Thank God for Aussie TV

Thank God for Aussie TV by Roxanne McDonald

They borrow from us, we borrow from them. This time, American TV takes on a kind of “Whose Line is it Anyway” hybrid from Australia, “Thank God You’re Here.”

A year and two seasons in, Australia has successfully brought improv back to celebreality TV. On April 5, 2006, Working Dog Productions premiered “Thank God You’re Here,” pulling an impressive 1.7 million viewers a week (according to NineMSN “Entertainment News”).

Now the U.S. has caught the improv wave, planning to surf the celebrity contestants into unknown situations through a blue door, where on the other side a scene is ensuing. The celebrity has no idea who he or she is but hears the relieved greeting, “That God you’re here!” and must plunge into the scene accordingly—bluffing, or, as Aussie production people put it on their website, “bull—“ his or her way for five minutes, without, TV Squad notes, teleprompters, cue cards, or heavy scripting.

Australia takes the one scene for all contestants even further—by putting them through rigors earlier in the

week, says a writer at Wikipedia, including “a commentary booth where the contestants have to comment on an unfamiliar subject, an office where they are being interrogated (by police, customs officials, etc), or showing customers things for sale, such as cars, boats, houses, etc.” When all have done these challenges, they reach the finale challenge, called the “all-in group challenge”.

But as the Australian home website for “Thank God You’re Here” blurb reveals, no one gets voted off by anyone else, public callers included. Instead, celebrity (and seasoned comic) judges who of the episode’s contestants have gotten the biggest laughs. It is then at the show’s close when the judges award “honourable and dishonourable mentions…[with]the player who “doesn’t get a dishonourable/honourable mention…usually [named] the winner.”

The Australian pioneer version of the promising improv show, televised in over ten countries, including Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Israel and The Netherlands (according to TV Squad, features host Shane Bourne (”Hey, Hey, It’s Saturday”) and judge Tom Gleisner (”The Panel,” “The Late Show”).

The U.S. version will feature judges Dave Foley (”Kids in the Hall,” “Celebrity Poker Showdown”) and David Alan Grier (”In Living Color,” “My Wife and Kids”).

Australia has offered as their celebrity “contestants” Angus Sampson Fifi Box, Shaun McAllef, and a passel of other well-known comics and actors.

Reported to appear and compete in the U.S. version pilot (filmed in November, 2006) are Jennifer Coolidge (American Pie), Bryan Cranston (”Malcolm in the Middle”), Wayne Knight (Seinfeld), and Joel McHale (E!’s “The Soup”).

The ensemble actors whose acts are scripted, those performers who do the greeting and interacting, in Australia, include Heidi Arena (“The Librarians,” “Blue Heelers”), Daniel Cordeaux (“Dags”, “Winners”),

Ed Kavalee (“Boy Town”, “Meat Pie”), Nicola Parry , Andrew Bayly (“Kath and Kim,” Darkness Falls), Rebekah Foord “Supernova”), and Simon Dowling—while those in American episodes have yet to be announced (though I am sure I saw Jason Alexander in the first promo).

About to walk through the blue door into a Roman dungeon, an operating room, a boardroom, a talk show, a starship, undersea or outer space, should be some funny and talented folks, if they can keep up with the reputed brilliance that is Ryan Stiles (of “The Drew Carrey Show” and “Whose Line is it, Anyway?”) and the popularity that is the Australian forefather, “Thank God You’re Here.”

The U.S. version of “Thank God You’re Here” debuts Monday, April 9

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