Considering how many stars have emerged from the world of improv comedy, you would think the genre would have more presence on television. Most of SNL's greatest crossover stars from the last few decades cut their teeth with the famous Groundlings theater troupe. Whereas stand-up comedy has always had a host of shows dedicated to highlighting the form and its various performers, irrespective of genre, improv has rarely been offered a comparable array of television shows. For years, if you wanted to watch high-quality improv from the comfort of your own home, there was really only one show on which you could consistently rely: Whose Line is it Anyway.
According to series regular and hilarious cut-up Colin Mochrie, the famed improv staple is going the way of the dinosaur thanks to the shake-up at the CW. You can check out Mochrie's tweet confirming Whose Line is it Anyway's apparent demise.
Colin Mochrie, long-time star of The CW's Whose Line Is It Anyway?, has revealed that the series will be taping its final season soon. In a recent tweet, Mochrie announced that January 2023 will see him, Ryan Stiles, Wayne Brady, and host Aisha Tyler (plus, presumably, the show's usual rotating series of fourth slot performers) getting together to film one more batch of episodes of the long-running short-form improv show, which originated in the UK before being imported to ABC in the 1990s, and then revived by The CW in 2013.
As of next year, Whose Line will have actually run longer in its CW incarnation than it did on ABC under the tenure of host Drew Carey (although the ABC version produced more overall episodes, 219 to the revival's current 164). That longevity isn't exactly hard to explain, either: The show is, presumably, dirt-cheap to produce, and all of the participants remain sharp improvisers deep into their third decades with the series. (Also, it gets an extra episode added to its order every time a snobby comedy nerd explains that short-form isn't "real" improv, which helps.)
