By Heidi Cho
Nation & World Editor
Student comedians made the audience chuckle with a wide variety of original satirical routines on Friday, Dec. 1, during CUB ALT’s Student Comedy Night in the Traditions lounge.
Sophomore English major Jack Sofka, the self-proclaimed “MC” of the event and CUB co-chair, began the event.
Emily McMahon, a sophomore psychology major, cracked one liners inspired by current events and nihilistic millennial humor.
Isabel Frade, a freshman computer science major, stuck to lighthearted humor.
Frade shared her plans to create artificial intelligence that would sarcastically answer stupid questions.
Once Sofka pointed out that two separate student comedians mentioned actor Tom Hanks in their stand-up, involving Hanks in the routines became a running gag throughout the show.
Jason Thorpe, a freshman history and secondary education dual major, described his act as born out of his own “weird-ass thoughts.”
Thorpe commented on how pandas are reluctant to mate.
“Aw there’s no love there,” Thorpe said, comparing a male and female panda showing no interest in each other to his parents’ relationship.
Sofka introduced the next comedian, which was a junior interdisciplinary business major, Sean Delanoy, as an old friend of his.
“As a small child, I would get concerned that all the instructions (to make mac and cheese) in languages I didn’t speak were secretly talking shit about English speakers,” Delanoy said. “Like in Spanish, it would go ‘look at these dumb Americans, don’t know how to make mac and cheese.’”
The Mixed Signals, the College’s student improvisation comedy group, performed after the stand-up routines.
“The Mixed Signals are always excellent,” Sofka said. “I’m always impressed by them.”
Using words from the audience as prompts, the Mixed Signals developed skits without any prior preparation.
In a hypothetical 7-Eleven, the character Charlie — a fictional 7-Eleven boss with a thick “Piratian” accent, an obsession with salami and little control over his arms — was created on the spot by two of the four Mixed Signals performers.
“The Mixed Signals skit about their friend Charlie in the 7-Eleven (was the funniest joke),” said Madeline Febinger, a sophomore computer science major.
The group took on various challenges — from working yet another Tom Hanks reference into a skit, to answering a peculiar question from the audience: “If oranges were red, would they still be oranges?”
“What. Do. You. Is. Maybe. But. A. Answer. Could. Be. Found,” the three comedians answered one word after each other, as they acted as a six-armed and three-headed omniscient demon, which the group dubbed “The Oracle.”
“It is clear!” announced Evan Noone, a Mixed Signals troupe member and junior technology education major pretending to be the demon’s summoner to the laughing audience.
The demon summoner zealously ran like a gremlin to and from each audience member that asked a question for his “demon.”
The members of Mixed Signals and the student comedians went to hilarious lengths to engage the audience and crack relatable jokes for the average college student. Students appreciated the break from finals that the last CUB ALT event provided.
