Improv Journal, Numero Dos

More recently, other games usually reserved for later in the show have crept into the opening head-to-head round. One favorite, Da Doo Ron Ron, stems from the old D. Spector/J. Barry song, You know the one. It goes, "I met her on a Monday and my heart stood still... da doo ron ron ron, da doo ron ron." (Did they run out of lyrics or get caught up in the same nonsensical word craze that brought us "Bop-she-bop" and "Ram-a-lam-a-lam-a-lam-a-ding-dong"? We may never know.) The referee gets a one syllable name - for instance, Jake - and explains the rules, which in a moment I'll make very apparent. Players line up in alternating colors, blue-red-blue-red, etc. or red-blue-red-blue, etc., creating a colorful stage picture that hopefully distracts the audience from the sea of polyester pants. The third player from the right usually looks nervous, for reasons that will also soon be very apparent.

The keyboardist to starts them off with a piano riff, at the end of which the first player cuts in a time and a place for having met this "Jake." For instance: "I met him at a funeral, his name was Jake!"

Everyone else: "Da doo ron-ron-ron, da doo ron-ron."

The next player down now rhymes the name in a little story, "He was mourning his mother's passing with a giant heartache."

Everyone else: "Da doo ron-ron-ron, da doo ron-ron."

The third player then comes up with three distinct rhymes in a significantly shortened meter. For instance, "She had stepped on a rake... that had been left by a drake... or a mallard (I misspake)... da doo ron ron ron, da doo ron ron."

Of course, that's in an ideal world. If the player can't think up a rhyme, skips one too many beats, repeats another player's or toad's own rhyme, mumbles or spits on anyone in the front row in the course of toad's ruminations, toad gets kicked out of the cue. If toad spits on anyone in the back row (15' away and awfully hard to keep at least a little dribble from landing on the front) toad gets an extra point. The last one up wins.

Unfortunately, this game sometimes degenerates into real-world comedy bloodsport, with performers looking to win, (personal note: don't look like a wimp writing this... other players will eat you alive) rather than entertain. People get lazy and assume rhyming in coherent sentences is enough. Oh, mais non, ma chere! To keep the audience entertained the rhyme has to surprise, either through polysyllabic trickery or completing a thought and forming a coherent story around the name.

Red Shirt: "I met him in a balloon and his name was Phil!"

Everyone else: "Da doo ron, etc."

Blue Shirt: "He climbed out on top and nearly had a spill,"

Everyone else: "Da doo ron, etc...

oh, oh, oh... yeah!"

Red Shirt: "He wrote out his will,

Everyone else: "Yeah!"

Red Shirt: "With a Victorian quill." Everyone else: "Yeah!"

Red Shirt: "The ink was Minoxydyl."

Everyone else: "Da doo ron, etc."

(I have the advantage of typing here. On stage, without benefit of stopping time like I can at my word processor, I usually lose in the first three rounds or so. The first suggestion has a special irony for me: at a crucial moment, when the referee announced that everything hinged on the final round of Da Doo Ron Ron, I choked on "Jake". The next twenty minutes, my bastard subconscious returned obscure words like, "ache", "steak", "awake", and "earthquake". Oh, brain - too little, too late.)

One side gains the advantage when the other loses players. Ideally, representatives of both sides of the stage face off in the last round, a final red-blue yin-vs.-yang. The referee usually evens the odds by putting the opening line two people up from the team he wants to whittle down. The third person gets the challenge of rhyming three times. In a three-person game, that means toad has to work three times as hard each time the name comes 'round to toad. Some names, however, guarantee few if any rhymes. If as an audience member you ever get really sick of the game, just lob the name-grenades "Carl" or "Jeff" into the players and watch them go down like ten-pins.

The winner runs back to toad's team, slapping mid-level five's (high five's go over the head, mid-level five's hit about chest-level and span several players) and repeating the cheer. The losers tuck their tails between their legs and promise to avenge their fallen comrades.

Thus ends the opening round.

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