bet for every 22 minutes of air time, they record an hour+ of bits.

It's sad that what they don't cut out makes it on the air. To me it feels more like 4 hours of riffing for each minute of airtime.

I always cringed whenever they'd have a woman on.

Whose Line, both versions, had some funny bits. At least I remember it being funny when I watched it in the 90's.

It was, but i bet a good bit of that was written, or at least, the comedians got to know ahead of time what segments they were going to do that day, in advance.

Unless there were audience plants I kind of doubt it. It's not inconceivable that Ryan Styles and Colin Mochrie can think of some ridiculous shit off the cuff and a lot of reactions seemed genuine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Peg9nakSz6U I don't know why "Tapioca" is so funny but it's got me laughing too - like Jimmy and his marmalade recipe.

For Whose Line-style short-form improv, if you've done it for more than five years, you're gong to have done or seen bits and lines that fit just about any situation--you can pretty much do it in your sleep. Making sure not to say too many stock lines is usually the problem, not purposefully creating them shortly beforehand. UCB-style long-form improv actually takes much more skill and actual in-the-room creation to do it correctly, but its target audience is pretty much a room full of improv students.

Such an overrated "art". If 90% of what they toss out into the ether is shit, and remaining 10% just become scripted sketches anyway.

I have to think they only reason anyone gets into improv is because all these faggy theater kids thinks its gonna land them a job on SNL. Like one in 1000 of these faggots actually have any actual comedic talent the rest are a bunch of white dorks high fiving each other and making shitty puns. The gayest form of improv though has to be musical improv where these fuckers rap. Quite possibly the cringiest shit I've ever witnessed

Unfortunately the best way to make money as an actor is through commercial and a lot of commercial casting wants "improv experience" and "strong ad-lib skills"

I think it was Bonfire that referred to improv as "standup's gay cousin"

the warm up exercises definitely are. doing actual scenes isn't that bad tho

Pretty much. It's also more focused on acting. It's mostly done by people with adhd and autism but then so is stand up. Also both in stand up and improv there is the same delusion that people want to see you or your group perform. I once smoked weed and watched my group do a competition and really realized how fucking bad it actually is.

It tends not to be a popular opinion but it's why I think the first season of Always Sunny was the worst season. They're so much more improv-y than in later seasons. Even if they weren't actually improving, it's the tempo and it's annoying.

On one if Louis' appearances he talked about the one time he did improv. He basically just shut down the thing by saying no every time someone started a premise. "Hey, is the restaurant where all the crazy people eat?" "No, it's just a regular restaurant."

He then added "also I force women to watch me masturbate in my hotel room."

The shit they call improv is gay af, but actual improvised comedy is the best you can get. That's why we all love old school O&A stuff..it's all improvised. And when done well "in character" you get great shit like Spinal Tap and Curb your enthusiasm..but the faggotry this guy was doing was fucking embarrassing, like most "improv comedy" done by hipster faggots..he couldn't even hang with Lauren comedy-wise, and worse, people actually pay to "learn" this horshit

Yeah improv in the sense of riffing is fucking great. The problem is that improv is a complete hug box that allows not funny people to still do ok or compensate by being decent actors. Being in one of those gay college improv groups I can tell you that at least it's still less gay then a fraternity.

The best improv I've ever seen has been by Harland Williams. Holy fuck, I've gone back and watched this so many times since it's been on youtube. And it's great because he even makes the professionals flustered and unable to improv by dominating them at their own game. Fucking hacks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v27U6Pzr8nI

A lot of it is like battle rapping.

Its made to look like all that shit is off the cuff, but everyone has a memorized "set" of material they have ready to go, and just pull the lines as needed when appropriate.

Same for comedians who do crowd work. No comedian who asks the audience "so, what do you do"? without having a response ready for 100 occupations.

Yeah and most of the time he isn't actually talking to anyone, just pretending. Everyone copied that bit from Cosby.

I’ve taken ten UCB classes and seen hundreds of improv shows and yes, you’re correct.

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Yes

Improv is low-effort bullshit. It's a crime that people get paid for that hack shit.

No one likes improv. Anyone you see at an improv show are just other improv teams waiting to go up, and/or friends & family of the improv actors they guilted into showing up. It's fucking terrible, and all it is is a cheap out for people too afraid to do stand up on their own. I know almost zero improv people that also do stand up, and the ones I know fucking stink. Improv is the worst.

Just want to tag your post and say First Lady's Persqueeter is the funniest episode of television in history, and Fuller's awesome in it. "It should be FUMIGATED AND BURIED!!!!!"

Here, the "Gut Busters" thing starts at about 11min in (I think, I'm at work can't watch it all):

http://lavamovies.com/tv-series/that-s-my-bush/s01e02/