Category | Arts & Living

Award-winning comedian conjures laughter

Published on November 17, 2009 by Josh Pate

Students who were in the University rooms Nov. 9 got a special treat. Iliza Shlesinger performed an hour of stand-up.         When asked about what she would do if she had free reign to do anything, she replied, “I’d be a house cat.” Social trekker Shlesinger slings norms and deviance around with an unkempt barnyard fervor.

Shlesinger’s rendering of frat house beer-pong and excessive drinking was side-splitting but less than flattering as she likened the drinking game with a communal cup of pathogens and disease.

Shlesinger ranted on some of the biggest issues college students have all the while incorporating a lot of slapstick and physical comedy.

The result: the show was a hit. Shlesinger’s performance caused an overflow of at least 80 anxious students in the atrium of the university rooms.

Shlesinger was the winner of the NBC show “Last Comic Standing” in 2008 and has a brand new special to air on cable as late as February.

By defeating all of the comics in head-to-head competitions, Shlesinger landed her contract with NBC.

“Last Comic Standing” aired from 2003 to 2008 and has birthed comedians such as Ralphie May and Josh Blue.

Shlesinger’s win is a win for KSU and other colleges because she is touring the country and performing at different colleges with her dog-companion, Blanche, before her special is aired.

However, Shlesinger doesn’t just perform for colleges-she was once invited to perform at a country club. “All the men were your dad’s age!” Shlesinger exclaimed.

Shlesinger is unpredictable in a loveable way- she loves hip-hop because she “enjoys music that [she] can’t understand any of the words the artists are saying.”

Shlesinger’s humor was not refined and it felt cathartic listening to a comedian speak her mind about things that make up a significant part of college students’ lives.

On the topic of reading drunk, Shlesinger said, “Don’t read drunk. You think you can understand Spanish, but no, what you are about to turn into your Spanish professor is just a bunch of un-conjugated verbs and Taco Bell items.”

Shlesinger told the audience something to remember-you don’t have to have sex just because you’re drunk, in which she played a reversal of roles from comedian to caretaker.

After about an hour of laughing, the audience became a part of the show as Shlesinger introduced a special trick that made any two nouns sound dirty when placed in a sentence like this: “Come over here and stick your __ in my __.” Her word games didn’t stop there.

Find her live news show, the “The Weakly News,” at  thestream.tv/weakly.