One Eighty Five
One Eighty Five is a joke-format game in which performers riff on the setup "185 [occupation or type of person] walk into a bar. The bartender says we don't serve your kind. They say..." and deliver an improvised punchline. The game cycles through multiple players, each offering their own punchline to the same setup. It rewards quick wit and a facility with wordplay.
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Related Games
Barpro
Barpro is a short-form scene game set in a bar in which one player takes on the role of a seasoned bartender-host. Other performers enter as patrons with distinct characters and problems, and the bartender must manage the evolving social dynamics. The fixed setting and rotating characters create a natural engine for varied scene work.
Bartender
Bartender is a short-form guessing game in which one player tends bar while several patrons, each endowed with a secret character trait, identity, or quirk by the audience, attempt to communicate their assignments through behavior, dialogue, and physical choices. The bartender must identify each patron's secret while maintaining the scene and keeping the bar running. The game belongs to the family of guessing games (alongside Party Quirks and Psychiatrist) and creates comedy through the tension between the patrons' increasingly obvious clues and the bartender's attempts to decode them. The bar setting provides a natural framework for one-on-one interactions, character reveals, and the rotating focus that guessing games require.
Ted Talks
Ted Talks is a short-form game in which a performer delivers an improvised presentation in the style of a TED Talk on an audience-suggested topic. Other players may provide slides, demonstrations, or audience participation. The game rewards confident public speaking, the ability to sound authoritative on any subject, and the comedic gap between expertise and ignorance.
Human Props
Human Props is a short-form game in which audience volunteers are used as physical props within a scene, shaped and positioned by the performers to serve as furniture, doors, vehicles, or other objects. The game creates comedy through the awkwardness and absurdity of using real people as inanimate objects. It is a staple of audience-participation shows.
Worlds Worst
Worlds Worst is a short-form game in which performers step forward to demonstrate the world's worst version of an audience-suggested profession, character, or situation. Each offering is a quick one-liner or brief physical gag. The game was a popular segment on Whose Line Is It Anyway and rewards speed, confidence, and the ability to find the worst possible example of anything.
Beatnik Poet
Beatnik Poet is a short-form performance game in which a player delivers an improvised poem in the style of a 1950s coffeehouse poet. The audience provides a topic and the performer must sustain a stream of free-verse imagery with dramatic flair. The game is closely related to Beat Poets and rewards the same skills of verbal invention and heightened delivery.
How to Reference This Page
The Improv Archive. (2026). One Eighty Five. Retrieved March 17, 2026, from https://improvarchive.org/games/one-eighty-five
The Improv Archive. "One Eighty Five." The Improv Archive, 2026. https://improvarchive.org/games/one-eighty-five.
The Improv Archive. "One Eighty Five." The Improv Archive, 2026, https://improvarchive.org/games/one-eighty-five. Accessed March 17, 2026.
The Improv Archive is a systemically maintained repository. The archive itself acts as the corporate author.