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** When Sellers is doing the aforementioned evil hand scene, you can see the guy who plays the Russian ambassador trying his hardest not to burst into fits of laughter, complete with shaking and much biting of the lip.
** In the final scene, Dr. Strangelove suddenly stands up and screams "I can walk!" delightedly. Supposedly, Sellers forgot that Strangelove was supposed to be a cripple, and shouted out the line to cover his mistake.
** The most spectacular Sellers example might be ''[[The Party (Film)|The Party]]'', which was mostly improvised from an outline provided to him and the other actors with the director's help.
** In ''[[Being There]]'', his response to the television producer's declaration of how many people will be watching him and the producer's reaction are also ad libs.
* Most of [[Drill Sergeant Nasty|R. Lee Ermey's dialogue]] in ''[[Full Metal Jacket]]'' was improvised, thus making him one of the very, very few actors allowed to go off-script in a Kubrick film. [[Urban Legend|Allegedly]], after the first take featuring the line "I'll bet you're the kind of guy that would fuck a person in the ass and not even have the goddamn common courtesy to give him a reach-around!" Kubrick approached Ermey and asked what the term meant. Ermey explained. Kubrick's reply was something to the effect of "Oh. Do some more of that."
* Most of the dialogue in ''[[Iron Man (Filmfilm)|Iron Man]]'' was ad-libbed with encouragement from director Jon Favreau who approved of the "naturalistic feel." The film was subjected to so many numerous re-writes that the script changed daily. In the end, scenes were shot with a skeletal script outlining important plot points and action with the actors creating the lines as they went. Robert Downey Jr., who joked about balling up the script and throwing it against the wall on numerous television appearances, was credited for improvising many of the movie's notable moments, including [[Iron Man|Tony Stark's]] speech for the "Jericho" demonstration and getting the reporters to sit on the floor at the press conference.
** In fact, [http://io9.com/5417310/jeff-bridges-admits-iron-man-movie-had-no-script according to Jeff Bridges], there was no actual script at all, and ''the entire movie'' was improvised. Bridges said he had problems getting his head around this style of filmmaking until he told himself to think of it as "a $200 million student film".
* In ''[[The Usual Suspects]]'', Fenster's bizarre mumbling accent was entirely improvised by Benicio del Toro, who felt the character as written was boring and one-dimensional. With the change, it ended up being del Toro's first breakout role.
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** Ditto for ''Kingpin''
* ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' is famous for blurring the line between ad libs and scripted dialogue, with nearly half the dialogue cited as ad libs by the cast. Examples include the famous "Twinkie" scene, Peter's response of "so do I" when Egon says he blames himself for not testing their proton packs, and Egon's response of "that would have worked if you hadn't stopped me" when Peter refers to a [[Noodle Incident]] involving Egon trying to drill a hole in his head. Sigourney Weaver's ad libs include comparing Peter to "a game show host" (the original line was a used-car salesmen, but she observed that he actually bounces around like a game show host), and much of Rick Moranis's dialogue as Louis welcomes people to his party is improvised.
* According to the commentary track on ''[[Spaceballs (Film)|Spaceballs]]'', Rick Moranis ad-libbed the entire "Dark Helmet playing with his action figures" scene.
* One of the most famous comedy line improvs appeared in the movie ''[[Wayne's World (Film)|Waynes World]]''. During a scene where the main characters Wayne and Garth are sitting atop their car watching airplanes take off, when suddenly Garth asks a strange question:
{{quote| '''Garth:''' Did... Did you ever find it attractive when [[Bugs Bunny/Characters|Bugs Bunny]] dressed up like a girl bunny?<br />
'''Wayne:''' No.<br />
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* Most of the dialogue between [[Bing Crosby]] and [[Bob Hope]] in the "[[Road To]]" movies was completely ad libbed, to the point that Dorothy Lamour often found herself unable to get in her lines. In ''The Road To Morocco'' Hope and Crosby share a scene with a live camel which decided to spit in Hope's face. The "attack" and Crosby's resulting ad-lib went into the film.
* While not a great film, ''[[The Score]]'' did have its moments. Several of them were the back and forth between Robert [[De Niro]] and Marlon Brando, who were purposely given only key points to hit in dialogue and then simply left in front of a camera.
* In the film of ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Filmfilm)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' (as opposed to the TV series) this also comes up in what is probably the film's single genuinely funny scene. Buffy, played by Kristy Swanson, stakes the [[Big Bad]]'s (Rutger Hauer's) second in command, who is being played by Paul Reubens. The scene as written simply required Reuben to say "You're gonna wish you died" and then slide out of shot. Which he did. And then, two seconds later, stood up again with stake still in his chest, putting on a bunch of fake but hilarious "ah, ooh, eee, ah, ooh!" noises and even looking directly at Swanson for one second before going off at it again. The fact the shot was ad-libbed is clearly visible in Swanson and Hauer's faces: Swanson ''turns'' to someone offscreen as if querying what's going on -- and the shot ''cuts'' to Hauer, on whom another camera was already rolling, and who has a vaguely amused look on his face and who ''shrugs'' as if to say "Just roll with it." Which they did, and the shot stayed in. A part of the performance even got into a postcredits sequence.
* In ''[[Gremlins]]'' the script had very little written for the Gremlins, so the voice actors made up a bunch of stuff they thought was funny for them to say; Frank Welker (voice of Stripe and others) said that he just made a bunch of random noises into the microphone. The recording staff thought it was so good they [[Throw It In|decided to leave it in]] and had the others follow on his example.
* In ''[[Mars Attacks (Film)]]'' no dialogue was written for the Martians so Frank Welker made up his own language for them.
* In ''[[Saving Private Ryan]]'', the whole anecdote about the girl and the barn was ad libbed by Matt Damon.
* In ''[[Romy and MichelesMichele's High School Reunion]]'', Lisa Kudrow made up the entire glue formula on the spot.
{{quote| Um, well, ordinarily when you make glue first you need to thermoset your resin and then after it cools you have to mix in an epoxide, which is really just a fancy-schmancy name for any simple oxygenated adhesive, right? And then I thought maybe, just maybe, you could raise the viscosity by adding a complex glucose derivative during the emulsification process and it turns out I was right. }}
* Another famous example of improv is the [[Mockumentary]] ''[[This Is Spinal Tap]]''. The movie had no script; the actors simply got into character and improved for hours. Rob Reiner shot several hours of footage which was distilled down into the movie itself; hours of outtakes have been included on the various DVD sets.
** Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer found they enjoyed this formula so much that they went on to make a number of other improv-ed mockumentaries, including ''[[Waiting for Guffman (Film)|Waiting for Guffman]]'', ''[[Best in Show]]'', ''[[A Mighty Wind]]'', and ''[[For Your Consideration]]''. Most of the ensemble cast in these movies started out in improv comedy groups such as the famous Second City.
* [[Tommy Lee Jones]] reportedly didn't have much respect for the scripts of ''[[Men in Black (Filmfilm)|Men in Black]]'' and the sequel, and made up most of his lines as the camera rolled.
** He may have had more respect for the script of the ''[[The Fugitive (Filmfilm)|The Fugitive]]'', but he did the same thing while filming it--ad-libbing what became his character's defining line (and the film's most famous)--"I don't care!". And the fugitive himself, [[Harrison Ford]], deliberately did not learn the lines for the scene where he's interrogated by the police, wanting his responses and reactions as their questions and attitude change from helpful to hostile to be as realistic as possible.
** Ford did the same thing in the original [[Star Wars]], not learning his dialogue for the scene where he tries to respond to a call to the detention cell.
* [[John Rhys Davies]] in [[The Lord of the Rings (Filmfilm)|The Lord of the Rings]]. Many of his lines were this, including the one during the drinking game in Two Towers when he says that "It's the Dwarves that go swimming with little hairy women".
** Doubles as a [[Shout-Out]], since he was basing it on a line from [[Jaws]]
 
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* The scripts of [[The Mighty Boosh]] are only loosely written, usually only specifying a few things the actors need to say to further the plot, with much of the rest being improvised. The performers often change their lines between takes to keep their delivery fresh. This is even more the case with the original radio show which was less rehearsed than the TV show.
* ''Outnumbered'', a British sitcom about life with three kids, uses a fair amount of improvisation. It produces remarkably realistic acting from the child actors, as they're allowed and encouraged to say things in their own words.
* ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?]]'' easily popularized the knowledge of improv games to general audiences.
** Evidently, the same can be said of ''[[The Drew Carey Show]]'', who had quite a few cast members translate between the two shows. The "Drew Live" episodes were at least partially improvised.
** As well as its spiritual successors ''Drew Carey's Green Screen Show'' and ''Improv-A-Ganza''.
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* Unlike many of today's tightly-scripted and -edited cooking programs, the original nationally-recognized cooking program, ''The French Chef with Julia Child'' (later known as ''Julia Child and Friends''), was largely an improvised program, with the recipe and some of the ''mise en place'' just about the only already cemented elements of the program. If Julia made an error in the program, it stayed, and if she was having a problem with, say, butchering a piece of meat, that stayed too. Granted, this was pretty much the nature of many television programs at the time, but it added to Child's overall charm and likeability with the audience, because it gave the home cook the ability to see that everything didn't need to go perfectly. This arguably led to Julia Child's becoming the first celebrity chef and the progenitor of all the cooking shows on television today.
* The regular troupe of ''[[The Carol Burnett Show]]'' would regularly go [[Off the Rails]], and the resulting [[Throw It In]] featured the comedians failing to keep a straight face.
* Charlie's rants in ''[[ItsIt's Always Sunny in Philadelphia]]'' were improvised on the spot. In later seasons he was paired more often with Dee because she was more able to roll with it without breaking on camera.
* ''[[Parks and Recreation]]'' is shot on digital video rather than film to let the actors improvise at length without the high cost of film stock.
* [[Saturday Morning Kids Show|SaturdayMorningKidsShows]] are often only semi-scripted, because they're live and the kids are going to throw everything off anyway. ''[[SMTV Live]]'' interspersed scripted sketches (with lots of [[Throw It In]] and [[Lampshade Hanging]] of forgotten lines) with unscripted chat, while ''[[Dick and Dom Inin Da Bungalow (TV)|Dick and Dom In Dada Bungalow]]'' was pretty much entirely [[Improv]]- [[Word of God]] is the hosts just had a running order, no script. A couple of actors played lots of recurring characters who would come in each week, and would have a few prepared jokes when they first entered, but they would then have to improvise as they interacted with the hosts and the children.
* [[Community (TV)|Community]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvxL5G9keLg is] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yU36E2J4z48 fond] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4Egdb3Vj4g&feature=related of] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4R03kYx9QY this.]
* Many guests on the ''[[Colgate Comedy Hour (TV)|Colgate Comedy Hour]]'' preferred this over following the script.
 
 
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* In baroque and classical concertos there is a section called a cadenza, where the soloist goes on an unaccompanied flight of fancy, before leading the orchestra in to finish the cadenza. It used to be customary to improvise these, but in modern times, cadenzas are almost always written out beforehand, and in romantic concertos, the composer often writes the cadenza as well.
* Organists are expected to be able to improvise, and improvisation is a component of high-level exams in most conservatories.
* Blues, rock and to a lesser degree [[Heavy Metal (Music)|Heavy Metal]] are some other genres that tend to feature a lot of instrumental improvisation. Like in jazz, improvisation in these genres is usually based on the "pentatonic blues scale".
* George Gershwin found out about his being booked to write and perform a new piece for an upcoming concert only three weeks before the concert was supposed to go on. The score he turned in for "Rhapsody in Blue," which he'd composed in those three weeks, had blank spaces where his piano solos were supposed to go, with the notation "Wait For Nod" to tell the conductor when to bring the rest of the orchestra back in.
* The Frogs' songs are often improvisation heavy, and sometimes this will include clearly flubbing a lyric, then quickly trying to find a way to make it still work, often while in character. One particularly obvious case of this is the following passage of "I'm Hungry": "You can't eat food with a bent throat! ''YOU'' try fooding eat - You eat... Yeah, ''you'' eat all right! I ''watch'' you eat! I never get no food...."
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== Radio ==
* BBC radio show ''[[The Masterson Inheritance (Radio)|The Masterson Inheritance]]'' is improvised from a set of plot elements given by the audience. (It shares a few cast members with ''Whose Line...'')
* Central to the legend -- if not always the actual performance -- of comedy team [[Bob and Ray|Bob & Ray]]. Their act began literally as two guys batting it around on-air, and never stopped sounding like it, regardless of an increasing reliance on scripts as their performance workload got heavier.
 
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** Bad Dog Theatre Company - Toronto
** Improv Asylum - Boston
** The Comedy Store Players- London. Many of the early cast of ''[[Whose Line Is It Anyway?]]'', started off there, and the BBC radio show ''The Masterson Inheritance'' is basically one long Players sketch per episode.
* Australian comedy team [[The Umbilical Brothers]]. A few of their routines are improvised, including suggestions from the audience.
 
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* Paul Rugg's audition to provide the voice of [[Freakazoid]] went way, ''way'' off-script. Nearly all of it was then animated as part of the first episode, "Dance of Doom."
** Some episodes were written with a Paul Harvey-type narrator. Paul Rugg, warming up his Paul Harvey impression, would say things like "smack me with a handle" or "I think there's a thuuuuuuumbtack under my fanny!" and, as before, was surprised to see it had been animated as part of the episode.
* In ''[[The Emperor's New Groove (Disney)|The Emperors New Groove]]'', Patrick Warburton improvised when Kronk hummed his own theme song when he was carrying Kuzco in the bag to the waterfall. Disney legal department had Patrick to sign all rights to the humming composition over to them.
 
 
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