No Fun Mud Piranhas — once a student club in which David Schwimmer (Communication ’88) and Stephen Colbert (Communication ’86) participated — provides an accessible outlet for hopeful comedians who haven’t had the opportunity to join The Titanic Players or Mee-Ow. Medill senior Matthew Hays and Weinberg senior Tim White recently revived the improv group in hopes that No Fun Mud Piranhas will become self-sustaining, with more experienced students coaching newcomers, who in turn later become coaches themselves. The pair took some time to answer The Current’s quirky questions after the group’s improv classes commenced earlier this week.
The Current: Who is your favorite comedian?
Matthew Hays: Probably Mike Birbiglia.
Tim White: Bill Hicks.
The Current: Why did you decide to revive No Fun Mud Piranhas?
MH: I was upset because we selected nine new people for Titanic and four new people for Mee-Ow, so that’s 13 people with the opportunity to do improv, and there’s just no other outlet that’s free and and close on campus for all these other people who were very talented and very passionate about it. Now we have 100 people starting up improv classes.
TW: There’s a sort of a duopoly on improv on campus, and we felt like, after seeing Open Gym and auditions and seeing how many talented people there were, we just wanted to give another space to people who really wanted to do improv … for free. In a place like Northwestern, there should be these free opportunities to do comedy, especially in a place that’s so close to Chicago.
The Current: What’s your favorite joke?
MH: This is terrible, I don’t even know if you’ll be able to print this: Louis C.K. has this joke and he says, “You can tell how terrible a person you are if you take the time it took after 9/11 for you to masturbate,” and Louis C.K. said he masturbated before the second tower went down.
TW: I actually like “Why did the chicken cross the road?” just because there’s a second meaning to it, which I think is interesting.
The Current: What’s the funniest movie you’ve ever seen?
MH: “Step Brothers.”
TW: “Trading Places.”
The Current: What type of Asian cuisine do you like best?
MH: Both my roommates are Asian and they always make fried rice for me, so fried rice.
TW: Korean food.
The Current: Describe in one sentence your first improv experience.
MH: A girl rubbed her fake penis. This was in an Open Gym.
TW: I awkwardly practiced with a friend in a field.
The Current: Do you prefer regular Coke , Diet or Zero?
MH: Zero, because I don’t drink soda.
TW: Zero.
The Current: What was your most embarrassing experience on stage?
MH: I try not to get embarrassed on stage, but probably at Mee-Ow, though. It’s really easy to step out at Mee-Ow and just flub a joke, and I’ve done that many times.
TW: I was convinced by my high school improv troupe to do this opening to the show where they played “Oops! … I Did It Again,” and they had me lip sync and dance to the whole thing.
