Improv for Commandos

For the Commando Kid, there is nothing more crucial than quick thinking for doing more, and doing it more often.

If a Commando Mom notices, for example, that the cat's whiskers are only one inch long on the left, who's she going to ask about that, and what quick response will the Commando come up with to handle the situation without losing safety-scissor clearance?

Luckily, the Commando already has many skills that can be further developed using simple games, much like those used by Improvisational Theatre troupes. Those unfamiliar with these improv games might at times think the young trooper is simply being repetitive, or trying to distract and conquer.

The Commando Kid actually is learning valuable skills, however, that he or she will use later to dodge a barrage of parental questioning with quick retorts, or to measure just how much attention Commando Mom is paying as a way to ascertain how much he or she can get away with on any particular day.

Yes, someday, the Commando Kid will become a Commando Teen, and improv will become a way of life as a battle skill to carry out daily evasive maneuvers.

The Commando already has a natural affinity toward these games, which are based on audience suggestion(in this case Commando Mom or an older Zen sibling). The games are meant to be played repetitively to sharpen the Commando Kid mind, and are just a little different each time they are played, keeping  a Commando Mom slightly off guard, or at least keeping her guessing. (That’s precisely why adults revisit them at Comedy Improv shows—to recapture the pleasure of being the kid in the game.)*

A few favorite Improv games, played Commando style:


What Are You Doing?**
The most classic and earliest-learned game. The Commando Kid asks a simple series of questions to Mom, who, until she learns the game, keeps trying to respond with a logical answer. Really, the Commando knows that to play this game properly, Mom must respond by saying she is doing something totally different from what she is actually doing, thus learning to think on her feet, while trying to count the number of cups of flour she’s supposed to be putting into her banana bread batter.

Wrong:Commando: What are you doing?
Mom: Making banana bread
Commando: oh. Mom?
Mom: What?
Commando: What are you doing?
Mom: (mildly annoyed) Making banana bread.
Commando: oh. Mom?
Mom: (steam rising from ears) Making banana bread!
Right:
Commando: What are you doing?
Mom: Making banana bread.
Commando: oh. Mom?
Mom: What?
Commando: What are you doing?
Mom: Walking on a flying trapeze while hopping on one foot and tying my shoe with one hand.
Commando: oh. Mom?
Mom: What?
Commando: What are you doing?
Mom: Fighting off a wild bear with both hands tied behind my back, while playing a tiny piano with my left earlobe.
Commando: oh. Mom?.....

Big Booty
The Commando picks a silly, very annoying phrase (such as ‘Number one big booty’), and chants it repeatedly and with a sarcastic attitude, until Mom loses all track of what she was trying to do and puts the clean frying pan away in the freezer and pours cat food into the coffee maker filter.

Gibberish
The Commando Kid gets a suggestion from his older sister, the family cat, or a Lucky Charms commercial, to ask Mom to take him to the circus, which won’t be to town for three months, but he really has to go to the bathroom, giving the circus question much more urgency and making it impossible for him to form an intelligent sentence that contains and words with the letter p, such as peanut.

While doing the potty dance, he tries to explain to Mom what he wants, using only pantomime and gibberish words that don’t contain the letter p.

When Mom doesn’t understand, he storms out of the room crying and letter p’s in his pants, turning it into a game of 20 questions and dirty laundry.

Rhymes
Everything that Mom says is responded to by the Commando Kid with a rhyme. Commando Moms usually can’t resist these games, and inadvertently (wink wink) encourage its continuation by peppering in certain words for a Commando Kid’s off-color rhyming pleasure, eliciting Commando squeals of delight.

Mom: Hi Jane.
Commando: Hi airplane.
Mom: What would you like to eat?
Commando: I wanna’ eat some great big feet.
Mom: Have you seen my great big foot scoop?...
or, alternately
Mom: I need a big foot shopping cart....

In some war games, everyone wins.

*Just ask master of improv, Jill Bernard, who teaches adults how to bring out the kid in their audience by playing the game.
**Thanks to Commando Kid Ami for the suggestion to include “What Are You Doing?”