Comics entertain University crowd

A long, winding line of people had already formed a half hour before the doors to Def Comedy Jam opened at the Annenberg Center Thursday night, and the crowd's pre-event excitement was palpable.

The event was sponsored by The Social Planning and Events Committee to Represent Undergraduate Minorities.

The event is "our annual homecoming show every year -- it has really become a key part to the homecoming tradition," said College senior Allison Carryl, one of the event's organizers.

Jason Wiley, the SPEC-TRUM vice president and a Wharton senior, explained another important dimension of the show other than tradition.

"We really organize it every year as a time to bring comedy to the campus so that people can get away from classes and just enjoy themselves."

Due to the late arrival of DJ Rock-On, the event's DJ and mood-setter, the doors to the Zellerbach Theatre opened around 20 minutes late, and excited students piled in to search for the best seats as near to the stage as possible. The DJ immediately pumped up the music, and before long students such as College freshman Tanekia Hall were dancing in their seats.

"The DJ is really doing a good job of getting people hyped up for the show," she said.

And there were some interesting elements to the crowd. A group of white men said they dressed up as "nerdy" as possible in order to better their chances of being made fun of by the comedians. And a self-described group of "Def-heads" came from out of town, according to Josh Rosenthal, a man from Washington. "We follow around the comedy tour and see it at every location. There's a huge group of us here tonight," he said.

The first comic to take the stage was the MC Tony Woods. He received a great response from the crowd. His humor lay not only in his actual jokes, but in his unique presentation of them, using exaggerated slowness of speech and chuckling at his own observations frequently.

Next up came Roz G., the only female performer of the evening. The women in the crowd loved her confident style -- she frequently made reference to the fact that she didn't have a poster-girl body, but she loved who she was and felt empowered anyway. She made fun of skinny women and made many food jokes which left the crowd cracking up.

Smokey was next. His tiny frame encapsulated in an oversized sweat-suit elicited laughter as he took the stage. He had the crowd in an uproar, offering jokes on the subjects of Jamaicans and islanders, and he frequently ended his joke sets with a hearty sigh and a grumble of "I'm stupid" that added to his unique performance.

However, J.B. Smoove, the last comic that performed, seemed to generate mixed reviews, eliciting boos and jeers of "Time!" from the crowd. Some of his topics left students in the audience turning to each other with mouths wide open and left others visibly fidgeting in their seats. The comic finally noticed and started ripping into his hecklers.

For College senior Zhi Li, the show could have ended on a better note.

"It's a tradition for me and three of my friends to come to this every year," he said. "The show was really good, and I really don't understand exactly what happened in the end, but it kind of soured it. Last year was the best one."

Still, there were also those in the crowd that loved the entire show and did not harbor any complaints.

Wharton junior Scott Mack proclaimed, "It was excellent -- high

energy. The dude in the sweat-suit was the best!"

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.