If there is one thing that fascinates me about improv and that is how it is portrayed in Television, books and Film. This is becoming more and more apparent in recent years because the comedy art form is sort of in fashion. There are some interesting topics that we can gain from these ways they are displayed so every so often we are going to look at different scenes from different shows and films.
I never thought I would use this article to write about a Children’s show but here we are. One of my house rabbits loves the background noise of CBeebies Channel so I put Bluey on the other day for her and saw this episode and ended up watching in it’s entirety. I felt it was an episode that related to improv and is a lot of so I thought I would talk about it today.
In episode 1, season 1, the show opens up with the concept of the magic xylophone. This means that whenever Bluey or Bingo play a note on the toy the dad has to freeze. When he freezes they put him into different positions so that he looks really silly and only unfreezes when they play another note.
Remind you of something?
For me, it reminded me instantly of freeze tag. The way that the children move their dad when he is frozen and the fun situations they put him into when he cannot move.
They always say that improv has a childlike element to it and this sort of defines that. This episode ends with the dad being turned into a water fountain and it really makes you think about freeze tag situations. Additionally he knows that the magic xylophone isn’t freezing him but he commits to staying and getting wet to entertain his children.
I have seen improv shows where players have enjoyed the freeze element of this game and made it part of the comedy. Even when the freeze position is hard to hold, I have seen players commit just as hardcore as the dad in Bluey.
Freeze tag is such a powerful short form game and it was fun to see a different version of it as it is a lot of fun even in animation form.
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