Steve Hofstetter, dubbed the “thinking man’s comic,” performed stand-up comedy for nearly two hours to a partly filled McNeil room this past Saturday night, a presentation made free to RPI students through UPAC Comedy.
Best known for his recent appearance on the NBC show “Last Comic Standing,” Hofstetter is also a published author, his most recent book entitled Student Body Shots. He also does humorous writing for Maxim and ESPN magazines, and he’s also been busy with traveling the country on a tour that is stopping at clubs and colleges like RPI.
Hofstetter started off the show strong with plenty of audience involvement, as much of his comedy stemmed from the audience’s response to questions asked by him. Among other things, he inquired where students were from, what the ratio of girls to guys was at RPI, and any out-of-the-ordinary classes students were taking, a question which was enthusiastically answered with, “Deep Listening!” He built off of jokes about RPI students playing Grand Theft Auto constantly but interjected some trademark jokes.
Csaba Vajtai, a freshman chemistry major, had the opportunity to drop by the McNeil room in the Union to catch Hofstetter’s act. “I thought the comic gave a mostly funny and fairly solid performance; however, I felt that a lot of the jokes were canned, such as when he asked people where they were from and did a joke about each of the states mentioned,” said Vajtai. “But I thought that most of the crowd liked his improvised and ‘RPI-specific’ jokes the most, which fortunately consisted of a larger portion of his act. Overall, it was an event worth going to.”
Trent Gillaspie, a freshman mechanical engineering major, also found the performance to be a worthwhile experience. “Steve Hofstetter had me laughing most of his routine in spite of some of the harsh political stabs.” Gillaspie was able to talk with Hofstetter one-on-one, though. “After the show, I had a chance to sit down and talk with him and, aside from being a great comedian, he’s also a great guy. Openly telling us to burn his CDs and giving tips on how to be an up and coming comedian, he helped me out and made me laugh even when he wasn’t in his routine,” Gillaspie explained.
If the reaction from the audience was any indicator of Hofstetter’s performance, he was given a thumbs up, as even students in the far back of the audience could be heard laughing most of the time. While all of his jokes weren’t entirely fresh, adapting to the audience of college students proved effective.
Anyone interested in learning more about Steve Hofstetter and his works can check out his website at http://www.stevehofstetter.com/.
