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So the warm-up works like this: everyone stands in a circle except one in the middle. That person approaches someone in the outer circle and demands “Give me back my son!” with complete dramatic commitment — inspired by Mel Gibson’s over-dramatic delivery in the movie Ransom — trying to get the outer circle person to laugh. It’s to practice emotional commitment and also making your teammates laugh — two valuable skills.

Pete Bosniak brought that into Monkeydick one day (apparently he and his Philly crowd would do this for fun or something), and I started teaching it to groups I was coaching. Anyway, Chris Gethard (he’s wearing the blue ‘Smurfs’ t-shirt) made the above montage — made all the more awesome as it is presented without any real explanation. It’s hilarious and captures the weird fun of the warm-up perfectly. Sue Galloway (number 2) is the only person who I’ve seen do this and never, ever break.

I called Pete to let him know his warm-up was becoming legendary. He said that was “dope” or something (See, Pete is a DJ), but he said that his Philly friends have added a twist where the person is allowed to respond “Not Without My Daughter!” a la Sally Field. A funny idea but I had a class try that and it ruins the drama somehow. Sorry Pete!

| Tags: improv, ucbt