Why isn’t THIS a TV show? Well, it already is, but only in short segments in online video on Vimeo and YouTube. The group Improv Everywhere stages comic stunts in public places and posts the videos on the Web. Like this
“Food Court Musical”
they put on in the Baldwin Hills Mall in Los Angeles. As shoppers munched burgers and fries, 16 singers and dancers suddenly launched into a giddy number called “Can I Get a Napkin Please?” Watch as the fast-food girl, the janitor and the security guard all join into the carefully choreographed and thoroughly charming production number.Food Court Musical from ImprovEverywhere on Vimeo.
Probably the most ambitious performance to date was “Best Game Ever.” For this one the troupe showed up at a Little League baseball game and turned it into a major event. Working with the league commissioner, the Improv Everywhere gang got the players’ names and nicknames and they worked with NBC Sports to procur announcers, a Jumbotron and a blimp. None of the players, coaches or parents had any idea what was happening, but afterward agreed it probably was the most memorable afternoon any of them had, or ever would have, in a ballpark.
Best Game Ever from ImprovEverywhere on Vimeo.
These are among the more than 70 different “missions” Improv Everywhere has executed over the past seven years. Others include “Frozen Grand Central,” which had hundreds of people who were in on the plan stopping dead still at the same second and holding their poses for five minutes; and a massive game of Twister involving more than 800 people listening to the same instructions on their mp3 players in a Lower Manhattan park
.
Created in August of 2001 by Charlie Todd, Improv Everywhere has been featured on MSNBC and Late Show with David Letterman. Recently, groups in Prague and London have staged their own Improv Everywhere-style scenes, including decorating a subway car to look like a living room.
Unlike the humiliating, pointless pranks pulled on Punk’dand other hidden camera shows, the Improv Everywhere scenarios seem to be concocted just to make people smile. There's also a element of gentle anarchy in the action--out of nowhere, a musical breaks out, or a ballgame magically turns into the Field of Dreams for a bunch of kids. No harm, no fouls, just good fun.
For more footage, go to
Improv Everywhere videos
.