There is now scientific evidence that Pictionary dates back to the Stone Age – if a sketch by the Upright Citizens Brigade can be considered a valid source. The UCB unleashed such absurdist humor on a packed Goldstein Auditorium Friday night, with jokes about everything from pie to children named Dagobah.

The Brigade, a comedy troupe based in New York City with a show on Comedy Central, was brought to Syracuse by University Union Comedy as part of the Winter Carnival, and performed both pre-scripted and improvised scenes.

‘It obviously wasn’t as good as the show (on Comedy Central), but the show was pretty good,’ said Ron Caruso, a senior majoring in information sciences.

UCB’s sketch comedy portion of the show was downright hilarious, laced with both dark and slapstick humor. God only knows how one UCB member was subjected to repeated kicks to the groin without actually being injured.

‘I was very impressed,’ said Jane Britton, a senior communications science and disorders major. ‘I’ve been to a couple of other comedy shows and I definitely laughed the hardest at this one. It was just an awesome way to spend the beginning of a Friday night.’

The Brigade did not even need stage lights to deliver the laughs with its best skit of the night, which involved a flashlight. During the skit, UCB performers took on the roles of audience members who interrupted the show in the middle of a scene change with flashlights, and annoyed a fellow UCB performer.

This was by no means the only funny scene, though.

‘I enjoyed the London scene with all the accents – that was crazy,’ Britton said.

Cultural references interspersed throughout both improvised and pre-scripted scenes added an entertaining satire of modern society.

UCB’s performance also included cartoons of an apathetic dragon tutoring school children about mathematics shortly before incinerating them for asking what a derivative is.

‘That was my childhood,’ Britton said.

UCB began the improvised portion of their show by interviewing an audience member and using the information drawn from that interview to base their scenes upon. Britton said she enjoyed this aspect of spontaneity.

UCB repeatedly reintegrated themes and ideas from the interview and previous improvised scenes into later acts to flesh out their performance.

‘I thought it was great how they chose a member form the audience and went with what she said, better than just asking for a word,’ said Natasha Pantelides, a senior surface pattern design major.

UCB kept all its improvised scenes short so none of its scenes lagged at any point. However, the short scenes lacked depth as a consequence of their brevity.

‘The scene peaks, and then they know when to cut it,’ said Greg Maistros, a freshman majoring in music education and a member of Zamboni Revolution.

Zamboni Revolution, SU’s student improvisational comedy troupe, performed as the opening act for the show. Imaginative scenes and characters made Zamboni Revolution’s performance nothing less than stellar.

‘I thought it was a great opening act for a comedy show,’ Britton said.

For better or worse, Zamboni Revolution comes up with some of the strangest characters possible, such as a child made of pasta or a woman turned on by multi-syllabic words like ‘megalomaniac’ or ‘hemoglobin.’ In addition, Zamboni Revolution members David Young, Josh Simpson, and Jon Moses presented the most profound debate concerning the gender of Bugs Bunny one will ever hear.

By far Zamboni Revolution’s best scene was that of several schoolchildren trapped inside a snowman and freezing to death. Sadism at its best.

‘It was the funniest comedy show I ever saw here,’ Pantelides said.

Published on February 20, 2005 at 12:00 pm