Drew Carey read the explanation of the next game from the cue card in his hand, focusing on the blue card in his hand with unnatural concentration.  He tried to sound interested in his own words in an effort to avoid the monotone that Dan Patterson so often accused him of, but after introducing so many games that day he really had to fight against his own boredom.  They’d been shooting for nearly four hours; this day’s work had taken longer than most tapings for some unknown reason, and everyone’s energy had begun to wind down.

Across the set, Colin Mochrie stood in front of the large rectangular green screen with patient ease.  He balanced the long black microphone in his right hand and kept his attention focused in Drew’s direction, although without his glasses on, Colin couldn’t see more than three feet in front of him with any clarity.  From his perspective, the large brown blob of the desk had a gray body perched on top of it, with a flesh-colored beach ball for a head.

Greg Proops and Ryan Stiles, seated on the stage at an even distance between Colin and Drew, shifted their attention from Drew’s desk to the television monitor several feet in front of them.  Each of them put one hand to their ear in anticipation.  Ryan preferred to cover his left ear with his left hand, while Greg mirrored the action with his right hand.

Drew came to the end of the speech, flipped the card over in front of him, and looked at Greg and Ryan.  "So, take it away in the studio, Ryan and Greg."

On cue, and through some brief pre-planning between the two men, Ryan started to speak in a low voice to Greg.

"So," he said, "did it ever clear up or did you just--"  He jerked his gaze up towards the camera, as if he hadn’t noticed it on him before.  "We interrupt this program to bring you a breaking news story."

"We now go out into the field to our news correspondent, Colin Mochrie," Greg remarked, picking up on Ryan’s train of thought.  "Colin, can you tell us what’s happening out there?"

Under normal circumstances, the editors of the show would start their videotape several seconds early, so that the images behind Colin would roll a few seconds before the camera in front of him came on.  This time, however, a worried look came over Greg’s face as he finished talking and the screen remained blank.  Beside him, Ryan drew in an anxious breath as well.  Nothing had popped up on their monitor yet, and Colin continued to stand in front of a blank screen.

No less than two seconds before the cameras shifted their focus, the video finally started... and the audience screamed with laughter.

Colin turned around and looked at his green screen as he waited for some prompting from Greg and Ryan, but both men had fallen against one another in a fit of giggling.  Greg squeezed his eyes shut and snickered against Ryan’s shoulder, and Ryan had his left hand pressed up to the bridge of his nose.  Colin, confused and a little worried that neither man had started talking to him, began to speak.

"As you can see," he shouted over the voice of the crowd, "this is quite an event!"

Colin waved one hand blindly behind him towards the image on the screen, which happened to be his own half-naked body.  The clip showed Colin from a television show he’d appeared in called "The Outer Limits," when he did his first "nude" scene.  His bare-chested figure reclined in a doorway, lit from behind and wrapped in a long white towel that went from his hips to his knees.  As the scene progressed, it showed him leaping into bed with Mackenzie Phillips.

"I didn’t think I’d ever live to see something like this..."  His voice trailed off as he looked back towards Ryan and Greg with a pleading look in his eyes, begging them for more information.

"Colin," Greg managed to choke out, "can you tell us about this situation?  How did it come to this?"

"Well," he continued, "it all started at a bachelor party, when a couple of sheep got loose in the crowd--"

A roar of laughter from the audience cut off his words, followed by another burst of laughter a few seconds later.  The video showed him climbing off the end of the bed, just as the towel around his hips slipped off and revealed a flash of hip to the camera; a few seconds later, it showed him zipping up a pair of pants and getting his genitals caught in the zipper.  Colin’s stunned face, both in the studio and on the tape, sent Drew into a loud giggling fit.

"Oh, God," Ryan choked.  "Colin, how are people handling the situation?"

"Well, it’s been really hard," Colin replied, "but they’ve got a firm grip on things, and--"

Colin’s words, coupled with the next image on the screen, broke the audience up again.  The scene had shifted to a clip of "The Drew Carey Show," with Ryan, as Lewis, walking around naked.  He hadn’t really been naked (he wore a flesh-colored Speedo and the special-effects crew put a grid over his hip area), but for the people on the set of the show, the Speedo hadn’t left much to the imagination.  When the scene had aired on television, the grid had been in place.  Now, for the clip’s appearence on "Whose Line?," that grid hadn’t been applied and the scene showed Ryan in all his glory.

"Oh, God!" Ryan repeated.  He covered his face with both hands as Greg took charge of the interview.

"Colin, I’ve never seen anything quite like that before.  It’s almost frightening.  How... how do you think these men can handle something that big?"

Colin’s eyebrows went up as Ryan let out a squeak of protest and turned halfway around on the stool with his back to Greg, still covering his now-red face.  Because of their lifelong friendship, Colin usually relied on Ryan’s words and gestures to guide him through this game and he now applied that knowledge as best he could.  Obviously, whatever had appeared on the screen struck Ryan personally.  It took him only a second to assess the situation.

"Greg, it’s my understanding that they has help," Colin replied.  "There’s a great support system available, they’ve got constant supervision, and we’re all really glad that this kind of thing isn’t left alone."

"Oh, really?"  Greg grinned and tried to hold back the snickers as Ryan turned back towards the monitor and tried to talk. 

By this time, the picture had changed to an older clip of "The Drew Carey Show," when Drew, Ryan, Diedrich Bader, Ian Gomez and Craig Ferguson had pretended to be strippers.  Ryan managed to draw in a couple of breaths and recover from his humiliation as he looked at the familiar images as they gyrated and tore their clothing off.

"Colin," Ryan said in a strained voice, "how much do you suppose they get paid for all of this?"

Colin paused, looked behind him for comic effect, then turned back towards Ryan and shook his head.  "Not enough," he said in a slow voice.

Greg broke in.  "Colin, why would something like that be allowed to go on?  Don’t we have laws against that sort of thing?"

"I suppose we do," Colin replied, "but censorship can only go so far.  After all, they do have freedom of speech."

"And a lot of other freedoms as well," Ryan added.  "They certainly look like they feel free, Colin."

The video changed yet again, this time to an out-of-focus image of a young man on a theater stage... also naked, from what looked like an old 8mm film.  The audience began to calm down, slightly confused by the blurry picture, and Ryan and Greg squinted and leaned forward a bit.

"What the hell is that?" Ryan said.

"I’m not sure what that is," Colin replied.  "All I can tell you is that in my opinion, this kind of thing is against nature.  It is something totally--"

"Shit!" Greg suddenly cried out.  He slapped one hand over his mouth and his eyes bulged behind his glasses.

"Wha--"  Ryan glanced at Greg, then looked back at the screen as the camera zoomed in for a close-up on the young man’s face. 

Ryan’s eyes popped open in shock as the skinny, pale kid in the film turned and stared straight ahead.  Even without the glasses and the Buddy Holly-like hair, that young image of Greg Proops on stage could not be mistaken.  The audience did a double-take and screamed with laughter again, as the camera pulled back to reveal Greg’s young, slender body to the world.  Mercifully, though, the special-effects grid that had been missing during Ryan’s clip had come back to hide Greg’s exposed genitals.

"Where the hell did they get that?" Ryan asked.

"Equus," Greg moaned as he identified his early performance.  He clutched his free arm around his stomach and covered his mouth again, staring at the screen in shock.

Colin, still oblivious to what lay on the screen behind him, struggled to remember what the word meant.  Equus, equine, horses...  His mind worked back from the word "horses," and he recalled the title of the play "Equus."  He’d seen the play once and had been shocked by the performance, more from the power of the young leading actor than by the boy’s appearance in the n--

Colin’s mouth dropped open as all the pieces came together.  Drew Carey, who hadn’t stopped laughing since the first clip of Colin had appeared on the monitor, managed to restrain himself long enough to notice the look of recognition that came over Colin’s face, and pressed the buzzer to end the game.

Almost a full minute went by before everyone on the set could compose themselves.  Greg, unable to take it any longer, got up from the stool and hid behind part of the set, his face beet-red from embarrassment.  Ryan kept his seat, but he broken out of his usual somber demeanor and let out a series of high-pitched giggles as he slapped his thighs.  Colin stayed in front of the screen as the video began to repeat itself.  He had a look of disbelief of his face, and he shook his head as he tried to restrain his smile.

"Colin, what is behind you?" Drew finally asked.

Colin bit his lower lip and dropped his head, lowering the microphone as he tried to regain his composure.  "I hope I get this one wrong," he said as he closed his eyes.  "We’re all naked, aren’t we?"

"Yes, we are!" Drew proclaimed.