At least ten years ago (but probably more if I’m really being honest) my little sister and I watched an episode of Whose Line Is It Anyway? with a round of “Props” where this happens:
Brad says to Wayne “our igloo have cable now.”*
And all these years later, Allegra and I still quote that line to each other and we still laugh about it.
And all these years later, the crew is back with a new season and a new face in the host’s chair (Aisha Tyler – the voice of Lana on Archer where she serves as the love interest and foil to Archer (Jon Benjamin).)
She’s a funny lady, and it’s really nice to see a woman in the host’s chair (also, a few reviewers have said that she does a little improv in coming episodes, so I’m excited to see that.) Here’s what she had to say about the reboot in an interview with Glamour magazine:
Do you think the reboot is going to be different from the original, or are you trying to stay close to the tried-and-true format?
Aisha Tyler: I think a little bit of both. People who love the original show will be happy to see that Ryan, Wayne, and Colin are back, so there’s a lot of familiar elements for the viewers. But there are also a lot of new games and guest improvisers. So to me, there’s a good balance of the old and the new. The one thing is that a lot of people who watched the show never watched it on TV. They saw it on the internet. There’s a huge crop of young viewers who watched the show on YouTube, so we have this whole new group of fans who have a passion for improv. I think they’re going to get the best of both worlds.
I respect the direction the direction the show’s creators are heading with this – I agree with Tyler that they’re finding a nice balance between having the familiar faces and bits with the new elements, and they have an understanding for how viewers are watching now (mostly in small doses, i.e. YouTube clips.) Also, Wayne Brady was tweeting with fans during the premiere! That was definitely not a thing during the show’s original run.
It’s a little jarring to see Ryan, Colin, and Wayne looking so much older, but they’re as funny as ever. I can’t believe there were doubters who questioned whether they’d still be funny twelve years later. That’s not a real question.
The real question is … will Jon Benjamin be a guest star?
*P.S. here’s the clip with the igloo bit if you’d like to watch the whole thing.
