Hundreds of thousands of people showed up on the National Mall last October for the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. We're pretty sure most the attendees didn't really believe they could ignite reasonableness in D.C. They just came to party with The Daily Show crew. So last night, while in line at Miami Improv and Daily Show correspondent Wyatt Cenac walked through the crowd to enter the venue, it was a little strange that no one recognized him. Except for us. We freaked out, pointed and waved, and basically sketched him out.
Despite the outside crowd's cluelessness, Cenac's show was a success. Yet considering he told us that he's working through material for an upcoming comedy special, we'd like to tell him why he shouldn't make any edits based on what got laughs last night.
The two opening acts were crowd favorites. Their fat jokes, weed humor,
and asides about babies with boners got a few audience members hopping
out of their seats and jabbing the air with circular fist pumps. By the
time Cenac came on stage, the room was primed and in stitches, fueled on
overpriced cocktails and deep fried appetizers.
But Cenac is a professional, bona fide funny man so all that crowd
fluffing wasn't really necessary. He told us he's been doing research on
YouTube and thinks he knows how to boost Obama's approval rating. He
wants to sneak into the background of the President's public appearances
with an adorable kitty cat that likes to jump in and out of a box.
He told us he doesn't mind the Tea Party so much as long as he can make
use of their pick-up trucks when he needs to move heavy furniture. And
moving to race, he asked why being called an Oreo was such a bad thing.
After all, they're popular and delicious.
Despite the giddy, continuous peels of laughter, there were a handful of
uncomfortable moments of diminished glee. And it's no favor to Miami to
point out that these subdued reactions happened whenever Cenac's humor
got a little too smart -- an obvious and welcomed direction for someone who's wit was hired by a faux news team that doubles as a productive, political bulldog.
Only a few members of the audience seemed to react to his clever Michael
Chabon reference or mocking of NPR's All Things Considered. And there
were blank faces when he joked about bringing up Darfur during an "Oh
snap!" competition in his teenage years.
As Cenac went into an overly lengthy lampooning of the freak show known
as Medieval Times, the crowd seemed a tad defensive and irked. This
wasn't Cenac's target audience. In fact, it's safe to assume that a few
audience members - especially those who had loudly guffawed at the mere
mention of erection - were prime subjects for a mocking Daily Show
segment themselves.
There's two days of shows left in Cenac's Miami stop. So if you're
marginally well-read, clued in about current events, and have voted
sometime in the past ten years (or have at least brushed against someone
who has), head out and catch his show. The fate of one man's comedy special is in your hands.
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