College Humor shakes Orange Nation with fits of laughter

Syracuse University was the home of our four favorite class clowns last night. The guys of College Humor, Jake Hurwitz, Amir Blumenfeld, Streeter Seidell, and our very own SU alum Dan Gurewitch, took the stage to a packed Goldstein Auditorium. Students were buzzing with excitement before the show began. Some students hoping College Humor’s stand-up performance would live up to the hype! 

The University Union opened up the night by announcing College Humor, but only audible to the first few rows, unaware of a technical malfunction. After the UU members left the stage,  a tech member ran onto the stage to save the day. She was greeted by applause for turning on the mics. 

Then Jake and Amir, the night’s dynamic duo, cheerfully walked onto the stage acting as our hilarious hosts for the evening asking if the crowd appreciated their “avant-garde” opening performance, pretending the mics didn’t work. They started the evening with Jake’s usual diatribe about Amir’s latest obscenities. Including an anecdote of Amir pleasuring himself throughout the entire plane ride into Syracuse. 

This show was definitely meant for the college crowd who would enjoy super crude and dark humor, not for the faint of heart. Jake and Amir decided an interactive show was best for the dirty and crass joke-loving audience. The duo read conversations aloud to the audience from each other’s cell phone and whomever said stop reading their text first was a “Text Chicken.” Jake begged Amir to stop reading his text convo first and maybe it was for a good reason since he coerced a girl to text him photos of her breasts while she was at the hospital with her dying aunt. The audience was in fits of laughter and applause.

Fellow comic Streeter Seidell seemed fascinated with our gray skies and copious amounts of snow, asking the audience, “Is the weather always, like this? You guys are used to THIS much snow.You haven’t found a place to put all the snow yet? What about the Destiny USA parking lot?”

But laughs turned to boos within the first minute of Streeter’s stand-up performance when he pointed out a “Big Red” in our midst – a student from Cornell university sitting in the front row. The entire auditorium booed the Cornell student who did nothing in his defense but laugh! An audience yelled “He doesn’t even go here” alluding to the often quoted 2004 high school comedy Mean Girls.  Despite a few heckles, laughter was all that emerged from the Cornell  student, he may have enjoyed the show the most. Every mock of smarty-pants “Colin Cornell” drew more and more laughs from the primarily Orange audience. 

However, Syracuse Alum Dan Guerwitch wasn’t going to let ‘CUSE off the hook. He took his stabs at frat row, astronomy 101, and even Newhouse. “Newhouse needs to relax. When I left there was Newhouse 1 and Newhouse 2. Now there’s Newhouse 3 and soon there’ll be Newhouse 90. It’ll look like Destiny USA!” The crowd roared with laughter.

Although Syracuse basketball’s loss to Boston College was announced during the comedy show, the comedic clan used their knack of laughter to cheer-up the crowd. Jake and Amir closed the night by giving away free t-shirts to audience members who didn’t mind embarrassing themselves in front of a huge crowd. Tasks were based on gender roles, like telling guys to name the majority of the twilight characters from photos and identifying the signature pornographic company associated with a white van. 

Girls were asked to sign like they were Katy Perry and identify characters from video game, and imitating scenes from Lord of the Rings. All of which left the crowd in fits of laughter and satisfaction with the comedy group’s performance. 

The University Union’s Performing Arts Presents: College Humor was well received by the student body, leaving students on a comedic high despite the Orange Nation’s basketball team falling to Boston College. Public diplomacy student, Timi Komonibo, said she has been watching Jake and Amir for years. “It’s funny to see that they’re as hilariously inappropriate in person as they are on their web series.”