Here’s a list of games that we’ve been reported to play on occasion when up on stage. If you have a favorite game that isn’t on here, come on down and teach us!

Standard Games

185

Players create jokes in the form of “185 OBJECTS walk into a bar…” which are made up completely on-the-spot, and are generally built off of bad puns.

2 Person Story

Two people tell a story that’s never been heard before while alternating every other word. Each story begins with “Once upon a time…” and ends with a moral.

3 Things

Three activities are gotten as suggestions and spiced up (for example, skydiving from a car wearing Kleenex[TM] instead of a parachute), then two players have three minutes to get the guesser to do the actions, using only mime and gibberish.

30 Second Change

Start a scene. Every thirty seconds, one of three things must happen: someone new must enter the scene, someone must exit the scene, or the location of the scene must change.

60 Second Alphabet

Two players do a scene in which each line starts with the next consecutive letter of the alphabet. For example, “Alan, how are you?” “Better than a monkey in a banana tree.”

Beastie Rap

Do Rap Rap done in a Beasty Boys-ish style. Players divide into two teams, each with a leader. The leader starts each line, and his teammates must join in on the last word. For example, if the name is Mark, the leader could say “He got bitten by a” and the entire team would shout “shark!”

Blind Date

Two people go on a blind date, and there is a waiter. The daters do not know who they are, and the waiter does not know where they are. They drop hints to each other while trying to figure out who or where they are.

Blind Freeze

A scene is performed by two people, with the rest of the crew standing behind them facing away. One of them yells “Freeze!” and turns around, then has to take the position of one of the scene-players and start a new scene.

Blind Lines

The audience, before the show, writes down lines on pieces of paper. In this game, a scene is performed, and periodically, players read the audience’s lines, and justify them in the scene.

Chain Murder Mystery

A murder has occurred in an unusual Location. The murderer has a strange Occupation and used a strange murder Weapon (LOW). The game then proceeds like “Telephone” where one person tries to explain (using only mime and gibberish) the location, occupation, and weapon to the next, who explains to the next, and so on.

The Clap

Three scenes of two performers each take place, one at a time. Whenever one of the waiting performers likes a line in the active scene, he claps. That scene freezes, and now his scene resumes, and must start off with the last line said in the previous scene.

Countdown

An ordinary two-person scene takes place, subject only to a time limit. Then, two other performers must re-enact the scene in half the time. This continues until the entire scene must be run through in absurdly short (or even negative!) time intervals.

Dating Game

Three bachelors with unusual personalities (provided by the audience) are asked questions by a bachelorette (who does not know their identities). The bachelorette must figure out, asking two questions to each bachelor, who or what they are.

Day in the Life

An audience member recounts his day (what he did, who he ate lunch with, which classes he attended, etc.), and his day is then acted out by a group of players.

Deaf Interpreter

An anchorman and two field reporters talk about news stories. Unfortunately, the regular deaf interpreter is at home sick, so they had to bring in some random guy off the street to fake his way through it.

Dear Diary

Performers line up and recite ficticious diary entries for famous entities during different events.

The Director

Three performers repeatedly act out a scene from a movie yet-to-be-filmed. Their performances must follow the whims of a director, who will interrupt scene repeatedly and tell the actors what changes to make.

Do Rap Rap

Pretty much the same as Do Run Run, but with ghetto white-boy attempts at rap instead of oldies.

Do Run Run

The song “Do Run Run” is performed, with each person giving a line that rhymes with a one-syllable name provided by the audience. Players are eliminated as they reuse words or fail to think of one in time.

Dr. Know-It-All

Imagine a man who is so smart that his brain had to be split amongst three separate bodies. This is Dr. Know-It-All, the man who answers questions from the audience. Each of three players in the game adds to the answer one word at a time.

DVD Remote

Two performers reenact a movie that has never before been filmed. A third person can issue arbitrary commands found on a DVD remote (such as “fast forward,” “skip to chapter 4,” or “switch to French”) at any time.

Film Styles

Two or three performers act out a scene. At arbitrary intervals, a fourth person will shout out a different type of film or television genre (collected from the audience beforehand), and the performers must continue the scene in that genre.

Follow the Leaver

Start off with an arbitrary scene. Every time somebody leaves the scene, the “action” follows the person who leaves, and the next scene shows where he went off to.

Freeze

Two people perform a scene until one of the other players yells “Freeze!” at which point the two freeze. The new person tags out one of the other two, takes the same position, and starts a completely new scene.

Good, Bad, and Worst Advice

Three people field questions from the audience as characters of their choice: one giving good advice, one giving bad advice, and one giving the worst advice possible.

Gripe Concerto

Multiple people stand up in front of the conductor. Each person is given (from the audience) something or someone that they absolutely hate. As the conductor points to people, they complain about their designated object.

Happy, Sad, Mad

The stage is divided into three zones: happy, sad, and mad. Whenever a performer is standing in a particular zone, he must experience the emotion associated with that zone.

Hesitation

Every once in a while, people in a scene will be unable to think of a word. Thus, we bring in two audience volunteers who provide words when the players in the scene ask for them. The players have to justify any of the words that the audience members give.

History of a Thing

Five people tell the story of how some everyday object came to be invented, with each person contributing one word at a time.

Inner Vices

A variation on Inner Voices. One player is haunted by two to four of the audience’s favorite Deadly Sins. Hilarity also ensues.

Inner Voices

A game for four people. Two of them (usually seated), engage in a dialogue while the other two (known as “consciences”) stand, one at the side of each sitting performer. Periodically, a conscience places a hand on the shoulder of their sitter and says their “thoughts” aloud. Hilarity ensues.

Interrogation

One performer is a famous person who’s committed some dastardly deed, and is now being grilled by two policemen in the investigation room. If only he could figure out who he is and what he has done, he might be able to escape.

Irish Drinking Song

Four performers sing a song about a profession, each one singing half a line before the next person starts. The second and fourth people’s lines must rhyme. Four verses are sung, each one started by a different person. Not for the faint of heart.

The Last Action Hero

Players create jokes in the form of a bad Schwarzenegger/Segal/Stallone/Willis action movie, which are made up completely on-the-spot based on audience suggestion (for example, the suggestion *flower* - “You’re going to need more stamen-a to withstand my pistil”), and are generally built off of bad puns.

Moving People

Two people perform a scene, but they cannot move by themselves. Two other people must move and pose them.

Newscasters

It’s a typical evening news setup: two anchormen, the sports reporter, and the weatherman. News is reported on, except that they each have some bizarre trait or personality that manifests itself during the newscast.

Oxygen Deprivation

Set up includes a tarp, mops, and a bucket of water. Four or five performers carry out a scene, one of which must keep their head in a bucket of water. Tagging out the person in the bucket means that you take their place, and the now-wet performer must return to the scene and justify why they are soaking wet. Warning: Do NOT try this game at home- leave this to professional improvisational comedians.

Party Quirks

One person (the guesser) hosts a party, and three partygoers with unusual traits or quirks show up at the party one by one, and the host of the party must figure out who they are.

Peerless Previews (aka ‘Bleak Previews’)

Here one player provides the alluring voiceover for the preview of a movie, whose title is gleaned from audience suggestions. Meanwhile, two other players provide the tantalizing action.

Picture in Picture

Two teams of two create scenes based off of an object (like an airplane). Each team uses the object in a completely different manner (one might be on a plane, and the other might be building a model plane) and the focus switches between the two scenes.

Press Conference

One person holds a press conference, fielding questions from reporters. The player does not know who he is or what he has done, and must figure it out based on the questions.

Quatch

One person stands in front of a green screen (or projector image on the wall) with some video or picture on it. This player is at that location or event, and is reporting from there. Two other people stand off to the side, “back at the studio” and talk with the reporter while giving hints as to what’s behind him.

Scene Dubs

No need to pay someone to read the subtitles for you. Two players in the wings translate what is said by two others, who perform a scene on stage in gibberish.

SoF True Stories

One person sits and tells a story about his day (situation given from audience member) all the while other improvisationalists are miming the day behind him, out of view of the story teller.

Shoulda Said

A scene is performed, but anytime one of the participants says something that the player on the buzzer doesn’t like, the buzzer is sounded and that person has to say something completely different.

Show Me That

Two performers start a scene. Whenever one of them says something that might make an interesting scene (for example, “this is worse than when I fought Santa Claus on the moon!”), someone on the sidelines may yell “show me that!” People switch off, and now that scene is portrayed.

Sideline Sermon

Two performers stand on stage, taking terms delivering a sermon on a subject that follows the pattern “adverb verb noun” (such as “exhaustively reticulating splines”). However, they aren’t told ahead of time what their sermon topic actually is. That’s the job of each sermonizer’s teammates, who must convey the topic using only mime.

Slide Show

Someone just got back from his trip to some place you normally wouldn’t take a vacation to, and he has the slides to prove it. He goes through his slide show, with each slide being portrayed by three or four performers on stage.

Sorry I’m Late

Audience suggestions explain why our pupil is late to class. The performer must explain to his teacher why he was late without knowing why. Audience applause increases as his explanation gets closer to the truth.

Space Jump

Two performers start a scene. At any time, a third performer can freeze that scene, enter, and start a new scene with three people. A fourth and a fifth performer do the same. Then, when the fifth person leaves, the scene reverts to the four-person scene, which may continue at some point in the future. The process repeats as each new person leaves the scene in opposite order of his arrival.

Stand, Sit, Bend

Three performers carry out a scene with the caveat that at all times, there must be someone standing, sitting, and bending.

Story Story Die

This uses a conductor and four or more people. As the conductor points to people, they tell a story that has never been written, each using his own genre or style. However, if someone continues after the conductor points away, or the next person fails to start up exactly where the last person left off (mid-paragraph, -sentence, or -word), they are eliminated.

Swinging Pendulum

Three people play and each player have a specific scene to die in. The emcee calls “switch” to switch from scene to scene and the respective member must die as the other two members carry on the scene.

That’s How It [Really] Happened

Performers line up and provide examples of how history might be slightly incorrect detailing the true events of the past, inventions, wars, etc.

World’s Worst

Players stand in a line and alternate giving examples of some of the world’s worst things, based on audience suggestions.

What Are You Doing?

Two letters are grabbed from the audience (for example, “E” and “G”). Then one player asks the other, “What are you doing?” to which he replies something other than way he is currently miming, which starts with the letters supplied (”Eating Grass”). The person who asked the question must then act out whatever was given to him. This continues until someone fails to come up with an action.

Word Rations

Three people perform an ordinary scene. However, one performer can only say one word at a time, the second performer can only say three words at a time, and the third performer can only say five words at a time.

Warm-Up and Practice Exercises

10 Characters

One person has 100 seconds to act out 10 distinct characters of his choosing. The faint of heart may choose fewer characters in a shorter time (such as 6 characters in 60 seconds).

Bippity Bippity Bop

Stand in a circle, with one person in the middle. The person who’s “it” can point to an arbitrary person and issue a command, such as “kamikaze,” “elephant,” “lumberjack,”, “fractal carousel of death” and others. If that person and the two people next to him don’t act out that command within five seconds, that person becomes “it.” The person in the middle can also say “bippity bippity bop,” and if the person pointed to doesn’t say “bop” before he does, he becomes “it.”

Continuous Story

Stand in a circle. One person starts telling a story. After two or three sentences, he hands it off to the next person, who continues in a similar fashion.

Here Comes Charlie

Three performers stand on stage, having a conversation in which various traits Charlie has are discussed. Eventually, Charlie (the fourth person) arrives, and must behave in a way consistent with the description given.

Here Comes Generic Charlie

Three performers stand on stage, having a conversation in which various traits Charlie has are discussed. This Charlie is boring, plain, and as unimaginative as possible. Eventually, Charlie (the fourth person) arrives, and must behave in a way consistent with the description given.

Hunting the Whatzit

One person stands on stage, hunting for some creature or thing that he chooses on the spot. Another person must come on stage as that creature or thing and kill the hunter. Now the hunted becomes the hunter, looking for something else.

More Waffles Please

Divide the audience into three groups: “more,” “waffles,” and “please.” When the MC points to a group, everyone in it must shout out their word as loud as possible. Repeat until the audience has been warmed up.

Do You Like Your Neighbors

Everyone stands in a circle with one person in the middle. The person in the middle asks one person, “Do you like your neighbors?” The person replies, “No.” causing the two people on either side to try and switch places. The person can reply, “Yes, but I hate people who [insert defining remark here]” causing those people to try and switch spots. The player in the middle tries to take one of the switching players spots.

Red Ball, Blue Ball

Stand in a circle, passing an imaginary red ball from one person to another. The person giving says, “red ball,” and the person receiving says, “thank you, red ball.” Things get crazy when people start adding balls to the mix.

What’s in the Box?

Person A asks person B, “what’s in the box?” Person B fires off a quick series of yes-or-no questions. Once the answer is “yes,” person A picks a new question based on it and the game continues.