Game Show Network will premiere a new original, daily primetime comedy show, Drew Carey’s Improv-A-Ganza on Monday, April 11, 2011 at 8:00pm ET/PT on GSN. The 40-episode series was taped during a series of live improv performances at the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in January and February 2011. (I previously posted some promos and outtakes.)

I was fortunate to be one of the TV bloggers invited to take part in this Q&A with cast members Ryan Stiles, Colin Mochrie, Greg Proops, Jonathan Mangum and Kathy Kinney. This was my first call-in session like this–it was fun and ran for just under an hour. We were allowed to ask one question at a time and then get back in the queue to ask another. Many of us were able to get in at least 3 questions. Here’s an edited-down version of the 74-page transcript of the session.  (It looks like in some cases they weren’t sure which male was talking so they just put M.)  It’s still quite long, but a fun read.

You know most of you have been involved with at least one show like this before. How this is different from all of the other improv shows that you’ve been involved with?

R. Stiles:  Well, I think there’s kind of a different energy to it because it’s shot in Vegas. It’s just a natural energy. Once you get up on stage —you wouldn’t really know where you are but I think the whole excitement level’s just gone up—A lot just because we’re in Las Vegas. It’s just more exciting.

I was curious, what would you say is the most challenging aspect of improv comedy?

C. Mochrie: Well, working with these guys I think is the first obstacle you have to kind of overcome. Improv is—you go against everything you do in real life. You have to listen to people. You have to accept their ideas and build on it, so that really is the most difficult thing. It sounds simple to just listen on stage but really that is the beginning of good improv. All you really  have are the people you’re working with and you know they can say something as a throwaway line, but it could all of a sudden take the … in a whole new direction and make it comedy gold. So it’s just getting to the era—that place where you’re really comfortable on stage and you trust the people that you’re with. That’s all making sure you have a group of people you trust.

I was just wondering if maybe each one of you could say what—how you got invited to be a part of this.

K. Kinney: Wow. That’s a hard one. I think—Well, I was just going to say, Drew Carey—we were all there when Drew got addicted to improv. We heard the click and he has created these venues, places for us to just come and do the improv with, and because he’s loyal like a big wet dog, you know, he just always invites us all to come play with him. That’s my story. I’m sticking to it.

M: And I have pictures of him dressed as a big wet dog, so he tends to hire me for anything.

K. Kinney: Big naked wet dog.

M: I think, if Drew asks, we do it, you know. It’s been like that throughout the years. Almost all of us went overseas.  You know anything he asks us to do we just do it, because he’s just that kind of guy. He’d do anything for you so you want to please him … you don’t want to piss off the rich guy.

K. Kinney: No.  It’s just about loyalty. I think it’s—they say it’s Drew Allison Carey. I think its Drew Loyalty Carey. That’s it. Jonathan, did you want to say something?

J. Mangum: Oh, I agree, but if you’d like a more detailed answer please press pound five, wait for four beeps, you might hear music after four seconds. Oh, I totally agree that he’s the most loyal guy I know and thank God for that.

Considering that they were a staple of Whose Line kind of unofficially, Colin, how many ball jokes can we look forward to coming up on this new show?

C. Mochrie: We’re actually pretty good I’d have to say. They brought their natural tendencies and actually tried to just do funny improv, which is a first for them, so it was good. I’d say, on Whose Line you get a good two to three a show. There may be two during the entire shooting and they were both by me.

R. Stiles: But I find working with Colin you’re just— standing beside him you’re just better lit. Why—

C. Mochrie: I didn’t realize it was going to spread to interviews now.

K. Kinney: That’s good. I think it’s—you know that’s the earmark of this show is that in this energy of doing this whole new improv show in Vegas and with all new jokes and all the same people, but I think we’re—we’ve gotten funnier. Don’t you?

C. Mochrie:  I think so. We all know each other so much better now. We’ve—we’re up in double digits, ten, twenty years that we’ve worked together so that just makes it better and you don’t want to fall back on the ball jokes, right, Ryan?

R. Stiles: Right, right, right.

K. Kinney: Yep.

C. Mochrie: I will now do a dance.

Actually I’m going to ask Colin. How is—or can you give us some details on what we can expect from the show and how it’s different from Whose Line is it Anyway?

C. Mochrie: Sure. I should do that. Unlike Whose Line there isn’t a host per se. Drew Carey has his name on the show of course, which didn’t mean enough for him to show up for this interview but still—

K. Kinney: I’m sitting in for him.

C. Mochrie: So it, it’s more like a taping of what our Vegas shows were. Where everyone takes time. Everybody has a chance to introduce the scene, set up the characters. So there’s no host that way. Also, unlike Whose Line, Ryan and I would always work together, you know, Brad and Wayne would always do the songs. So it’s really mixed up that way. We got a chance to work with everybody. I got to do a couple of singing games, which I—Whose Line I think was contracted not to have me sing. So, it has many, many differences.

R. Stiles: Also, on Whose Line a lot of the suggestions came down from the producers on cards that Drew read. We still didn’t know what the suggestions were but, because we don’t have that everything comes from the audience and we—I think we use the audience more in this show too, and we can take our time with scenes. In Whose Line we—we just needed to boom, boom, boom, everything just kind of gaggie but we can kind of work through scenes here. It’s a little more fun that way so we can explore characters and stuff. I’m making it sound like theatre, it’s not. It’s still funny but, , we just have more time in this show. We have a big stage. We’re not confined to a little eight by twelve foot stage where we have to stand in a line and speak. We can actually move so it’s—it’s just more fun for us to do.

K. Kinney:  I just want to add one, too. I know you only asked Colin but because it’s improv and we rely on the audience having this unbelievable energized audience in this Las Vegas Casino and these are people from all over the world, the heartland, Europe and everywhere, and we’re feeding on them and they’re feeding on us and so there’s this sense of almost—it’s almost like a cirque du soleil show, you just jp and you fly and it’s really just a different energy than—

M: She does that literally.

K. Kinney: Yeah, literally I jp and I fly. You’ll have to tune in though to see it.

G. Proops: It’s like Zumanity. Because often you’ll find that I’m like a giant salamander in our show.

My question is for Ryan. Many times I’ve heard from Colin that you guys have known each other for many years and worked together a lot of those. I just want to know if you guys are sick of each other yet?

R. Stiles: I don’t get him. We don’t see ea—the only time we see each other is on stage. We’ve known each other 30 years and I think I’ve phoned him at home, I probably could count on one hand I would think. Colin?

C. Mochrie: Yeah. You wouldn’t even need your hand.

R. Stiles: It’s fun to work with all these people. We don’t see each other unless we’re on stage. It’s not like we hang out together all the time, so it’s probably why the Stones have been together so long. They don’t see each other until they get on stage, so it’s just a— it’s fun for us.

K. Kinney: It’s like a big fun family reunion.

R. Stiles: Right.

M: Ryan, could you hand me some more chips please?

G. Proops:  This time use your hand.

K. Kinney: And you know what’s funny? I’ll just add this. I’m not sick of seeing Ryan and Colin together on stage, either.

R. Stiles: Nor are we.  I think the problem we have is, and with a lot of people that work together a long time is, is we get a suggestion the first thing that runs through our minds is have we done this before, and if we did what did we do so we don’t do it again, and so you have to kind of sensor yourself, but, it’s fun working with everybody. We’re just— we’ve known each other for so long it’s like family.

Now you guys have known each other for a very long time and you guys definitely have a rapport with each other. You know each other’s timings. How do you prepare your guest stars so that they can feel like they’re really a part and they can work well with you guys?

K. Kinney: In the past we’ve simply made fun of them in the green room and then given them a drink, but does anyone else have anything to add to that?

J. Mangum:  You know I think the thing we want to do is make them look bad so we do everything we can to help them. We set them up or we leave them alone, and a lot of people are kind of nervous to get up there. Even actors don’t necessarily improvise, so it’s always kind of scary for them and we kind of sense that so we kind of lead them through it but we want them to look good so—

R. Stiles:  Plus, improv is always, always yes and so any idea they have we’re going to completely accept so they almost can’t look bad as long as they just have ideas.

G. Proops:  I’m always trying to emphasis to our guests, the enormous sense of gratitude they should be feeling that they’re allowed to be playing with us, and then maybe they should be thinking about a little more than their own needs.

C. Mochrie:  And yet they rarely do.

K. Kinney: You know we’re just really happy when someone shows up to play with us so—No, we’re just really, really happy when there are—we don’t think of ourselves as celebrities so we’re hard pressed if someone shows up—

M: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

R. Stiles: Nor does anyone else.

K. Kinney:  Okay. I know. That’s it so if someone shows up we’re like eww let’s bring ‘em up, let’s bring ‘em up it will be so fun. It’s like you always let all the new kids into the sandbox to play with you so we’re just—we’re really happy and we do always make them look good and if we don’t, if we can’t possibly do it then they’ll edit it to make it look—No, just kidding. They always will look good.

Kathy, we’re wondering what it’s like being the only woman in the cast.

C. Mochrie: I’ll answer this.

K. Kinney: Yeah, I have a bigger dressing room, which is just a joke because I don’t really have a dressing room. You know, I feel like—I feel very honored. I feel, happy, funny. It’s, I don’t feel funny. I mean I feel okay. I think that I just fit in. I just fit in and it is like family because we’ve all been together so long. I’m not out there trying to—I’m a good ensemble person. I’m a team player and I think that that’s what makes it a good fit for me, and Drew Carey owes me money, and so I’m always going to be there until he pays that debt off.

J. Mangum:  And we don’t have to play woman which is great.

K. Kinney: Yeah. Yeah because I am a woman, but sometimes I get to play a man, because we’re doing improvs so we’re gender bending all the time there. Sometimes we just play animals who have no gender, like frogs or tadpoles, things like that. So, I just feel—I’m just happy. I’m happy to be there and have a job.

J. Mangum: Are you drinking, Kathy?

K. Kinney:  I am but it’s called dandy blend. It’s dandelion weed brew stuff.

I was wondering who are your guy’s inspirations when you were younger.

K. Kinney: Hmmm, Ryan, we’re you ever inspired by somebody?

R. Stiles: yeah, probably the same as everybody else I would think. You know, Sid Caesar and, you know, Carol Burnett and, —

K. Kinney: Lucille Ball.

R. Stiles: Jonathan Winters. I mean all of the people that we grew up with those kids don’t know who they are these days. —

G. Proops: I like the SCTV show with Rick Moranis and Catherine O’Hara, John Candy. I thought they were—when I was in college Jonathan … I thought they were the funniest sketch group ever.

K. Kinney: Yeah, I did to. Canadians.

C. Mochrie: Yeah, Canadians are funny.

K. Kinney: Was that true for you, Colin? Did you—

C. Mochrie: Yeah. Oh, yeah. SCTV, I was a big fan of like the old guys like Jack Benny and Jonathan Winters and Bob Hope.

R. Stiles:  Dick Sergeant, Kirk Douglas.

K. Kinney: Rita Hayworth. Jonathan, you’re, you’re like the young guy. Who inspired you?

J. Mangum:  Yeah. I don’t know who the hell you guys are talking about. I like, Dave Letterman was a—I’m a big fan Le——

C. Mochrie: You’re older than that. Come on.

J. Mangum: And , Monty Python of course, and Bob Newhart, Bob Newhart too. Those are probably the top three for me.

K. Kinney: Yeah. Bob Newhart, and for me all the woman, Lucille Ball, Carol Burnett, and the woman who played my grandmother, Phyllis Diller.

R. Stiles: That’s right.

G. Proops: Oh, my God Phyllis Diller.

K. Kinney: Still sends me a Christmas card every year. That’s family.

J. Mangum:  That’s so sweet. The same one.

K. Kinney:  hmm, yep, same one. That’s right

What would you say is the top reason to watch the show?

G. Proops: it’s in color.

K. Kinney: Yeah, it’s in color. , I think, you know, bad economy, good comedy. That would be mine.

J. Mangum:  Bad economy, good comedy. I like that.

R. Stiles: I think the number one reason is Colin Mochrie.

G. Proops:  That’s just sweet.

K. Kinney: Sweet, yeah.

G. Proops: I think it’s time to indulge your fantasy.

J. Mangum: You know it’s kind of an odd show to that you can—to me kind of like Americas Funniest Videos where you can actually watch it with everybody in the family to and they can all understand it, so—And it’s also a show that if you miss the first five minutes it’s not going to matter. You can tune in any time.

R. Stiles: And actually it’s the only new improv on TV. You’re not going to see any other new improv on any other show on any other channel.

J. Mangum: You’re not going to see any improv.

G. Proops: Yeah, well, no, they still run the Whose Line occasionally, right? Yeah but that—this is the only new improv.

J. Mangum: We’ll look younger in that one so they’ll know the difference.

C. Mochrie:  There’s also Fox news.

J. Mangum: Well, that’s true.

K. Kinney: Yeah. You know what it is? When you said Americas Funniest Home Videos I just think that laughter is—this is my top reason, that laughter— if your laughing really hard it rings you out and when you come back you—if you’re feeling so much better. It’s like a great hour at the gym to watch the show. I know we’re only on for a half hour but it’s just gut wrenching.

J. Mangum: You can work out every day.

K. Kinney: Every day.

G. Proops: I think you should put that under the title. It’s like an hour in the gym.

K. Kinney: But it’s only 30 minutes on TV.

My question is for Kathy. Which of your fellow cast mates did you most expect to land on Celebrity Rehab?

K. Kinney: Oh, Celebrity Rehab. That’s a good question. I think, because we do  everything as a group we’re all going to end up there at the exact same time doing improv, you know, for the other rehab patients. That’s us. It’s in our contract. It’s called favored nations, so if one goes to rehab we all go to rehab. Why, do you think someone of us is just going to end up in rehab?

You know what we’re just like, this is the show you want to watch with your grandmother and your three year old niece. Anything that, that we say that look it will just be bleeped out and actually it’s just a bunch of clean living, fun people.

R. Stiles:  If it didn’t happen in the 80s it’s not going to happen now.

K. Kinney: That’s right. We’re too old to end up in rehab now.

C. Mochrie:  I’m high on life and there’s no rehab for that.

Mr. Proops with all the residuals you have pouring in from … film courtesy of your stint with Star Wars with … I mean, why get back in bed with Drew Carey and company? It, it, what— is enough man, seriously?

G. Proops:  Obviously, you’ve never worked for the great Lucas Empire before.  Residuals are a word that have been damaged to the rebel legent. So I actually get in bed with Drew Carey anyway every day because I live with him as man and wife.

R. Stiles:  Well, there you go.

G. Proops: And he’s very, very gentle some of the times.

Whose Line has been perpetually in reruns for it seems endlessly now at this point and I still watch it repeatedly as others do apparently. What do you think keeps shows like Whose Line and these improv shows so popular and still running to this day nonstop?

R. Stiles: Are you gunna—I think people just see us enjoy—we’re, we enjoy it when we do it and I think people pick up on that and I think it’s kind of nice to, to watch a show that’s not a bunch of people arguing with each other. … these so, it’s just a feel good show. You watch it and you just you feel good watching it, so I don’t know what else to say about it. It’s kind of a happy show.

C. Mochrie:  I think you sorta hit the nail on the head when you say everyone can see how much fun we’re having. It’s just—it makes it timeless. It’s like watching the old Carol Burnett show and seeing Tim Conway and … Corman breakup and no matter how often you see the scene you still laugh when you see it because you realize that they had so much fun performing it and it just becomes contagious.

K. Kinney:  Yeah. That’s true isn’t it? Even after all these years we’re just,—we’re really making each other laugh and we’re the biggest critics because we’ve been there all along so, you know, it’s just fun isn’t it?

G. Proops:  I don’t think people realize like when we show up in Vegas we haven’t seen each other for a while. It’s just nice seeing people for that first time and going out for dinner with them and doing shows. I mean it’s all–

C. Mochrie: The second hour’s rough.

G. Proops: The second hour’s rough, yeah.

K. Kinney:  Yeah. I think people just want to laugh and it’s a good kind of show to just sit and laugh and also there’s so many people that think oh I could do that. You know, we make it look easy and it is just fun.

Jeff and Jonathan, since you guys are like the newest members to this improv group what is your guys’ challenges working with everyone?

J. Mangum: You know trying to find what your place is in a group every group is, like a great baseball team and everyone has their own role and when you show up you’re not really sure. You know what am I? Am I a first baseman? Am I, , short—, I get to kind of do a bunch of shows and figure out kind of where you fit, but, these guys are so gracious that, that luckily didn’t take very long for me at all.

G. Proops:  And the decision you made was to be on stage as much as possible?

J. Mangum: Yeah. Yes and it—

K. Kinney: And as far as Jeff goes because I know he’s not here you know, I was saying to him before when we were in Vegas, you know don’t second guess yourself. You know because it’s always sometimes you’re trying to figure out does the network need something different from me that as an improver I might not be giving and, and Jeff said, “Oh, I’m just going to show up and have a good time. That’s what I do.” And that’s what he does. Just shows up, has a really good time and—

G. Proops: I love the fact that the new guys have been here 10 years.

R. Stiles: That just makes us old.

Somebody mentioned earlier about the energy and the filming in Las Vegas and I also heard about the drunk woman incident in the premier. Do any of you have any crazy stories to tell about filming in that environment?

C. Mochrie: The beauty of improv is once it’s—you’ve done the scene it’s like gone forever so you never really remember anything until you see it, you know when you’re flipping through the channels. I can’t think of anything except for the drunk woman who I have to proudly admit I picked her.

J. Mangum: For me, thank you.

C. Mochrie: So I’m very, , well known for my ability to pick the best possible person for any scene. You know, it was dark. I didn’t realize she had her pants over her head.

J. Mangum: You’re just naturally attracted to drunk woman.

G. Proops:  Didn’t we have, —we had a guy at one point that came up on stage in one of the shows that was really drunk and we were playing the game, moving bodies. Where they move the performer and I think it was Chip and I think that they were—You know normally you would grab someone’s leg to move it forward to make them walk and I think this guy was like punching his butt as hard as he could and he was a big muscle guy and we all were like whoa. We were a little worried.

C. Mochrie: A little worried but no one helped.

J. Mangum: No because we wanted to watch Chip suffer of course.

K. Kinney: Yeah. But well, I think Chip turned and like was going to deck him or something, scared him enough but—

G. Proops: We also did have slightly older woman in an incredibly short skirt.  We had to put a towel over her at one point actually.

K. Kinney: I think they’re running that promo. I was watching some poker, high stakes poker and they’ve got a, a commercial for the show and it’s Jeff singing, Jeff and Jonathan, you and Jeff singing and, , Jeff pulls the towel off her lap.

G. Proops: You ripped it off.

K. Kinney: Yeah, he ripps it off and she’s going to turn around and he says no, don’t turn around we’re on a game show network, not the pay preview. So it was pretty funny.

Colin, I got the honor of being able to watch your and Brads show early, earlier, I got to say what kind of, carry overs would you say went from you and Brads show to this show?

K. Kinney: Besides you and Brad.

C. Mochrie: Yeah besides Brad and well I think, what Brad and I have in our show is what kind of started with Whose—moved into this. Just the stability to be able to have fun on stage when you realize you have an audience and you have no show. Just that part of your mind it just goes into a weird–it’s hard to explain. A partly relaxation and partly sheer panic, and just the ability—I mean all these guys on the show are world class improvisers. The beauty of it, you know we hadn’t seen them for maybe a couple years but when you get back together it’s just like getting punched in the head again.

G. Proops:  I can’t speak for anybody else but I, I never feel more comfortable and at ease than when I’m on stage.

K. Kinney:  Yeah, me to.

J. Mangum: Yep.

C. Mochrie: Yeah, life sucks.

G. Proops:  It does. I hate crowds. I really do.

C. Mochrie: … crouts?

G. Proops: No, crowds.

Will we be getting any hoe downs?

C. Mochrie: I could say no. You’ll never see a hoe down. If there was any way we could have stopped a hoe down from being on Whose Line we would have done it. If we could have done it retroactively we could have done it. It was, a hoe down was never our favorite, as you can probably tell. It was just, you know we did hundreds of them and it every year just got harder and harder so I’m personally I’m glad to see it banished from this show.

R. Stiles:  And also it’s one of those games where we’re kind of standing in a line and that was fine for Whose Line but now we’re on a stage that’s, 100 feet across so again we want to keep it kind of active.

K. Kinney:  It’s like, it’s the same people from Whose Line but it’s a whole different show with all different formats and games. It’s really, and that Las Vegas audience, whoa.

Kathy, do you think that, also doing the role of Bunny in The Secret Life of the American Teenager will create different ideas or scenarios you normally wouldn’t have done before and if so, how?

K. Kinney: No I don’t. Bunny has red hair and you know, The Secret Life of the American Teenager is just a really fantastic show. It’s very well written and, I truly enjoy being on there and working with like these really young guys. Sorry, but, — I know what can I say. It’s just so tightly scripted and really controlled that I just, I bring my best Bunny game to that and then—and when I’m in Las Vegas with my friends doing the improv it’s just such a different thing because it’s—I’m just pulling information out of the universe and slapping it up on stage and watching what they do with it, so it’s such a different thing. It’s so—I think of myself as an actress but I also think of myself as an improvisational actress and they don’t really have much to do with anything except for it’s all me and I just show up.

You mentioned some of these drunk people and the lady with the short skirt.  Has anything been like really disastrous that you had to either stop the show or something bombed that you had to try to recover from?

K. Kinney: No.

C. Mochrie: Oh, that sounds like a Ryan question.

K. Kinney: I’m still thinking about someone flinging you and I to the ground, Colin and— Us continuing the scene on the floor and nothing—it never stops. If it happens it just gets filmed.

C. Mochrie: Yeah. We were doing a moving body scene and they sort of lost control of us and we both fell to the floor. Luckily Kathy broke my fall.

K. Kinney: You’re welcome.

R. Stiles: Colin, wasn’t there one time on Whose Line when some—in England—when some pipes broke and flooded the studio and people waited three hours until they fixed it up?

C. Mochrie:  Yeah. That was good.

K. Kinney: Well, Jonathan, didn’t you crawl across the floor like a big lizard and smash a light? Did we stop for that?

J. Mangum: I broke a light with my… self.

R. Stiles:  If you don’t break a light on stage you shouldn’t be on stage as far as I’m concerned. Everybody’s broken a light now and then.

K. Kinney: It’s fun.

Ryan, Colin or Greg, how was it doing improv with Charlie Sheen?

G. Proops: I’ll answer that. It was great. I mean we didn’t—we weren’t even sure if he was going to come up, he came to see the show and we asked him to come up and do a game with us and usually when you ask actors like that they’ll go, “Oh, gee I don’t know. I don’t think I could possibly” and Charlie was like, “Let’s do it. It sounds like fun.” So, you could hear him in the crowd. He sat in one place. He laughed at everything even the stuff that wasn’t funny, and he was great. We just had a good time doing it so it was fun that he came up. It’s so different than what you know Charlie for and I think he carried himself pretty well…And I’m not saying that because I have to go back to Two and a Half Men…because I don’t.

What would you say makes all you guys work together so well. I trust that you know someone will always be ready to support your decision as stupid as it may be.

C. Mochrie: Yeah that’s it exactly. You know everybody has a solid improv background so there’s the trust and everybody has the skills and the knowhow, and then just after working with each other for so many years, it’s almost like we’re like an Army platoon. You know everybody’s watching everybody else’s back, so we’re out there to make sure everybody’s having fun, and we do.

R. Stiles: And nobody else will work with us.

C. Mochrie: Yeah, there’s that.

K. Kinney: Yeah, we’re shunned by the rest of the improv community.

C. Mochrie: And by real actors and stuff.

K. Kinney: Yeah, real actors.

G. Proops: I love the fact that in several places I’ve gone where standups will kind of actually hack on improv. They don’t consider it comedy so everybody else … because we make it happen. We don’t write it. I’m not quite sure what that’s about. So they just despise improv for some reason.

C. Mochrie: Standups are stupid.

K. Kinney: Yeah. Well, it’s like I was saying before people see it—you watch it at home. I can’t tell you how many people say to me yeah I think I could do that and I always want to say well, come on I’ll invite you to Las Vegas you do it. You know, but it’s just we, we make it look easy because we so enjoy it and we’re having a really good time. I’m not saying that anybody else could—I mean everybody could do it if they wanted to but the fact that we’ve all been together so long, and that Colin’s right we’re just—we really have each other’s back and it’s like jping and you always know the nets going to be there. That somebody else is going to catch you.

G. Proops: People always ask us to if it’s really improvised. That’s a big question with people and I think it would be pretty hard to write, you know, Colin runs across stage as moose while Jonathan crawls out of the bag as lizard, you know …

C. Mochrie: … the scenes. They make no sense at all. Less sense than the last scene on Saturday Night Live. It’s just, truly is comedy of the moment. You can’t really explain to people what went on. You really had to be there.

K. Kinney: I got to watch the show that one night, and it was just—even when everyone thought that they weren’t—you could say like oh, we’re not even that funny. It’s just, it’s everyone seems to have this willingness to, to be silly and to let everything go and just it’s so much fun to watch. I had such a great time in the audience so—

J. Mangum: And I think, as an audience member—you know when you’re a standup and you come out on stage it’s kind of got that make me laugh attitude and I think for us walking on stage it’s a much warmer feeling because they’re suggesting what you do so they have kind of an interest in it and they really want it to work. They want you to succeed.

What would you say would be the craziest request you got from an audience member?

R. Stiles: Well, there’s nothing really easy. Sometimes we’ll turn down a suggestion. It’s not because we don’t want to do it. It’s because we’ve done it the last show or we do it a lot, but, and also stuff that, if we get gynecologist we’re obviously not going to do it but we just try to look for stuff we haven’t done before and something that will be challenging for us.

C. Mochrie: We often get, there’s a game I think called Jeopardy. Well it’s not called Jeopardy.  Because of legal reasons but it’s basically Jeopardy.

K. Kinney: Question this.

C. Mochrie:  We get the answers from the audience and then the improvisers have to, they come up with a question, and there’s one category we have three syllable words. I can’t tell you how often people say cat. Cat, cat, cat—

K. Kinney:  That’s funny. You’d think that with an audience, like a drunken audience in Las Vegas that you’d be getting crazy stuff but people just so happy to be there. They’re just shouting out things to try and stop us, yes, but it’s, it’s impossible and it’s—

J. Mangum:  There were many people who weren’t drunk.

K. Kinney: Yeah, there were many—

J. Mangum: … make it sound like we’re, —

K. Kinney: Yeah, like it’s a brawl?

J. Mangum: Yeah, right.

K. Kinney:  No, no it’s not. Well that’s what I’m saying there really—it’s just a high energy, happy group of people on vacation but I can’t think of any—You know I used to be in an all-woman group back in New York and they would always shout out stuff like show us your tits. You know things like that don’t happen to us in Vegas. Do they?

J. Mangum: Not during the show.

K. Kinney: Not during a show. Back stage in the green room, right? You know people are so much smarter than everybody wants to give them credit for and they yell out really wonderful suggestions.

R. Stiles: There’s a lot of shows in Vegas where they get upset if they don’t yell that out.

K. Kinney: Yeah. Show us your tits. I kind of think that your average improv audience member is, has a little bit more intelligence than the normal audience member in just like general comedy show because it—you have to have a little bit more to get the improv… If you’re buying a ticket to an improv show you have a slightly higher intelligence level than just a person that just would not just go to a regular comedy show.

C. Mochrie: I think our audience is as stupid as any audience.

K. Kinney: Yeah. Okay. That’s what I thought.

G. Proops: I think people are surprised to that we make the entire show up. That we think of the entire show when we walk out. I think they do think that parts of it are, are formulated or scripted and then we do improv around that. I don’t think they think it’s going to be the comedy free-for-all that it is.

C. Mochrie:  Yeah and there are some hardcore fans who, you know they come prepared with stuff. They just, for any suggestion, anything we may ask for they have their stuff that they’ve worked on, which is, can be fun sometimes because you know they’ve worked on it and it’s something we’ve never gotten before, which always makes the improv more fun and challenging.

K. Kinney:  Yeah. The only reason we don’t, don’t do gynecologist is because we’ve gotten over 11 trillion times.

C. Mochrie:  We always get it for sound effects scenes, which you really want to see a sound effect scene about a gynecologist?

K. Kinney: No, I don’t. No.

G. Proops: You know they could probably do a special show just on the intros to because it’s not just the games that are funny. I mean sometimes the intros will go five minutes that we—we’re just having so much fun during that we can’t even get into the game you know.

K. Kinney:  Yeah but the audience never stops us.

G. Proops: They don’t.

K. Kinney: They can’t.

G. Proops: All though they are smarter than the average theatre goer. They’re not smarter than us.

K. Kinney:No. Does that answer it Kyle?

K. Nolan: Yep, and it sounds like a challenge for future people going to your show.

K. Kinney: Yeah.

R. Stiles: Bring it.

K. Kinney: Bring it.

The last time around on Whose Line is it Anyway you had Robin Williams and you had Whoopie Goldberg for instance. This time around you had Charlie Sheen. Who’s the guest star, the dream guest star for the future?

R. Stiles: Oh, boy, wow. I’d love to see Morley Safer up there although I don’t think he’s going to get up.

K. Kinney: Yeah. I was thinking Hillary Clinton but—

R. Stiles: I don’t know that’s the great thing about shooting in Vegas to is the people that go through Vegas. I mean not only the people that do shows there but the people that go on weekends are—so the chances of us getting a lot of people to come and guest on the show are really good because it’s improv. We can just ask them five minutes before the show and get them up there. So, yeah we’re always kind of excited about who might show up that night.

K. Kinney:  You know who I miss? I wish Joe Walsh.

R. Stiles: Joe was fun. Yeah, we’ll probably get Joe on eventually.

K. Kinney: I wish Joe would come back.

R. Stiles: I’m sure he would.

K. Kinney: Joe Walsh, he’s a funny guy. Jonathan, do you have any? Who would you like to see?

J. Mangum:  Oh, boy. Who would I—Well, who’s in Vegas now? Who could we get to come do it with us?

K. Kinney: Céline Dion.

J. Mangum: Celine Dion could do it. The cast of, , …

R. Stiles: I’d love to see Teller do a narration scene.

J. Mangum: Teller would be great.

K. Kinney: That would be funny. I don’t know. Gulilermo, do you have somebody that you want us to bring on?

G. Paz: Yeah. A lot of—a lot of people, maybe one of the Monty Python guys around.

G. Proops: Jeff works a lot with Eric Idol, so you know some of those people hang out once in a while so—

K. Kinney:  And I flew behind him once. I sat behind him in an airplane and kicked the back of his seat all the way to New York so maybe he’d do it for us.

R. Stiles: You know it’s funny the people who love improv, I mean even with Whose Line you know Paul McCartney said it was one of his favorite shows, Johnny Depp said he would never do TV again but if he did he would do Whose Line, so I mean—There’s a lot of people who want to do it so it’s just a matter of—

J. Mangum: Katie Couric is looking for a gig.

K. Kinney: Yeah. Yeah, Katie Couric.

R. Stiles: Katie Current.

K. Kinney: God if Johnny Depp came I might not be able to talk.

G. Proops: … go through all of us I would think.