Nightlife in Friendswood

The PG-rated program is led by a talented team of in-house improv experts in the vein of Drew Carey’s popular Whose Line Is It Anyway? show on the ABC Family Channel. As a member of the audience, you’ll not only create the show (skits are created on the spot from audience suggestions), you might be in the show, too. Each week, the guffawing gurus invite members of the peanut gallery on stage to act out scenes and test their improv skills.

Laughter and lovable fur companions are undeniable life joys. Score a twofer with today's Groupon, offering a $20 ticket to Canines and Cats Comedy Hour on January 27 at 6:30 p.m. at the Houston Improv Comedy Club and Dinner Theatre (presale tickets are available for $25 until 1/24, after that the tickets are available for $40). The laughfest doubles as a fundraiser for Houston's homeless pets, benefiting HOPE, HPPL, and SNAP. There's a full bar and dinner served at the show for maximum laughter enjoyment. The club also has a two-drink minimum and a mandatory 18% gratuity on your meal.

For a moment, The Firkin & Phoenix Pub's weathered brick and solid-black panels make the street corner look like a London intersection—but then a motorist drives by on the right side of the street, and the impression fades. No matter, since the decor inside continues the evocation of Englishness, with black booths backed with plush red cushions, a bar built from dark hardwoods, and carpet patterns recalling the Victorian era. The menu includes classic British dishes from scotch eggs to cottage pie along with burgers and other American pub food, including a Meatless Mondays vegetarian menu. The drink menu features popular English and American beers, with barkeeps pouring (512) Brewing Company IPA and Newcastle.

In true pub fashion, The Firkin & Phoenix keeps guests entertained in addition to well-fed. Eight LCD-screen televisions surround patrons with sports, and the staff sets up three projectors for highly anticipated events, such as Saturday-morning cartoons. More diversions include free WiFi, pub games such as darts, billiards, and ping-pong, and video games on a Nintendo Wii or Xbox 360 Kinect. The Firkin & Phoenix Pub also hosts trivia and bingo nights, plus charity events such as dog washes to benefit local animal shelters.

At ComedySportz, the spontaneity of improv humor marries the competitiveness of athletics in three weekly shows that churn out laughs for roughly 100 minutes each. During a match, two opposing teams of comics square off as a referee presides. The teams launch into sketches and routines fueled by audience suggestions, much like on the TV shows Whose Line Is It Anyway? and World News with Diane Sawyer. Since random, casual outbursts are so integral to the show, no two performances are the same, and many fans check the lineup to see when their favorite funnypeople take the stage next.

At the Hollywood Improv, comics lure laughs from deep within bellies as they follow in the footsteps of standup legends such as Ellen DeGeneres, Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, and Dave Chappelle, all of whom have graced the Improv club stages. The club's calendar schedules comedians as often as seven nights a week, alternating between big-name headliners and up-and-coming funsters who tickle funny bones with fresh material, abundant energy, and feathered reflex hammers.

Surrounded by Winetopia's brick-laden walls, visitors sample a succinct selection of tapas, absorb the notes of live music and karaoke, and explore the flavors of rare wines gathered from around the world. In the dining room, the arched tops of built-in wine cabinets fit snugly into exposed-brick walls, and the chatter of guests clustered around intimate tables syncs with the clinks of wineglasses alighting on a granite-top bar. A menu of small plates romances appetites with everything from light snacks, such as marcona almonds and indian popcorn, to more substantial morsels, including veggie samosas. Plates strewn with various cheeses find companionship in chatty napkins and the sweet notes of fresh fruit or the deep flavor of assorted cold cuts. The rotating selection of more than 200 small-production wines overrides the need for a formal list, so instead sommeliers pilot patrons through vinos imported from New Zealand, South Africa, Oregon, and Argentina. The less traveled can charter entire flights of wine or sign up for a tasting class, or eschew grapey spirits altogether for one of the bar’s 59 domestic or imported beers.