Getting the band back together... wait, is that Fred Willard?
An improv show starring Wayne Brady, Colin Mochrie and assorted alumni from Whose Line Is It Anyway? and Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza. Filmed in London, it premiered on ABC on July 10, 2012.Trust Us With Your Life takes a 'This Is Your Life' approach to improvisation, inviting celebrity guests to talk about major events in their lives, which will then be acted out to the best of the actors' ability, structured as a series of games. Unlike its predecessors though, Drew Carey and Ryan Stiles are conspicuously absent, with Fred Willard stepping in as the host.
It would last only one season, joining the prestigious "Wipeout Lead-Out With a Slim Chance of Returning Next Season" club.
"That sounds like something our tropers might like to type down!"
- Adaptation Expansion: When the premise of the show was first made known, fans immediately assumed it would be a full-length version of the "First Date" game from Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza. It turned out to be quite a bit more than that, of course.
- Amusing Injuries: "Shorter and Shorter", thanks to the premise of fitting more actions into a shorter time, would often end up with the players actually running INTO each other. Yowch.
- Catchphrase: Fred going "That sounds like something our performers might like to act out!" or something similar is becoming one.
- Cover Version: All the songs used in "Face the Music" for copyright reasons.
- Deadpan Snarker: Jack and Kelly Osbourne. Yes, both.
- Embarrassing Middle Name: Ricky Gervais claims his is "Dene". Yes, spelled like that.
- Feet of Clay: Ricky Gervais is usually the most well-heeled guy in the room, always ready to deal out a few scathing barbs of his own. One appearance on this show, and he gets reduced to a Victim of the Week in the face of the completely spontaneous and unpredictable improv format.
- Homage: Reusing the idea behind "World's Worst" to instead act out people from the guest's past (not really) turns it into a direct homage to the best known part of "This Is Your Life".
- I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine:
- Jerry Springer and Florence Henderson, both of whom got guest appearances back in Whose Line, appear again here.
- One of the pulled episodes has David Hasselhoff!
- Large Ham: To be expected from the players, but sometimes even the guests show a little ham-ability. Of special note, Mark Cuban during the "drama class" scene gets somewhat carried away with keeping up with Colin's dialogue, nearly tearing off his sweater for real. Kelly Osbourne gets the silver medal for keeping up with Colin as well.
- Massive Numbered Siblings:
- Florence Henderson, to the extent that she was only called 'the girl'. Which makes Mrs Brady a Casting Gag of sorts!
- Ricky Gervais too, more notable as there was quite an age difference between him and them. Apparently his parents called him
"the mistake".
- Mythology Gag:
- In the Serena Williams episode, the style called out for one game is 'Jerry Springer', whereupon Greg waits till the very end to take the role of the talkshow host - which he did everytime they did their own 'Jerry Springer' game back in Whose Line.
- In the Mark Cuban episode, Jonathan as a drama coach enters the scene yelling "Crap!" repeatedly - a move made famous by Colin back in Whose Line. To a lesser extent, Colin going "Hi, I'm Craig T Nelson..."
- National Stereotypes: Bangers and mash are brought up any time the guest is English (Ricky Gervais, Jack and Kelly Osbourne).
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: The Jack and Kelly Osbourne episode leads inevitably to new player Craig Krakowski's impression of Ozzy Osbourne. Until the musical games start up, and it's clear Craig's never really sat down to listen to any Ozzy before... then he mimes biting into his breakfast in a rather familiar manner. Amusingly, the actual celebrities nearly do get harmed, like when Jack and Kelly Osbourne are involved in re-enacting an actual car crash they and their mum Sharon went through.
- N-Word Privileges: With Wayne Brady as a regular now, this happens even more.
- Overly Long Gag: The guys turn the tale of how Jerry Springer's date threw up on him into this.
- Pragmatic Adaptation: Can be seen as one for the guests' life stories.
- Ripped from the Headlines: A pretty belated one in the Serena Williams episode - Greg acts as Tiger Woods trying to chat her up.
- Running Gag: The guests always going "that's exactly how I remembered it!"
- Short-Runners: Two episodes; Fred Willard's arrest left two more unaired.
- Shout-Out: Dozens.
- Changing the acting styles for certain games now treats actual movies as styles, like Harry Potter or Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
- The game of "Messages" in the Jerry Springer episode ends with Jonathan going "It is I, Darth Vader; thank you for letting me tell Luke I was his father."
- Shown Their Work: In the Ricky Gervais episode, the players wait till the very end to deal out jokes about his best known associate Karl Pilkington. Wayne and Greg break out some very close British accents too.
- Slipping a Mickey: Ricky Gervais jokes about this when the action starts getting too surreal for words.
- Small Reference Pools: When the style called out is March of the Penguins, the players forget one iconic part - the Morgan Freeman narration. For shame, Wayne.
- Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: Wayne Brady next to Serena Williams, which gets lampshaded immediately.
- Unusual Euphemism:Jonathan: (to Mark Cuban) "I'm your doctor; I'm glad I was able to prescribe you that little blue pill so you don't experience any more "Cuban Missile Crisis"!"
- World of Pun: "Face the Music" relies entirely on David Armand having to substitute certain lyrics with puns that can be acted out better - or just funnier.
- Writing Around Trademarks: One new game is obviously inspired by Glee, but Fred's description almost leads up to a Title Drop when Wayne interrupts by just calling it "Glee club".
- The Voiceless:
- David Armand, whose only job is the "Face the Music" game where he acts out the lyrics of famous songs.
- This does get subverted one time when he winds up having to explain some parts to Florence Henderson.
