The A&O-sponsored Stella comedy show on Tuesday, November 9 was hilarious. Hil-AR-ious. For anyone who wants proof, well, that's nearly impossible – most of the jokes are unprintable. Suffice it to say, sexual relations with grandmothers, the Baha Men, and (hopefully) simulated onstage sex acts all played an integral part. And it worked brilliantly.The show opened with Eugene Mirman, who gave a typical stand-up routine. He proved hilarious, if a bit random, covering everything from middle school special education to slogans for abstract things. The best part of the routine was a video in which Mirman played a special agent who was not nearly fluent in over four languages, had mastered the martial art form of "claw," and specialized in gang fights.
After Mirman, it was time for the Stella trio, which consists of Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter, and David Wain, all of "Wet Hot American Summer" and VH1's "I Love the [insert decade here]" pseudo-fame. Dressed in sensible suits, the trio seemed to be no-nonsense – for about thirty seconds. They then proceeded to drop a few local names to win over the crowd (Black said "I got so drunk at the Keg last night," while Wain mentioned that NU was the home of the illustrious SPAC and Norris Center Bookstore) before discussing their reasons for coming to Northwestern: to "party, party and fucking party."
And party they did, as demonstrated by dance sequences to their favorite "par-tay jams" ("Celebration," "Who Let the Dogs Out?" and Eric Clapton's "Tears in Heaven"). The topics then changed from the strange feedback the trio often got on their show (apparently people told them often "I want to go down on you") to a Stella Thanksgiving (revolving around a musical-chair-like game of "who's driving" and sexual favors performed on granny). One of the night's more popular jokes, showing how cool Northwestern students really are, was made by Black. His idea of a perfect winter day is apparently a really, really cold one: "zero degrees – KELVIN."
And throughout the entire performance, the three bickered like five year olds. Black proclaimed that the fighting was making him "like a coffeecake, except instead of my crumbles being on the outside, mine are on the inside." Showalter added that he felt the same way, "except I'm a scone."
One of the highlights of the night, aside from baked goods similes, was a tape the trio showed of them supposedly apartment-shopping in Chicago (Wain remarked that it was "lucky we had all the editing equipment [with us]"). To win over the apartment board, besides dressing like skunk-people, the three of them had to perform a "Flashdance"-style sequence, with leaps and turns aplenty.
The only disappointment of the Stella show was its abrupt ending, with a slightly stale Baha Men/Michael Jackson joke. But the memories of grandmother sex jokes, skunk tails, and a "London pub game" of "zots and crambles" remained. After all, where else could NU students see Black, Showalter and Wain dancing to "Celebration"?
