Word: ad-lib
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...wish the real Kevin Smith had made this movie - the man of wit, passion and sidewise humor who could turn a rant about airline personnel into an ad-lib apologia for being a tad on the heavy side. I wish he'd made that movie; I'd sure rather see the comedy thriller South by Southwest than the drab, flabby...
...Perry's out to have fun too. He regularly steps out of character to ad-lib - chastising latecomers in the audience ("The show starts at 8. You move a little slower, you need to leave a little earlier"), joking about a co-star's bad breath and delivering impromptu movie reviews. (He praises Disney's The Princess and the Frog for having a black heroine but laments that she doesn't wind up with a black prince: "Black woman can't even have a black man in animation!") After the curtain call, he spends another 15 minutes talking...
...unlike most performers, he has enough fresh material to make each of the appearances included in the movie seem as if he were giving a new speech every night. His jolly, intimate style sells every zinger to audiences who would have bought his line anyway. He's also an ad-lib adept. When one clutch of Catholic protesters recites the Our Father and Hail Mary aloud during a rally, Moore asks them, "You're not gonna do the whole rosary, are ya?" and then the more pertinent, "What did Jesus bomb?" The movie leaves little doubt that if Kerry...
BEFORE HE LAUNCHED A musical-parody troupe that wryly skewered pols from both sides of the aisle, Bill Strauss was a policy expert and adviser on serious matters of the Senate. Then at a Memorial Day party in 1981, a group of Beltway revelers broke into silly ad-lib ditties about the Reagan Administration, and the bipartisan Capitol Steps was born. Since 1984, when Strauss took the troupe professional, it has become a $3 million-a-year business, recording 29 albums and touring widely. Among its repertoire: My Momma Told Me: You Better Sleep Around (inspired by Monica Lewinsky...
...hosts (who are also members of AFTRA, the union representing performers) are free to perform on their shows, but not to write material for themselves. Of course, the question of whether a wisecrack that Conan or Dave thinks up in advance should be regarded as written material or an ad-lib could be the subject of unending philosophical debate...