"Thank God You're Here"

There's a new show on NBC on Mondays called "Thank God You're Here". It started last night with 2 episodes, with 4 guest stars each. David Allen Grier hosts with Dave Foley as the judge of each of the 4 guest actors. They're thrown into a scene to improvise with a set of actors on a set and in costume but with no prior knowledge or script. This is some of the funniest, big-belly laughing I've ever seen on TV. Okay, first a caveat, I LOVE IMPROV. I've loved it ever since I dated a guy my freshmen year and kept going to see it after we stopped dating. I've dragged many poor, unwilling friends to it and I'm sure they've always laughed.

Some of the guests did only okay, but some were amazingly good at producing totally original, hysterical moments. I've only seen Mo'Nique in passing comments and really didn't know anything about her, but seeing her portray a medieval queen made me giggle continuously.
http://www.imdb.com/gallery/ss/0983782/Ss/0983782/NUP_105647_0831.jpg.html?path=gallery&path_key=0983782

And seeing Jennifer Coolidge play "Miss Caicos" at a beauty pagent and explaining that her country was an island surrounded by sea because that's all she knew about Turks and Caicos. And when asked what she'd most like to rid the world of, she responded "dry ice?".

I hope this show survives because it's absolutely hysterical. There are rules to improv that make it funnier and smarter, and these actors are pretty good at finding those moments to exploit to the fullest.