On Wednesday, February 17th, Streeter Seidel and Vanessa Bayer stopped by Trayes Hall on the Douglass campus to give students a good laugh courtesy of RUPA. Seidel is known from his work on College Humor and as a writer for SNL. Bayer is known for her countless impressions on SNL, as Amy Schumer’s sidekick in Trainwreck, and for her web series Sound Advice.
Seidel opened and got much of his material by interacting with the crowd. He joked about the names of Rutgers’ famous Fat Sandwiches, such as the “Fat Bitch,” and how he already feels bad enough going up to order this “small snack,” do they really need to make you say, “Yeah, I’ll have a Fat Bitch please.” He went on to recount a story about his time as an undergrad at Fordham when his roommate, “Shady Red,” chugged a whole bottle of Robitussin, passed out for two days, and so he naturally got every guy on their floor draw a penis on Shady Red’s face. After he woke up, Shady casually walked to the bathroom and upon seeing his face in the mirror ran down the hallway yelling “Jeff,” (the guy he just assumed drew hundreds of penises on his body) and starting beating him up. Shady Red is now a District Attorney in New York. The best part of Seidel’s set, however, came when he asked the crowd about Rutgers’ football team. When a student called out that the coach, Kyle Flood, was paid $1 million, Seidel was literally left speechless. “$1 million?!?!?!”, he exclaimed in disbelief. Finally, Seidel talked about clothing sizes and how we should all start a revolution to rename any clothing size above “large” to better names, such as “beast,” “god,” and “super god.” Then if a clothing store didn’t have his size he could say, “You mean you don’t clothe ‘gods’ here?”
Vanessa Bayer talked about a wide range of topics, from college to Friends to leukemia to dating to Drake. One of the funniest and most touching parts of the night was when she was talking about her battle with leukemia in high school. She said, “Not only good people get cancer,” as she launched into a story about a boy asking her to Homecoming but as the crowd “awwww”-ed she continued to say that she didn’t want to go with him so she told him, “Oh, I’m sorry but I have chemo treatments that weekend.” Her whole family cashed in on her disease so frequently that they referred to it as “Dropping the L bomb.” Then, she continued to talk about how people have no idea what gifts to get people in that situation so she’d write “Thank You Cards,” that all sounded like, “Even though I don’t know you that well you obviously know me because this Zoo Animal clock is exactly what I wanted to pass the hours during my chemotherapy!” It was endearing to see someone able to bring levity to such a dark situation.
She then talked about her beginnings when her first agent sat her down and told her that she wasn’t “beautiful” and didn’t have “long model legs” but that she was “quirky” and she could work with that. So the first audition she went on from this agent was for a Planter’s Peanuts commercial. The character description called for a woman who was ugly and that “we can do some work with makeup but there has to be a good amount of ugly to begin with.” “I didn’t even want to book that,” she said, “I don’t know what that would’ve done to my self-image.” She also talked about how she almost sabotaged her SNL career. She was living in Chicago and after she had flown back from auditioning in New York she got a call from SNL. “How are you doing?,” the person on the other end inquired. “Good. Tired from a long weekend of auditioning in New York though,” replied Bayer. “I hope you aren’t so tired that you can’t come to work for us!” “What would you have said if I said, ‘Yeah, I’m too tired’,” she quipped to the silent, unamused woman on the other end. But, thankfully, she was hired and she brought some of her impressions to Rutgers.
She talked about how the Friends group is such a clique. She launched into a 5-minute scenario of what would happen if she, Vanessa Bayer, started dating Ross on the show. Rachel (Bayer doing her impression from last week’s “Weekend Update” segment) would of course mention that she dated Ross, and then Monica would say, “Not now, Rachel!” (Bayer did her Monica impression, even though she said no one at SNL cared about it. Thus, she happily repeated it when the crowd erupted in laughter – it really was spot-on.) Then Joey would say, “How you doin’?” Chandler would burst in and, not seeing her, would say, “When’s Ross’s weird girlfriend coming over?” Then, seeing her would say, “I mean my friend Goss. I have to go call him,” and exit. Then Ross would take Vanessa outside and tell her that he still wasn’t over Rachel and Vanessa would storm out and cry down 5th Ave, as Joey took her plate of food and said, “More for me!” Then the applause track would run as Rachel and Ross reunited forever. “How many relationships have to be ruined for Ross and Rachel to get back together,” she cried.
Next, Bayer talked about how the paparazzi love digging up dirt on people right when they get on TV. Once she was hired for SNL, someone found a video of her from a program called “Dating on Demand.” On it she told of her love of food, cooking, nice guys, food, nice guys, and cooking. Some of the comments on the video included, “So this is what Napoleon Dynamite has been up to” and “I would only f**k her if she was the last woman on earth.” “Jokes on him,” Bayer said, “I only like nice guys.” She then said that even though she’s on TV now, she doesn’t really get recognized on the street. If she does, it’s because they think she is Miley Cyrus. She then launched into her impression of Miley Cyrus that made her famous. Saying things like, “Hey guys. It’s pretty cool. I’m gonna like get really stoned and stuff like that. And then I’m gonna get some munchies at Brower and stuff like that! It’s pretty cool here at Rutgers.”
One of the coolest parts was when she tested new material out on us. We acted as a sort of springboard for new joke premises. Thus, our laughter was truly a form of feedback she used to amend her act. It was interesting to see through the show the inner workings of the mind of a successful but still budding comedian. She did a whole riff on those Vistaprint commercials. She talked about how the guy with the gnarly beard who was obsessed with branding and first impressions should consider a beard that doesn’t make people run the other way when they see him. There’s another man who likes the “feel of a nice, thick card” in his hand. “Are we still talking about business cards here?” she asked the crowd. Among her other bits were her doing an impression of herself telling awkward sex jokes, relating how Communications isn’t a real major (and the Civil War Reenactments class she had to take for it), and a clip of Drake on her show Sound Advice, which she could “bully” him into being on because he hosted an episode of SNL. In the clip she asks the half-Jewish Drake if he would consider going on J-Date.
Despite a problem with advertising that left the room less than half full, overall, both comedians rocked the Douglass’ Trayes Hall. The students who were there enjoyed two hours of non-stop laughs. Both comedians obviously put in research beforehand, too. Seidel talked about Grease Trucks and the disappointing football team; Bayer worked “Brower,” the most laughable dining hall, into her Miley Cyrus impression. It was an altogether great show.