“I’m tired of Whose Line?! Are there any other improv TV shows?”

…but yes, Virginia, there are other improv TV shows available, some better, some worse.

Here’s a list of some of the major ones:

• Fast and Loose – A fun, if formulaic, improv show from the UK. Our favorite part is when David Armand interprets songs for other players to guess. Our advice: mute the sound and try to guess the song yourself; it will be all that much more fun!
• Trust Us with Your Life – Fast and Loose, American style. Hosted by Fred Willard, the show went on hiatus after airing eight of their ten episodes. Never officially canceled, it hasn’t been seen since 2012, so don’t get your hopes up. Not as good as Fast and Loose.
• Drew Carey’s Improv-A-Ganza – The purest of the TV improv shows. It’s essentially an unedited filming of Drew Carey’s all-star Las Vegas improv show. The most like a live improv show you’ll see on American TV, which is probably why it was canceled.
• Drew Carey’s Green Screen Show – Whose Line? in front of a green screen. There were only 12 episodes, and they weren’t all that great.
• Improv Heaven and Hell – This is a new one to us. It’s a Canadian show from 1998 that ran for 2 seasons. It, like Improv-a-Ganza, is pure improv scenes unedited. A search on YouTube brought up some videos of them; check them out and let us know what you think!

• Thank God You’re Here – Comes in three flavors: Original Australian, Vanilla American, and Earl Grey UK. A celebrity is brought in, given a costume, and thrown into a scene without knowing what it is. The only constant is the first line of every scene: “Thank God you’re here!” The Australian version is quite entertaining, the US version is boring and formulaic, and we haven’t seen the UK version to the best of my recollection (which is spotty at best). Check out the Aussie version…it’s not your typical improv (everyone but the celebrity pretty much knows what’s going to happen), but it’s still fun.

It’s interesting that while almost everyone’s heard about Whose Line, these other improv shows are relatively unknown. Check them out and decide for yourself which you like, and if we missed any, let us know in the comments!