Funny and Unforgettable Ad-Libs — Page 3

"The night I saw Spamalot, after the minute or so of gibberish as the Knight of Ni, Hank added, "So come up to the lab -- and see what's on the slab!" And of course, being Hank Azaria, he was able to make his voice sound exactly like Tim Curry's. It was extremely funny! Tim looked so surprised and then so delighted..."

I would have *loved* to hear that variation! Thanks for passing it along.

When I saw Hairspray, during Timless To Me, Stephen DeRosa (wilbur) started laughing and he couldn't stop, because of the way J.P. was lookin at him. He couldn't control his laughing for about a minute, and J.P. kept patting him on the head, feeling his rear end, making funny noises, and then at the end he says somethinlg like "are you ready now?" lol

---

By the way, it's a little known fact that the now famous phrase of The Producers: "Who do you have to @#$% to get a break in this town," was not originally in the script. I believe the story was that Nathan Lane ad libbed it in a rehearsal for it and Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan have taken credit for it ever since.

---

Please excuse the double post, but when I saw The Rocky Horror Show, Penn & Teller played the Narrator (er...Narrators?). Of course, you know, The Rocky Horror Show is known for its audience par-ti-ci....(SAY IT!!!!!)....pation! Well, there was this one guy in the audience who kind of mock insulted Penn & Teller and then Penn gets mad and yells, "Mother@#$%^&!" And both of them did a magic illusion making it seem as if they were killing the guy (complete with red liquid.) And then they go back to their place in the middle of the theater and Penn says, "As I was saying..."

By the way, of course, everyone knows that Teller doesn't talk, right? Well, here, he did kinda talk (he was covering his mouth when doing so.) And he did a lot of silly ad libs. Like so: "And crawling...on the planet's face ("What do you put on your pizza?") / Some insects...called the human race ("Where's all our money?") / Lost in time... (Teller and Audience: "What's your favorite television show?") / Lost in space... ("What's lacking in our careers?") / And meaning."

---

I wasn't there, but apparently the night Robin Williams saw Spamalot, Hank Azaria added "na-noo, na-noo" into that ad-lib.

Bruce Vilanch in Hairspray! "Wilbur, if Russel Crowe calls, tell him to hold the phone" and "I was a ballerina once- did you ever see Fantasia? Third hippo from the left."

I saw that too! Hilarious! But.. you sure it was an ad-lib??

I remember when I saw The Producers with Lane and Broderick, I believe Leo was having his panic attack when he and Max first met and he put his blanket over his mic and it made a fuzzy noise. Lane goes "a little static electricity there," to which Broderick responded "oh, man, anything can happen when I'm this nervous." They seemed to ad-lib alot, sometimes if some technical problem occured, but that's one I remembered clearly.

---

The rocky Horror show, a group of friends and i went when Dick Cavett was narrating, and at one point i dont remember the line, but my friend amy and i shouted something out about him, and he stoped what he was saying, looked over in our area, and said " I will bitch slap you to the curb" and just went right back to what he was doing. it was hysterical to say the least.

also when i saw wicked bak in january...jan 5th to be axact. during the scene when the wizard sings wonderful, idina was saying a line, and she bumped her hat with her hand, and the mic that is in her hat, made a really loud noise, and george hearn jumped back, and laughed, and idina looked up to the booth where her mic was controlled from, tapped her hat agin, it made no noise, and she gave a thumbs up, and they went right back to what they were doing.

to clear up the buckets thing.

Jennifer has an obsession w/ the word 'bucket' and so everytime they did the BCEFA speech, Shoshana would allow Jennifer to have her moment of glory and say 'bucket'. So it became known that every night JLT would scream out 'BUCKET' or do something w/ the bucket. Eventually apparently Michelle Federer *i think*, lead the ensemble to do a spin whenever JLT would scream bucket, at first apparently Sho & JLT had no idea they were spinning, or pretended not too... and eventually it caught on and they noticed it. On JLT's last, Shoshana mentioned something about 'not forgetting the bucket' or 'oh crap the bucket' or something at the end of 'for good'... and an homage i assume....quite cute actually...


As for my favorite ad lib... it was probably May 29ths Wicked, JLT's last, and JLT was doing popular and kept adding flowers to Shoshana's head. And she handed Sho the mirror and was like 'Elphie.. look at you, you're beautiful' and Sho burst into laughter and said 'Oh Yea'.. but totally out of character.. it was just really funny... the whole picture of Shoshana w/ 5 flowers on her head.. and yea ..

Another hilarious adlib was Norbert was late coming onto the stage during his entrace in DRS, and Lithgow was sitting on the 'train' and reading his paper, and he started saying how 'Ohhh this paper's in German.. this will come in handy later in the show' and 'ohhhh my partner seems to be late...' and just sat there 'reading'.. and then Norbs walks on and he sits down, the waiter asks for his order and he said 'Sorry..... can u give me a few minutes? i'm still stuck in my dressing room!'... it was hilarious! but you probalby had to be there!

Last year when we saw Lily Tomlin do her revival of SEARCH FOR SIGNS . . ., she stopped suddenly about 2/3 through and said, "I need some water." As she leaned against the proscenium enjoying a drink, she turned and said, "I'm sorry, I'm old." (she was 65 at the time) That garnered her ONE of her standing ovations that evening.

I couldn't do that show now at age 42 - we won't even discuss her at 65!

I saw Jewtopia this past Christmas Eve (it was the only show playing that night, I think), and during the Act I scene where Adam is quizzing Chris about "authentic" Jewish behavior, they threw in what was probably a pre-planned ad-lib:

Adam: Oh, here's another one: what do Jews do on Christmas Eve?
Chris (triumphantly, after a pause): They go to the theater!

They got a huge laugh for that.

---

A famous one from the original production of "Annie" happened when Allison Smith was playing the title role. During the "Tomorrow" scene, Sandy started puking all over the stage. When the Hooverville-ites come over to Annie and ask her if she's hungry, Allison ad libbed, "No, but my dog is!"

^^^^^^^^^^ I thought "No, but my dog is!" was in the actual script? It's in the one I did! lol