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Harpo Does Something Funny: Difference between revisions
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* Harpo Marx, of course, with Groucho Marx coming in a close second. (The actual notes in the scripts are more likely to say, "Business.")
** Referenced in ''[[Discworld
* [[Laurel and Hardy]] were masters of improvisation, often to the point that their scripts would contain a few pages of notes outlining the general story with the expectation that most of the gags would be improvised on the set. For instance, a script might say, "Stan puts on his shoes," only for the comedy duo to turn it into a hilarious three-minute routine. Because of this, their films were largely shot in-sequence in order to maintain continuity since they usually had no idea exactly what was going to transpire from one scene to the next. This ensured that if Ollie got an unscripted bucket of water on the head in one scene that he would show up sopping wet in the following scene.
** The four and a half page script for ''Our Wife'' included a line that simply read, "Go for some ad-libbed business about getting Babe [Oliver Hardy] and the girl into the car." This ended up being the longest scene in the entire film.
** ''Laurel and Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies'' by Randy Skretvedt relates the following told by actor Henry Brandon: "I said, 'Aren't we going to rehearse?' And Stannie turned to me and said, 'Do you want to ''spoil'' it?' The only things they rehearsed were physical stunts. They never rehearsed dialogue. They would sort of say what they were going to do, but they wouldn't get up and do it physically until the camera was rolling; they wanted to capture the magic for the first time."
* [[Robin Williams]] comedies also offer this leeway, such as in ''[[Good Morning Vietnam]]'' and ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]''. The latter produced over ten hours of Genie dialogue.
** There were parts of the ''Aladdin'' script that said "ROBIN SAYS SOMETHING LIKE THIS:".
** Similarly, after the first few episodes, most scripts for ''[[Mork and Mindy]]'' would end up studded with "Robin goes off here".
** Williams recorded all his voice work for ''Aladdin'' in the studio across the street from where they were filming ''[[Schindler's List]]'', which is, of course, one of the most depressing movies of all time. At the end of every day, he would cross the street and cheer up the ''List'' cast and crew with his material, much of which made it into the film. ''Aladdin'', that is. Not ''Schindler's List''.
** It's pretty much an impossibility for Williams to NOT do something funny. Just ask anyone who has filmed a scene where he has to walk through a door. Getting the shot can take hours simply because he can't resist the urge to walk through with his clothes on backwards or say something to make the whole cast burst into laughter. They actually take precaution in writing stage directions now if they know he'll be cast.
** In ''[[
* Nathan Lane, very much so. In fact, when he starred with Robin Williams in ''[[The Birdcage]]'', they were instructed by their director ([[Mike Nichols]], [[Nichols And May|no stranger to improvisation himself]]) to do one take by the script, then were allowed to improvise.
* [[Jim Carrey]], in an interview during the making of ''[[Me Myself and Irene]]'' said, "It's amazing how blank a script will be. It just says 'Jim does something funny.'"
* Stanley Kubrick almost never allowed this; one exception he made was for Peter Sellers in ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]''. Largely because you never tried to pin down Peter Sellers.
** He also made an exception for [[R. Lee Ermey]] in ''[[Full Metal Jacket]]'', since there's no point scripting lines for a [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]] character when you have [[Truth in Television|the real deal]] on hand who is perfectly capable of improvising for fifteen straight minutes while being pelted with tennis balls and rotten oranges and without moving, changing expression, ''or repeating himself once''. [[hottip:*:[[Cluster F-Bomb|(Mostly.)]]
* A fair amount of the [[Bob Hope]]/[[Bing Crosby]] ''[[Road To|Road]]'' pictures consisted of this, despite the fact that a script theoretically existed. Dorothy Lamour later described her contribution to the films as "like I was watching a game of tennis".
* By the time the [[Three Stooges]]' "schtick" was well-established, script writers found it easier to just write in generic stage instructions such as "Moe punishes Curly" and let the boys work it out on their own. (A lot easier than writing out "Moe punches Curly in the stomach, bops him in the forehead, twists his ears," etc.) Curly's reactions and half-hearted or backfiring attempts at revenge were also often ad-libbed.
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** Even more impressively, Murray's scenes had no script written for them at all. He was on set for a total of six days and whenever he got started up, they just let the camera roll on him and see where it went.
* The scene in the Czech film ''Císařův pekař'' where the alchemist explains to the emperor his procedure for making "gold out of plums" (i.e. plum brandy) has been ad-libbed; the actor's script only read "speaks in a foreign language". (Listen to it [http://hlasky-z-filmu.cz/cisaruv-pekar-pekaruv-cisar/ here] - scene "zlato ze švestek".)
* Apparently a good deal of the dialog in ''[[Iron Man (
** [[Jeff Bridges]] described the experience as a $200 million college film. He found it surreal. It worked.
* [[Robert Altman]]'s film version of ''[[
** Altman himself said on the director's commentary that the tone of the screenplay contributed heavily to the tone of the movie, and praised the screenplay for the quality it brought to the movie.
* In one scene of ''[[
** A few scenes later, he appears again on TV with a completely ad-libbed scene, which begins with him eating a watermelon and soon dissolves into a silly bit of him playing with the "toy man" from his box of Corn Flakes. While not all of this is shown (as it is intercut with a scene of Weird Al's character and his friend), the deleted scenes portion of the DVD shows the whole thing, and "Weird Al" Yankovic (the star and co-writer of the movie) comments that "The great thing about Michael is you can turn on the camera and tell him to just go nuts for two minutes. Well here he is, doing just that."
* The famous "[[You Talkin' to Me?]]?" scene in ''[[Taxi Driver]]'' was written in the script as "Travis talks in the mirror" and the rest was improvised by [[Robert De Niro]]. [[Martin Scorsese]] was stooped just below the camera silently encouraging De Niro to keep going. What De Niro was saying is a common exercise used by actors to practice different interpretations of a similar phrase.
** The rest of the movie has this as well. The parts of Tom (Betsy's co-worker), Sport, Betsy and The Wizard were supposedly fairly underwritten in the script. The casting of Albert Brooks and Harvey Keitel led to lots of improvisation and expansion, with Keitel's role in particular expanding from a mere five lines to a larger scene of dialog that made him one of the most memorable aspects of the movie.
* In the DVD extras for the ''[[The Lord of the Rings (
* [[Jackie Chan]] hardly ever scripts his fight scenes, preferring to turn up to the location and see what he can use.
* ''[[District 9]]'' was almost entirely improvised. Director Neill Blomkamp had specific ideas for each scene, and directed the actors with timing cues for when and where certain actions were to take place, but the actual dialogue and performance for the scene was entirely improvised. They would do several takes, usually without the cameras rolling and often with several different variations on the scene, until Neill and the rest of the cast decided that they had a good approach to how the scene should specifically play out; they would then film it with that direction in mind. Neill and the rest of the actors commented in the DVD extras that Sharlto Copely (Wikus) was the undisputed master of this trope.
* In a ''Behind the Scenes'' video of ''[[Night
* In the book ''Gracie: A Love Story'', [[George Burns]] notes that scripts for movies where he and [[Gracie Allen]] played bit parts frequently featured scenes that simply said "[[Burns And Allen]] do four minutes here".
* When [[John Carpenter]] was filming ''Vampires'', he asked James Woods to do a take of each scene as it was scripted, and allowed him to improvise after that. According to the DVD commentary, a lot of the improvised material (like his speech to Padre about [[Our Vampires Are Different|the strengths and weaknesses of vampires]]) made it into the final cut.
* The entire scene in ''[[
* Stunt coordinator for the ''[[Star Wars]]'' prequels Nick Gillard says that the screenplays will often say "and an epic swordfight ensues" for the lightsaber battles which he choreographs.
* Averted in ''[[PCU]]''. [[Jeremy Piven]] ad libbed in his audition and assumed he would do the same for the film, but was immediately shut down by the director.
* In ''[[From Dusk
** The same goes for [[Jessica Alba]] in ''[[Sin City]]''. Alba requested a choreographer, but Rodriguez told her to just make it up as she went. Strangely enough, a different song was later dubbed over the scene.
* Kevin Smith claimed, jokingly, that he sometimes does this when he's writing. He claims to put 'Jay and Silent Bob say something remotely witty' in the scripts.
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* Original airings of ''[[Saturday Night Live]]'' are always live, but sometimes they'll use rehearsal takes for rebroadcasts. However, Lorne Michaels severly discourages improvisation in most cases because the timing on the show is so tight, to the extent of banning guests from the show for doing so.
* Jimmy Smits supposedly left ''[[NYPD Blue]]'' because David Milch insisted on the actors often improvising scenes without a script at all.
* Dwight Schultz has said one of the scariest things during the filming of ''[[
* [[Chevy Chase]], Joel McHale and Donald Glover are generally given free rein to improvise on ''[[
* Art Carney did a lot of [[The Honeymooners|Ed Norton]]-style improvisation in ''[[The Star Wars Holiday Special]]''. [[Lampshaded]] by [[
{{quote| '''Bill Corbett:''' [[Sarcasm Mode|Art Carney does something funny... for the next ten minutes.]]}}
* ''[[Reno 911]]'' is all done improvisationally. Scripts set up scenes and indicate plot points; the actors come up with their own dialogue.
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* ''[[The Monkees]]'': The group was not only allowed, but encouraged to improvise, and gaps were often left in the script to facilitate this, especially where Micky Dolenz was concerned.
* [[Glee]]'s Heather Morris is said to do this during table readings, often playing on the previous dialog of characters. Brittany's one liners are sometimes penciled in after the initial readings.
* The Muppet and kid segments in ''[[
* Each scene in ''[[The Thick of It]]'' was filmed twice, once as scripted followed by an improvised version. The finished programme used material from both takes.
* On Rory Bremner's programmes, John Bird & John Fortune's sections would often just be scripted as 'John and John talk about ''subject'' '
* The [[German Media|German TV show]] ''Schillerstraße'' is basically a whole TV show made of this. Various German comedians are bound to a loose story, and the whole script is a [[Throw It In]] by the director too, because the actors got earplugs to listen to his directions (and even only the one/s who should do something will hear it, to much confusion of the rest of the cast).
* [[Britcom|British sitcom]] ''[[Outnumbered]]'' has taken this premise to its limits. Focusing on the lives of the Brockmans, the kids are only given a basic outline, almost all their dialogue is improvised, and the adults' role is to keep everything following the basic direction of the story. Whilst the adults are heavily scripted they do a significant amount of reacting to all of the amazing things the kids say. The result is the kids' dialogue is probably the most authentic on TV (ignoring anything that's non fiction) and far more imaginative than anything the writers could come up with.
* [[J. Michael Straczynski]] did this at least once with a ''director'' in ''[[Babylon
* Many of the scenes with with Gage and DeSoto working on a victim on ''[[Emergency]]'' clearly involved the director and writers setting up the situation and having Mantooth and Tighe, the two actors who had [[Doing It for
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* This was pretty much the premise to ''[[Home Movies]]''. The actors were given outlines of what would happen in the episodes and the dialogue was mostly made up. An infamous scene in the first season about McGuirk and his tattoos was completely improvised by H. Jon Benjamin and Brendan Small. As well, the basis for Lynch's appearance was based on a description that McGuirk ad-libbed.
* Katie Crown improvises most of her dialogue for Izzy in ''[[
* ''[[The Simpsons (
** Though Castellaneta did pick up on it enough to add "Oh, in the hammock district" at just the right time.
** Homer's "D'oh!" was scripted as "(annoyed grunt)", and still is to this day, even when it renders episode titles (like "E-I-E-I-(ANNOYED GRUNT)") nonsensical.
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== Web Original ==
* According to commentaries, when [[
** Three examples came up in [[
* A common feature in ''[[Shiny Objects Videos]]'' is allowing for bits and pieces of improv. Even more often, a variant--scripts are changed just moments before they are filmed.
* In the commentary for [[Web Video/Nostalgia Critic|Nostalgia Critic]] and [[Phelous]]' joint review of [[Childs Play]], the part where {{spoiler|Phelous transfers his soul into a pencil sharpener}} was largely unscripted. Doug Walker essentially wrote "Improvise, make it up, I don't care", and ended up using all of Phelan Porteous' ad-libs.
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* At one point on the original cast recording of ''House of Flowers'', Pearl Bailey says, "Suppose I have an ad-lib here filled in here for the record date, but we've been so terribly busy over in the theatre we haven't had time."
* ''[[The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged]]'' mixes this with [[Audience Participation]]. Which means the correct response to [[Get Thee to
** In particular, the entire second act is a re-do of ''[[Hamlet]]'' in about a quarter of the time. When they get to this point, they bring in an audience member (usually the one the "Adam" role vomits on) to play the part, encouraging the other audience members to recite a mantra for part of Ophelia's psyche.
** A better example of this might even be the fact that that same night had an audience member named [[Awesome McCoolname|Hercules]]...cuing off-the-cuff jokes about Olympus. Eventually, the proper reproduction of the play ended with the "Daniel" part ''picking up a local mountain'' to squash Claudius (the "Adam" role), with a joke about how much strength that would need.
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** It was also expected in Baroque opera and concerti that the soloist would ornament their part in the repeats, adding turns and trills all over the place. More akin to Harpo Does Something Virtuosic.
* The Strawbs live number entitled "Temperament of Mind", performed on solo piano during the Wakeman era, could accurately have been called "Rick does something awesome".
* [[
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