Although the majority of students who attended the Homecoming Comedy Show, presented by SEE and The Stamp, were pleased with Michael Ian Black and Jermaine Fowler, headliner Craig Robinson’s performance left the audience disappointed.
Audience consensus was that the Student Entertainment Events’ Homecoming Comedy Show with headliner Craig Robinson of The Office and Hot Tub Time Machine was a night of strange chaos.
In a release before the show, S.E.E. said that Robinson would bring his “musical comedy that is sure to have audiences laughing.” Instead, Robinson threw water bottles into the audience, sprayed the first row of students and told no jokes outside of profane catchphrases.
Students said his show wasn’t at all what they expected for a homecoming show that is known for featuring stand-up comedians.
“Last year, I went to see Aziz Ansari,” said sophomore aerospace engineering major Tim Devlin. “I was expecting something along the same caliber of that.”
The night started with a bit of S.E.E. confusion: The doors to Cole Field House were supposed to open at 6:30 p.m., but opened after 7:15 p.m.
Cole Field House was hardly filled by the time Robinson was set to go on. About half the $15 floor seats were filled – a stark contrast to last year’s show featuring Ansari of Parks and Recreation, for whom the Field House was packed.
The two openers, Jermaine Fowler and Michael Ian Black, were well received, warming the crowd up for Robinson.
Black mentioned earlier in his act that he and Robinson had been drinking backstage, and some students said they thought Robinson seemed intoxicated when he came onstage.
Robinson’s six-piece band – which included a saxophone player – entered the stage first, and then Robinson himself came on, clad in a black t-shirt and holding a pack of water bottles, seating himself at the keyboard center stage.
First, Robinson told the audience to get on its feet and several seated on the floor ran to the front of the stage with Robinson. Once he found out the heritage of the American Sign Language interpreter, he asked his band to play salsa music and salsa danced with someone from the floor seats.
He then sprayed the group of people standing in front of the stage with water and shook his crotch in people’s faces.
Afterward, he and his band continued to play a strange combination of songs that didn’t seem at all connected – including a version of “Summer Nights” from Grease – and told about two jokes through the course of the show.
The negative response may be no fault of Robinson’s, said sophomore civil engineering major John Groeger. S.E.E. may just have booked the wrong headliner for its homecoming show.
“In a different scenario, people would enjoy that, but it’s not appropriate for a stand-up comedian show,” he said.
The show’s outcome could not have been anticipated by S.E.E., said Jack Trimble, a junior environmental science and technology major, but should be made up to students with a larger venue for its spring comedy show.
Audience members started to trickle out within a few minutes of Robinson’s act, leaving a sparse crowd when he finished around 10:15 p.m.
The audience was puzzled, said senior history and secondary education major Niklas Berry, and he was unhappy with the show.
“We didn’t pay to see a drunk Craig Robinson,” he said.
