''Drew Carey's Green Screen Show'' is an American

improvisational comedy Improvisational theatre, often called improvisation or improv, is the form of theatre, often comedy, in which most or all of what is performed is unplanned or unscripted: created spontaneously by the performers. In its purest form, the dialogue, a ...

television series A television show – or simply TV show – is any content produced for viewing on a television set which can be broadcast via over-the-air, satellite, or cable, excluding breaking news, advertisements, or trailers that are typically placed ...

that aired in the fall of 2004 on

The WB The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on terrestrial television, broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture be ...

, and the fall of 2005 on

Comedy Central Comedy Central is an American basic cable channel owned by Paramount Global through its network division's MTV Entertainment Group unit, based in Manhattan. The channel is geared towards young adults aged 18–34 and carries comedy program ...

. The show was hosted by

Drew Carey Drew Allison Carey (born May 23, 1958) is an American comedian, actor and game show host. After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps and making a name for himself in stand-up comedy, he gained stardom in his own sitcom, '' The Drew Carey Show'', an ...

, and was somewhat a follow-up to the show he formerly hosted, ''

Whose Line Is It Anyway? ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?'' is a short-form improvisational comedy show originating as a British radio programme, before moving to British television in 1988. Following the conclusion of the British run in 1999, ABC began airing an American ...

''. The distinguishing feature of the show was that the improv games were performed in front of a "

green screen Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a visual-effects and post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together based on colour hues ( chroma range). The technique has been used in many fields to ...

" (similar to the "Newsflash" game from ''Whose Line?''), with animation, music and

sound effects A sound effect (or audio effect) is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media. Traditi ...

inserted in

post-production Post-production is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording individual program segments. Th ...

. The show was otherwise very similar to ''Whose Line?'' and featured many of the same performers and games. On an appearance on ''

Late Night with Conan O'Brien ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien. NBC aired 2,725 episodes from September 13, 1993, to February 20, 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and musi ...

'' when "Green Screen" premiered, Carey claimed that he got the idea during the ''Whose Line?'' game "Moving people" when he thought how funny it would be if you could not see the people manipulating the players. The show's theme song was ''La Trampa'', performed by Tonino Carotone and

Manu Chao Manu Chao (; born José-Manuel Thomas Arthur Chao on 21 June 1961) is a French-Spanish singer. He sings in French, Spanish, English, Italian, Arabic, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese, Greek, and occasionally in other languages. Chao began h ...

and the show's underscore was composed by Michael A. Levine.

Performers

Besides

, the performers and the corresponding number of episodes they appeared in were:

Regular

Brad Sherwood Bradley Sherwood is an American actor, singer, comedian, game show host and writer. Career His first acting job was a recurring role on '' L.A. Law'' as Ned Barron, which lasted for six episodes from 1991 to 1992. Sherwood was introduced to i ...

- 12 episodes *

Colin Mochrie Colin Andrew Mochrie (; born November 30, 1957) is a Scottish-born Canadian actor, writer, producer and improvisational comedian, best known for his appearances on the British and US versions of the improvisational TV show '' Whose Line Is It ...

- 12 episodes * Jeff Davis - 12 episodes *

Greg Proops Gregory Everett "Greg" Proops (born October 3, 1959) is an American actor, stand-up comedian and television host. He is widely known for his guest appearances on the U.K. and U.S. versions of '' Whose Line Is It Anyway?''. He has also voiced th ...

- 12 episodes

Recurring

* Chip Esten - 8 episodes *

Jonathan Mangum Jonathan Mangum (born January 16, 1971) is an American actor and comedian. He was a cast member of the variety show '' The Wayne Brady Show'' and is the announcer for the game show ''Let's Make a Deal''. Early life Mangum was born in Charlesto ...

- 7 episodes *

Sean Masterson Sean Masterson is a comedy actor, writer, director and producer known for his work with Drew Carey, writing on ''The Drew Carey Show'', and as an improvisational performer on ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?'', ''Drew Carey's Green Screen Show'', and '' ...

- 7 episodes *

Kathy Kinney Kathy Kinney (born November 3, 1954, in Stevens Point, Wisconsin) is an American actress, voice actress, and comedian. She gained considerable popularity in the late 1990s for playing Mimi Bobeck, the outrageously made-up, flamboyantly vulgar, ...

- 6 episodes *

Julie Larson Julie Larson (b. c. 1960) was an American cartoonist, most well known for her single panel comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, ofte ...

- 6 episodes

Ryan Stiles Ryan Lee Stiles (born April 22, 1959) is an American-Canadian actor, comedian, and producer whose work is often associated with improvisational comedy. He is best known for his work on the original British series and American version of '' Wh ...

and

Kaitlin Olson Kaitlin Willow Olson (born August 18, 1975) is an American actress. She began her career in The Sunday Company at the Groundlings, an improvisational theatre and school in Los Angeles, California. She had minor roles in several television serie ...

both performed in the pilot episode, which was never aired.

Format

Each episode featured seven or eight performers, including Carey. Performers appearing during the series were

, Jeff Davis,

as regulars, and Chip Esten,

, and

; in addition, both

and

appeared at the pilot taping, although not in any episodes. Because of the number of cast members and the smaller number of games (which had to produce scenes that made use of the animation), many cast members only got small amounts of screen time and less time for rapport on screen. Each episode began with Carey walking onstage and demonstrating how the green screen stage could be used to add animation to his actions in post-production. The show then went right into games. Sometimes scenes were set with a simple premise and no twist. Other scenes were improvisation games, similar to those on ''Whose Line?''; these included longer scenes, and more rapid-fire games which involved various short scenes. Unlike ''Whose Line?'', segments of the show came from multiple tapings, as evident by the cast wearing different outfits after each commercial break, removing the pretext of the former show that filming was continuous. The show was also more conspicuous in its edits during games. The show would usually have 4-5 games in episode, with an occasional clip beginning in the middle of a scene with no explanation. The show featured various animation styles for the green screen including

hand-drawn animation Traditional animation (or classical animation, cel animation, or hand-drawn animation) is an animation technique in which each frame is drawn by hand. The technique was the dominant form of animation in cinema until computer animation. Proc ...

, CGI,

stop-motion Stop motion is an animated filmmaking technique in which objects are physically manipulated in small increments between individually photographed frames so that they will appear to exhibit independent motion or change when the series of frames ...

and even

puppeteer A puppeteer is a person who manipulates an inanimate object, called a puppet, to create the illusion that the puppet is alive. The puppet is often shaped like a human, animal, or legendary creature. The puppeteer may be visible to or hidden from ...

ing. Among the more well known animators included Eric Goldberg,

Bill Plympton Bill Plympton (born April 30, 1946) is an American animator, graphic designer, cartoonist, and filmmaker best known for his 1987 Academy Awards-nominated animated short '' Your Face'' and his series of shorts featuring a dog character starting w ...

and

Rob Schrab Robby Christopher Schrab (born November 12, 1969) is an American comic book creator, screenwriter, director, and producer. He is the creator of the comic book '' Scud: The Disposable Assassin'', co-writer of the feature film '' Monster House'', co ...

. Many of the stop-motion animators would go on to work on the show ''

Robot Chicken ''Robot Chicken'' is an American adult animated stop motion sketch comedy television series, created and executive produced for Adult Swim by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich along with co-head writers Douglas Goldstein and Tom Root. The writer ...

''.

Games

:Sentences: Players pulled slips of paper with sentences written on them from a toy bucket and took them out to use them in the scene being acted out. Similar to Whose Line on ''

Whose Line is it Anyway? ''Whose Line Is It Anyway?'' is a short-form improvisational comedy show originating as a British radio programme, before moving to British television in 1988. Following the conclusion of the British run in 1999, ABC began airing an American ...

''. :Fill in the Blank: Drew gave the audience a scene title with blanks in it for them to fill in. Players then acted out the scene. :Story: Players took turns telling parts of an audience-suggested story as another pointed to them. :One-Syllable Words: Players acted out a scene and had to use only words with one syllable. Multiple-syllable words got players buzzed out by the audience and replaced by another. :New Choice: Players acted out a scene and when another said "New choice", they had to change what they said or did. Similar to Quick Change on ''

''. :Sound Effects: Two audience members provided sound effects for a scene acted out by two players. :Freeze Tag: Players acted out a scene in audience-suggested non-sexual positions. Another player would say "Freeze", tag one out and assume the position of that player. :Game Show: Players acted out a game show with a title suggested by the audience. :Hollywood Moment: Players acted out a scene and when another said "Hollywood Moment" off-camera, the on-camera players acted out a big-time Hollywood movie-type moment. :Montage: Players acted out a series of scenes connected by a theme. :Moving People: Two audience members in all-green clothing (provided to them prior to the show) moved two players as they performed a scene. :Styles: audience members suggested scene styles and when Drew called one out, the players continued their scene in that style. Similar to the ''

'' game Film and Theatre Styles/Film, Theatre and Television Styles.

History

''Drew Carey's Green Screen Show'' premiered on

The WB Network The WB Television Network (for Warner Bros., or the "Frog Network", for its former mascot, Michigan J. Frog) was an American television network launched on terrestrial television, broadcast television on January 11, 1995, as a joint venture be ...

on October 7, 2004. Coinciding with the show's debut, Carey participated in a number of promotional appearances, such as guest hosting ''

The Late Late Show ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in E ...

'', and starring in a special episode of ''

Blue Collar TV ''Blue Collar TV'' is an American sketch comedy television series that aired on The WB from July 29, 2004 to July 26, 2006 starring Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall, and Larry the Cable Guy. The show's humor dealt principally with contemporary Ameri ...

'', ''Green Screens lead-in program. On November 8, after having run five episodes, The WB announced that it was temporarily pulling ''Drew Carey's Green Screen Show'' from its schedule for November sweeps after it averaged 2.7 million viewers per week. It was confirmed as cancelled in May 2005 at their 2005-06 fall presentation. As a result, Carey and executive producer Ron Diamond took the show to

, returning it to the air on September 26, 2005.

Episodes

References

External links

* {{The WB 2000s American comedy game shows 2004 American television series debuts 2005 American television series endings Comedy Central original programming The WB original programming Television series by Warner Bros. Television Studios Improvisational television series English-language television shows American television series with live action and animation