So, by now you have caught Drew Carey’s Green Screen Show on The WB network (Thursday, 8:30pm), you are pleasantly surprised, and you are telling all of your friends, neighbors, enemies and lovers to tune in. What is even more excellent, however, is that the best is yet to come. The show is continuing to get better and better. It grows on you, much like the festive anticipation preceding Christmas, Hannukah, Eid al-Fitr, Diwali and/or Kwanzaa.

Drew Carey performs in the game “Animal Trainer” (Sound Fx), with animation direction by François Moret of Bibo Films. All images © International Mammoth Television Inc. and The WB Television Network.

Maybe that kind of religious devotion to the show is not necessary, but it is certainly appreciated, knowing that every flickering television set tuned to the Green Screen Show is a vote for artsy, independent, primetime animation. In these uncertain times of channel changing and regime changing, every vote counts.

When tuning in, there are a variety of improv games that the actors play, based on the suggestions and participation of a live audience. One type of game is called Freeze Tag, where the actors dream up a rapid series of vignettes based on their physical positions, tapping each other in and out of the game as they go. A game called Sound Fx invites two audience members to the stage to lend their vocals to the improvised action. Another type of game called Hollywood Moments has the players overacting, on cue, as they navigate through their made-up story. The ground rules for Single Syllable Sentences are that two actors can only speak to each other in monosyllabic words, or the audience catches their mistakes and other actors rotate into play. New Choice is a game where the actors invent a scene, but they are prompted every once and again by one of their offstage colleagues to reinvent their dialogue or behaviors.

There are other types of games, of course, but for those one or two readers who have yet to see the Green Screen Show, this should give you a flavor of what to expect. If any of this looks or sounds easy, you can try playing some of the games at home, or during your next party.

Speaking of votes of confidence, a few of the upcoming Green Screen Show games that have caught my attention are: “Airport” (Sound Fx) by Greg Franklin, “Tahiti” (New Choice) by Benoit Feroumont, “Toaster” (Hollywood Moments) by Harold Moss, and “Welcome to Hell” (Freeze Tag) by Arthur de Pins. They are all chucklers, and well put together.

You may be asking yourself, “Yeah, but how do they do that? How do they put the games together?” Sit back, grab a pumpkin smoothie, and let me explain.

Brad Sherwood yucks it up in “Welcome to Hell” (Freeze Tag), directed by Arthur de Pins of Metronomic.

In the Outbox
I am sitting in the offices of Acme Filmworks, the studio producing the Green Screen Show, with a schematic for the production workflow. I would share it with you, but: (a) they would revoke my backstage pass; and (2) the show is ever-evolving in its creative needs, and therefore in its strategies to address them. Last week’s workflow is, in the parlance of Southern California, like, so last week.

During the actual taping of the improvisational comedy, which lasted five days for the first half-season of twelve episodes, a switcher chose among the live cameras to put together a rough edit of the show. Then the executive group — producers Drew Carey, Brad Sherwood, Robert Morton, Ron Diamond, Prudence Fenton and Scott Ingalls — identified fifty-plus of the funniest games to use as the season’s material. The games were re-edited at Acme by Jeff Malmberg and his team to make them “sing,” in terms of pacing and humor, and then the games were grouped into episodes to design the flow of the season. Of course, mixed in with this process were back-and-forth approvals with the network, until the episodes were locked.