Yes, and what else?

Under the tepid sprinkling of applause (it's not always "a smattering") and the shaky lights of a middling night club, improv comedians truly shine. Or do they glare? They certainly reflect whatever the audience has in their watered-down snifters. In our society, improv is placed on a relatively high plane, seeing as they make it up right on the spot. It’s odd, considering that scripts are much more difficult to complete than going off the cuff.

What makes an improv comic different from you, me or the guy cutting our sandwiches? Improv is a part of everyday life. It’s why car dealers are slimy. There’s this sense they are reading from a pre-determined script, a sleazy spiel designed to break you. I say whatever pops into my head and so does everyone else. Does the fact that several lucky souls get to do it in front of a crowd for paying customers change the equation? Not to me it doesn’t.

There’s no one I know who goes out in public with cue cards and someone talking into their earpiece. We all get by, mostly. Improv artistes aren’t unique or special, they are in the grand tradition of winging it. Who hasn’t done what they do at work or at home? It’s time to demystify their skill and point out that it’s tantamount to human nature.

But people fall over themselves praising the witty banter on stage. The dirty secret of improv is that the funniest parts are often scripted, or at least, thought of beforehand from a joke matrix. The number of truly original things ever said on one of their stages you could count on a single five-fingered hand. Same with prop comics, who suffer derision from their peers. Who doesn’t use props on a regular basis? Nudists. And even for them, it’s questionable to what extent that's really true. 

I’m not saying that improv isn’t hard. It just isn’t any harder than participating in the world as a human being. This has me thinking that scripts might be helpful. It has worked wonders for politicians. Are average citizens next?