“Fans of Whose Line Is It Anyway? will love Drew Carey’s Green Screen Show!”
Isn’t that a great opening line for a review? I wish I could use it.
The idea behind the show is that the cast performs improvisational comedy a la Whose Line on a stage completely covered by that ugly green color you’ve seen in so many special effect behind-the-scenes featurettes. The show is then sent off and animation is added depending on the performaces of the actors.
Sadly, it’s the animation that gets in the way here. I think part of the charm and power of improvisational comedy is that the audience participates not only by yelling out topics, titles and the like, but by filling in the mimed actions for themselves. Watching someone bow their legs and hop up and down on stage holding pretend reins is much funnier than seeing someone doing the same thing on a cartoon horse added later.
The animation is certainly servicable. I kind of enjoyed the jerky Flash style added to the one syllable boot camp game. And when a scene called for a wild west saloon, the animation was cute and well conceived, but I couldn’t get past the “See? Isn’t this funny? I mean look at this funny cartoon hat I’m wearing!” feel of it all.
I had high hopes for Drew Carey’s Green Screen Show, but I’m afraid I’ll be looking to catch reruns of Whose Line Is It Anyway? instead.