amazing brainstorm of the day

CD: No Music, watching Cubs game

Here is today's Petco Amazing Brainstorm of the Day

Overdubbed Cubs game live in an improv theatre here in Chicago.
It all hit me about a half hour ago as I was watching the Cubs on TV. I kept coming up with funny little comments about the game, but no one was there to here them and laugh. I think it would work marvelously, expecially if the Cubs make the playoffs, and super especially if it was performed at Improv Olympic, THE hotbed of improv in Chicago which happens to be less than a block from Wrigley Field.

Last year, I.O. had to cancel shows during the playoffs. Probably due to the fact that they had no audiences. The low audience numbers were because too many improv fans wanted to see the Cubs in the playoffs, an extreme rarity. Here is the perfect solution. They can still see the game and they can still enjoy the art of improv, all at once.

The specifics go like this:
A video projector projects the game with no audio onto a huge screen which is on stage. There are two commentators, who are skilled at improv and have a good understanding of baseball, actually it might be funnier if one of them had no idea how baseball was played, but anyway. They comment on the game just as normal TV announcers, except they say funny stuff. AND, in order to keep things from getting boring, they are listening to the actual comments of the real life broadcasters through headphones. So they can drop in little facts and interesting tid bits just like a real announcer would.

Then, for the commercial breaks, the projection is turned off and a group of improvisers prov. So, the audience gets the best of both worlds and what they are improvising can either be somehow related to the game, although I'm not really sure how, or an ongoing series of two minute scenes that piece together a story. They can get all their suggestions before the national anthem is sung and really have nothing to do while the game is on but sit back and watch.

There can also be guest commentators, either people impersonating celebrities, or local improv celebrities, which there seem to be oodles of. The scene is very quick to label the next guru and just adores the hell out of them until they move to LA. That's a tangent. Anyway, there would be a celebrity just as there is on TV and everyone would sing 'take me out to the ballgame' with them during the 7th inning stretch.

And you can also have beer and peanut vendors wandering around the audience to authenticate the deal. And you can have angry bald guys with short goeatees throwing up on your back just like at Wrigley. And... and... and it would be awesome.

I know plenty of people who would love to see this. Most of them are in Austin but I'm sure a lot of locals could be convinced, too.

We'll call it CUBPROV or maybe IMP CUBs. The name isn't important. Just as long as it's not the last two I just listed.

I think this could work, and thanks to the lovely new blogger, you can leave your comments here, too. Do you think it would work?

If you don't please don't write anything negative in my comments section. I have a reputation in the Chicago improv community to uphold.
HA

back to the game,
b