A Night at the Improv

Last Thursday night (yes, on a school night!) my brother and I had the chance to see Judah Friedlander at the DC Improv. Here was my take on the evening:

• Laura Prangley was up first. You've got to give a whole bunch of credit to the first comic who takes the stage with an otherwise cold audience. Her routine was pretty much classic stand-up - she got into raunchy material right away, which I suppose is to be expected, but didn't exactly get me laughing. She did, however, manage to work in a series of binary related jokes - including one sex one, which was down right impressive. She automatically got big points for this.
• Jared Stern took the stage next, and again, provided classic stand-up. Twice during his routine I found myself laughing absolutely uncontrollably, which is an especially good sign. Though, even a few minutes after I was done laughing, I couldn't remember what the joke was. His delivery was definitely on that night.
• Judah Friedlander was the headline of the night and the reason Dave and I were there. He's always been funny on both 30 Rock as well as the appearances he's made on the Daily Show, so my hopes were fairly high. Besides, he's on TV and real honest-to-goodness celebrity. His act basically consisted of getting on stage as his persona (The World Champion) and just being himself. It started off funny enough, both his prepared jokes worked as well as the tension that developed as he talked it up with audience members. Unfortunately, by the end of his set, his shtick had basically been reduced to telling recycled Chuck Norris jokes and requesting the audience Ask Me Questions so he could display his wit. Yeah, it got old.

All in all, it was a wonderful evening and I did get in plenty of laughs. The true high point, however, may have been the food. The Mexican salad I ordered was both fresh and gigantic (and how can you overdue it on salad?) and the chocolate mousse cake was off the charts good.