By Emily GlazerThe Daily Northwestern
Students were far from laughing while trekking through freezing weather to the Get MADtv show Friday night, but all that changed once the comedy routine began.
Talk show host Spike Feresten and MADtv cast members Bobby Lee, Arden Myrin and Jordan Peele entertained a crowd of about 120 students and Evanston residents in Ryan Family Auditorium on their free Get MADtv with Spike Tour.
The comedians performed a variety of improv scenes ranging from first kisses to Flava Flav impersonations.
Lee, a veteran of MADtv, did stand-up. His material sometimes got raunchy, causing MADtv members to warn younger audience members to cover their ears.
Lee opened by referring to himself as a yellow monster.
“I look like an American Indian with Down Syndrome,” he said.
But the audience was cracking up throughout his act, which ranged from his own praise of having a white girlfriend to a story about a fake vagina as a Christmas present.
Myrin and Peele performed improvisation games together. The audience enjoyed a scene where the two comedians played Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie.
Feresten did not perform, but he showed a video montage of various clips from his show, which has been on air for about six months.
Feresten wrote for “Late Night with David Letterman” for five years and earned five Emmy nominations. He also was part of the writing staff for “Seinfeld,” for which he wrote the popular “Soup Nazi” episode.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Communication ’82 and other former “Seinfeld” cast members have been guests on his talk show, which he hoped to promote during the tour.
Dreyfus, a former member of Mee-Ow, will speak at NU’s commencement in the spring.
NU’s show, which was sponsored by the Center for Student Involvement, was the last stop on Feresten’s tour, which also visited Arizona State University, the University of Maryland and Michigan State University.
“We’re coming out to raise awareness of shows – and to get a glimpse of sorority-house pillow fights,” he said.
Ashley Sasaki, FOX publicity spokeswoman, said FOX wanted to do a college tour to get students involved.
“It’s great publicity for the show, especially since the Nielsen ratings just opened to college students,” she said.
At the end of the show, audience members asked questions in a question-and-answer session, covering topics from stand-up techniques to getting paid as a comedian.
The comedians agreed that trial and error and stage time are the best ways to improve. They also discussed the audition process for MADtv, in which each potential cast member must play six characters in five minutes. Three of the characters are impersonations, while the other three must be original.
This prompted the comedians to give miniature performances of the characters they usually play. Peele worked the crowd by imitating Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Flava Flav and Montel Williams.
Members of The Titanic Players and Mee-Ow asked many of the questions. The two NU improv troupes opened for the tour.
Communication senior Nick Kanellis said watching the show was a good experience.
“I’m just glad we went before – it would have been hard to follow that act,” said Kanellis, a member of Mee-Ow.
Myrin said she thought the NU improv troupes were “the best ones of all the colleges.”
Peele also was impressed with the NU improv troupes.
“The two groups here were really seasoned – you could definitely tell the proximity of Chicago they had,” he said. “There was an advanced sense of editing, and they were sort of on the next level of play.”
Reach Emily Glazer at [email protected].
