I’ve encountered this line game by various names (and featuring different numbers), yet the mechanics remain consistent regardless. It requires quick wit and charm and more than a little inclination toward gagging (or, perhaps more kindly, joke telling).
The Basics
Improvisers wait on the back line, often with a microphone placed center stage before them. (I like the touch of placing a stool with a water bottle on it in frame as well, as these props strike me as particularly emblematic of a stand-up venue, but I don’t think that’s standard practice!) The emcee or facilitator obtains a prompt, such as an occupation or object, from the audience. When inspiration strikes, players take turns stepping into the “spotlight” and delivering a formulaic joke (as outlined below). After several efforts, new offers can be elicited to refresh the well of creativity. If the game is being used as a decider or toe-breaker, the host can award points for particularly well received or ingenious jokes (or even punny groaners) until a winner (or winning team) is announced.
Example
The host elicits “mushrooms” and Player A volunteers to go first.
Player A: “Ninety-nine mushrooms walk into a bar. The bartender says, ‘I can’t serve ninety-nine mushrooms,’ and the mushrooms say, ‘Why not? We’re fungi [pronounced fun guys].'”
Other players soon follow with new variations on the same model…
Next Player: “Ninety-nine [blanks] walk into a bar. The bartender says, ‘I can’t serve ninety-nine [blanks],’ and the [blanks] say… [original punchline].”
The Focus
Like most line games, you need to attack and balance quality with quantity. If there’s too much time between the jokes or a pervasive tentativeness, you’ll likely lose the audience (if you ever found them to begin with).
Traps and Tips
1.) Prime the audience. If you set up the expectation that every punchline will be a zinger, you might be raising the comedic bar unhelpfully high. I like it when the host encourages the audience to make a variety of enthusiastic responses – obviously laughter for a successful finesse, perhaps a joyfully loud collective groan for a less impressive showing and chirping crickets for the poorest constructions. It can be a lot of fun to pre-rehearse these options, and it adds a safety net of sorts to the game for the players as it’s quite disconcerting to have your joke greeted with stunned ambivalence. Loud judgment at least keeps the space infused with playful energy. And it can set a struggling player up for glorious redemption of they managed to finally make the comedic grade.
2.) Sell the lemonade. Obviously, it’s easier to perform a punchline when you feel confident that it’s likely to land well. However, even (especially) when you’re peddling something of more dubious merit, you’ll want to do your very best to sell it. Don’t rush through the stock components of the set-up but rather infuse them with personality, charm, and specificity. In adept hands, the audience will find great joy in otherwise mundane material. (Similarly, even great and clever wordsmithing can become undermined by a blasé delivery.) There’s a reason pleasant and amiable kids sell more lemonade at street stands than sour-faced and bitter adults.
3.) Support your teammates. This is stock advice for line games, but make sure your energy is flowing towards the current improviser in focus. The audience frequently takes its cues from the ensemble, so if you look like you’re in agony trying to concoct a passable joke or are harshly judging the efforts of others (or your own shortcomings) the crowd will reflect those less-than-helpful energies back to the stage. Play with joy, applaud other’s successes (and valiant struggles), and keep the energy building. To this end, sometimes it’s critical to step forward and take your turn even when you know you have nothing, just so the proverbial spotlight doesn’t go cold. A moment of well-timed self-sacrifice also buys your teammates a little space to hopefully compose something more nuanced to wash away your cruder contribution as well.
4.) Pursue the novel. In past venues, we’ve used the term “Rolodex” to refer to tried and tested punchlines for oft-pitched ask-fors. (My fungi example above serves as an homage to perhaps the most seasoned of such perennial “favorites.”) If you play these types of games often, it’s unavoidable that you’ll develop some running lists of past successes. However, be careful of making the exercise nothing more than trotting out old material. Firstly, that’s not really the spirit of improv! Secondly, it tends to create an inorganic and rushed experience with players scrambling to repeat that idea that was really funny twelve years ago. If you’re hosting, look to challenge the company with original prompts whenever possible. (Then, if the game isn’t landing, you can always resort to more familiar terrain to find firmer footing.)
In Performance
While this frame can certainly invite ribald material, it can be more family-friendly than Pick-Up Lines and other similarly saucy line games. I personally like playing it in larger ensembles just as that depth of a bench increases the likelihood that someone will be able to come up with something to fill the potentially oppressive silence!
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Cheers, David Charles.
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Photo Credit: Jame Berkley
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