Thank God You’re Funny

Thank God You’re Funny by Roxanne McDonald

Reminiscent of “Whose Line is it Anyway,” “Thank God You’re Here” is equally funny and entertaining, but with costumes and special sets.

“This is a dramatalurgical cage match, as it were,” says Dave Foley, co-host and solitary judge for “Thank God You’re Here.” The winner doesn’t have to kill off all the other comics, but does need to kill ‘em in the audience as well as at least knock Dave Foley over with laughs.

Thank God, they do so. In fact, so many of the celebrity comics nail the scenes in the impromptu environs of the mini sets of the show, that Foley struggles with determining a winner.

The rewards are many—bragging rights, Hollywood street credit, and an award of awards that beat all but the Harvard Hasty Pudding of the Year Award: a hand-crafted, shatterproof, poly-something (plastic) Award.

In the first installments, which, aired on April 9th have seen “Thank God You’re Here” as picked up for the whole 2007

season because of its success (in the UK and elsewhere, too), the motivation toward that plastic plaque on a pedestal saw the following stars in scenarios where they successfully delivered command performances and improvised dialogue and action that was indeed delightfully funny to dangerously hysterical:
Up 1st is Wayne Knight (aka Newman of Seinfeld). He is dressed in a white lab jacket and pushed into a morning TV show (with a kind of QVC bent), wherein he must push the OrcLife vitamins (with Knights face on the bottles and packages) he has produced. Knights honors his role with a stoic dismissal process that makes for a caring doctor who really doesn’t care for much more than his pickle-extending pills.

Up 2nd is Bryan Cranston (Hal of “Malcolm in the Middle”), who gets into character faster than I tuck into a triple decker BLT. Even before he is on the set/in scene, he is showing his but, grinding his hips, and responding to host Grier’s comments and questions in an exaggerated British accent. By the time he is ushered onto the set, he has endeared himself to us already. This helps even more to keep us in stitches as he kisses the girlfriend, then the wife, then the male agent, as he stays in irresponsible but groovy rock star character.

3rd up is Joel McHale (host of “The Soup”), who has during practice improv sessions been set up as a suspect at a customs office, who has been revealed as a booze [and other items] smuggler, and who has proved so unflappable that when the fifth of whiskey is set out by the customs officer, he just snatches the bottle, cracks the cap, and chugs with a satisfied/relieved ummm. When he is asked if he has anything else to declare, he quips, “Yeah. Faith Hill is overrated.”

Anyway, McHale is dressed in an antiquate explorer’s outfit, and dumped into a scene where he is an Egyptian archaeologist investigating a burial chamber. With consistent improvisational finesse, McHale gets the laughs, when, for example, he is asked to decipher a sarcophagus lid and reads, “Behind this door lies great riches…and a vacation for four.”

And 4th up is Jennifer Coolidge (infamous for her role in American Pie as Stifler’s hottie mom). Donning a beauty queen costume, Coolidge is greeted as Ms. Constellation,” a contestant whom Coolidge makes foreign and an

idiot— misunderstanding pageant hosts’ prompts, poking at how the highlight for her visit in Greece has been, well, how “the men really like each other, here;” responding to a question about how she would get rid of one thing by quipping, “Well, I never liked dry ice;” and saying her dream date would be Chewbacca, because “he’s furry, and he’s a good listener.”
Besides another pre-filmed set of comic vignettes wherein each of the four contestants is a police officer responding to a reporter’s questions (also a kick) and after a group scene where the four are part of a Superhero Fairness League meeting—with McHale having “the power of very good vison;” Knight a “human roach;” Coolidge a “Golden Donut Girl;” and Cranston Cranston an effeminate “Commander Lightning Rod” (who again kisses the leader when the mayhem is too much to take), it is time for the judging.

Dave gets into the role, saying that “If I could give four awards, I would, but they cost almost $18.00 apiece.” Therefore, he concludes, he will give the one award to Bryan Cranston.

Take another bow, stars. This is one sweet, entertaining, and funny show. Thank God.

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