Top 20 Times Whose Line Is It Anyway Bits Went Wrong

No one ever knows what Colin Mochrie is going to do. Even Colin. During one game of “Greatest Hits,” the funnyman decided to join Wayne Brady for a little dance. He randomly strolled up and performed a couple of surprisingly dexterous moves, much to the enjoyment of Wayne, Ryan, and everyone in the audience. But the best is yet to come. After Colin returns to his chair, Ryan makes a quip, while Colin is clearly struggling to compose himself. An out-of-breath Colin tells Ryan to keep talking, prompting the usually stoic Ryan to break out into laughter. Poor Colin just wanted to have some fun.

Technical glitches are annoying, but sometimes they result in great humor. “Song Styles” is a game that has Wayne making up a song about a random audience member. In this case, he was singing about a man named Howard, in the style of The Village People’s “YMCA.” But things couldn’t have gone any worse. First, Wayne misspells Howard’s name, adding an r between the o and w to make “Horward.” Then the tempo of the music gets inexplicably faster, prompting everyone to sing and dance like they’re on fast forward. It’s a complete mess, and Wayne’s misspelling of Howard’s name gets ragged on for the rest of the episode.

Drew rarely laughed harder than he did during this game of “Sound Effects.” The audience members are terrible at making the necessary sounds, and sometimes they don’t even make sounds at all! But then again, that’s exactly what you want in a game like this. The entire bit is rickety from the start, but it goes completely off the rails when Colin prompts the women to make an elephant noise. Rather than doing an elephant, they repeat the same duck noises they made for Ryan, prompting everyone to break out into hard laughter. Even Ryan can barely hold himself together. We don’t know if this bit went wrong or very, very right.

Ryan Stiles is a consummate improv professional, so watching him break down is always a treat. And Colin is always the man to do it. This game of “Improbable Mission” is a complete mess from beginning to end. Absolutely nothing goes right, as both Colin and Ryan continuously stumble over names, clothing items, and even joke set-ups. Ryan can barely hold himself together... and that’s when Colin breaks out the cat. For the rest of the skit, Colin continuously makes Ryan break by using an imaginary cat as a prop, and before long, Colin is the only one actually doing any improv. Ryan simply stands in the background and laughs, his composure fully broken.

The best part of the original “Whose Line Is It Anyway” line-up was the incredible chemistry that everyone shared with Drew Carey. While setting up a game of “Let’s Make a Date,” Drew makes a friendly joke about no one wanting to actually date Greg. Greg in turn refuses to start the game, and playfully acts offended, even going full Jerry Springer and running towards Drew for a fight. Everyone quickly returns to their seats, the skit being thoroughly ruined, and Greg and Drew share a very intimate make-up hug. At least they didn’t get far into the skit before having to completely restart it...

As great as the performers are, some of the best bits of the show result from audience interaction. “Moving People” has audience members moving the limbs of Colin and Ryan while they act out a scenario. In this case, they are playing Tonto and the Lone Ranger getting attacked by outlaws. However, the man controlling Ryan refuses to move his head, forcing Ryan to stare at the same bit of carpet. Even though Colin and Ryan continuously prompt the man, he refuses to move Ryan’s head. Maybe it’s for humor purposes, or maybe he just wasn’t thinking about the head. Either way, it makes for one fantastic skit.

Wayne Brady has an impeccable ability to freestyle an entire song, and his musical talent is constantly on display throughout “Whose Line.” But they can’t all be winners. A game of “Doo Wop” forces Wayne, Colin, and Chip to sing about a woman named Emily, who died in a zoo accident. It starts well enough, but Wayne quickly goes off the rails with a bad piece of improv. He’s fully aware of the subpar performance, as he looks at host Aisha Tyler in disbelief and breaks out into laughter. While Chip does his darndest to continue in earnest, everyone else is left giggling at Wayne’s flub. Taylor sums it up beautifully: “It just derailed so fast.”

“Hoedown” is a fun game, but it could be a real pain for the performers. Hoedowns were notorious for being difficult and annoying to do, especially if someone flubbed and had to start all over again. The internet is filled with failed hoedowns that didn’t make the cut, and they are all hilarious. Sometimes the performers flub a line or stumble over words, and sometimes they fail to find a decent ending and finish their bit with an outburst of anger. Ryan had a particular hatred for hoedowns and would often end them with an f-bomb, a crude joke that would never make it to air, or a violent statement about how much he hates the game.

As disastrous as the buddy cop sound effects were, this one is on a whole other level. Drew picks two very reluctant ladies to do the sounds, and it’s clear that they have no idea what they’re supposed to do. Colin and Ryan play Batman and Robin, but they don’t get much to work with. The two ladies ignore their set-ups and only ghost noises are heard throughout the entire skit, prompting Colin and Ryan to work some improv magic. Luckily, they are masters of their craft, and turn a disaster into non-stop hilarity. In some ways, the worst Sound Effects of all time is also the funniest.

Drew Carey wasn’t a master improv performer, but he was always good for a laugh. Even if those laughs were sometimes… unintentional. Case in point - this bit from a game of Three-Headed Broadway Star. The point of the game is to sing a funny song one word at a time. While singing “You’ve Got Sole,” Drew gets a little carried away and passionately sings five words before realizing his mistake. The bit goes totally off the rails, and Drew can’t even finish the song without laughing. And then he accidentally interrupts Wayne and things get even worse. What a complete, albeit hilarious, disaster.

Is Colin the funniest member of “Whose Line”? Tough to say, though it often seems like Colin is the only one who can really make Ryan break. During a game of Greatest Hits, Ryan gives Colin a riddle: [what kind of bird always says the name of their next band?] Not taking the riddle seriously, Colin says arctic tern, before claiming that arctic terns scream “Backstreet Boys!” The surprising answer, plus Colin’s complete dedication to the bit, causes Ryan to break into hysterics. The laughing continues for almost a solid minute while Colin sits there looking particularly proud of himself. As he should be!

Here we have another game of Greatest Hits and another instance of Colin utterly obliterating Ryan. In one of the most famous segments from the show, Colin makes Ryan break by singing “Tapioca” in Ricky Ricardo’s voice. Ryan desperately tries to get through it without laughing but eventually succumbs in the middle of his sentence. They try to get through the rest of the bit, but Ryan has difficulty composing himself and continues laughing. It’s exceedingly rare to see Ryan laugh like this, so fans cherished every second of it.

In this bit, Ryan learned a valuable lesson: don’t tick Colin off with a clumsy segue. It will come back to haunt you. After Ryan awkwardly segue to the jitterbug, Colin simply stares at the camera in disbelief and sarcastically comments on Ryan’s work. Ryan adds insult to injury however, with a jab at Colin’s age. And Colin spends the rest of the game making increasingly-awful segue. We go from “bend a car” to Pat Benatar and then the particularly horrendous “bed cot philly paper” to Red Hot Chili Peppers. Even Ryan can’t believe that one.

One iteration of the aforementioned “Sound Effects” game has Ryan doing the sounds for Colin, who is acting out a scenario on stage. One of their funniest bits didn’t even make it to air, as it was so disastrous that it was cut from the finished episode. Ryan makes some ridiculous noises, and Colin can’t help but grin in bewilderment. Even Ryan starts to laugh at his own silly noises, knowing full well that he’s giving Colin nothing to work with. The skit then ends just about forty seconds after it began, with Colin shrugging his shoulders and Ryan laughing in embarrassment. This game really isn’t as easy as it looks...

Oh, the wonders of doing comedy in front of a live studio audience. Sometimes people goof up, and sometimes they choke on their own saliva. That was the case in this game of Greatest Hits, as Colin choked in the middle of his sentence. Ryan immediately cracks up, but Colin’s follow-up joke causes him to lose it completely. Perhaps the best part about the gaff is hearing Drew Carey giggling off screen. These being masters of the craft, they use Colin’s goof to launch into a whole new bit, with Colin stating that he was doing a “punk thing” reminiscent of his time with “The Naughty Boys.” And then he totally ruins it by segwaying from a punk voice to an old sea captain.

Sometimes the performers get a little too excited. In this game of Hollywood Director, an over-excited Chip jumps directly onto Ryan’s back, and Ryan is clearly none too thrilled with the idea. He immediately breaks character, yells at Chip to get off, and even swears in frustration. Meanwhile, Wayne hilariously stands off to the side and cringes. Colin immediately jumps in and ends the segment, chiding Chip and telling him that Ryan is “over 40!” Ryan continued to joke about the incident after returning to his seat, referring to the sensations of discs popping and vertebrae rubbing against each other.

It’s only natural for “Whose Line” cast members to poke fun at each other, and in this hilarious case, it came at the expense of Wayne. While introducing a game, Drew accidentally calls Wayne “Brad”, mixing him up with fellow cast member Brad Sherwood. Wayne makes the most of it, jokingly walking away in upset disappointment. In retaliation, Ryan calls Drew “Clive”, a reference to the UK “Whose Line” host, Clive Anderson. Not wanting to let it go, Drew once again targets Wayne by apologizing to “Greg.” It’s always great watching a bit go wrong when it’s all in good fun. Especially when the bit hasn’t even started yet!

The desk light fiasco has to be the most popular bit in “Whose Line” history. While playing Party Quirks, Ryan is assigned “Carol Channing, whose head keeps getting stuck to things.” He starts easy by butting his head into Colin’s chest and the floor. And then he goes for Drew’s desk. He accidentally runs into and shatters the desk light, prompting the audience to gasp, Kathy to scream and check on Ryan, Colin to cover his mouth, and Drew to lean over and survey the damage. Ryan does his best to keep the bit going and never breaks character, even when Drew is picking glass out of his hair. The game continues for another minute, but everyone just jokes about Ryan’s misfortune.

In one of the show’s most popular episodes, fitness instructor Richard Simmons was brought in to play Living Scenery. And while everyone knew things would get wild, no one could have predicted just how hilarious and outrageous they would get. Throughout the game, Colin intentionally puts himself and Ryan in compromising positions that are meant to elicit suggestive responses from Simmons. Simmons does the rest. The game is a bust from the very beginning, as everyone collapses into fits of laughter. Both the audience and Drew go absolutely ballistic, with Ryan and Colin even admiring the wild and guffawing audience. While they’re obviously used to laughing, they’ve likely never seen an audience so delirious and unrestrained.

As we’ve seen, “Whose Line” is filled with some glorious disasters. But none were as bad as this one during a game of Irish Drinking Song. It gets exactly three lines in before it goes haywire, with Ryan mumbling nonsense that causes Wayne and Drew to break into hysterics. Colin proceeds to meow like a cat and the music slowly peters out while everyone collects themselves. It eventually starts back up again, but the lyrics prove just as disastrous. By the end, Colin is the only one standing and singing the song, as everyone else is bent over in laughter. Never before has a bit gone to such shambles in such a short amount of time. It’s really quite extraordinary.