On Tuesday, the Osterhout Concert Theater in the Anderson Center opened its doors for the Student Association Programming Board’s (SAPB) stand-up comedy show. The show featured headliner Chris Distefano and opener Sergio Chicon.
The show began with SAPB Comedy Chair Victoria Manfredi, a senior majoring in integrative neuroscience, introducing Chicon. Chicon is a fighter, personal trainer, creator of the #DBSpodcast and, most importantly, a comedian. Chicon immediately charmed the crowd with his wholesome attitude and effortless self-deprecation.
Chicon warmed up the crowd by effectively ragging on the audience for being too formal, telling them to loosen up. He joked about various topics, often jumping from one idea to another at lightning speed. At one point, he talked about his overbite always making him look happy, and often being called Vin Diesel. Crowd interaction was another jumping-off point for Chicon’s jokes, which led him to a bit about how people talk about animal adoption.
“I hate when people say ‘I rescued,’” Chicon said. “That shit is annoying. Everyone knows that person who has a little hat on and bangs and says ‘I rescued.’”
Chicon used descriptive storytelling to deliver punchlines to his jokes, which won over the audience many times throughout the set. One example was his story of his pit bull getting neutered.
“They tattoo your dog to show that your dog’s been fixed if missing testicles was not enough of an indication,” Chicon said. “Now I have a pit that’s pissed off with no nut sack and two tattoo teardrops on his eye looking like a Latin king.”
After roughly 20 minutes, Chicon welcomed Distefano onto the stage. Distefano first garnered popularity on MTV’s talking heads franchise “Guy Code vs. Girl Code.” He has accumulated a repertoire of comedy specials as well on Comedy Central, and is currently cohosting the podcast “HEY BABE!” with Sal Vulcano.
Right off the bat, Distefano used clever jokes and jaded humor to begin the set. Similarly to Chicano, Distefano used a little crowd interaction to craft jokes. Funnily enough, the same BU student was called out by both comedians. Matteo Frezza, a sophomore majoring in mechanical engineering, was called out for a gnarly scar on his nose that resulted from a fight. Frezza did not mind getting involved with both comedic acts in this way.
“I thought it was funny,” Frezza said. “I mean I kinda expected it since I was in the front of the room. It was fun.”
Distefano spoke a lot about his family, including his Puerto Rican children and old-fashioned father, using various comedic voices to impersonate people in his life. He told cute stories of his daughter only speaking Spanish and the surprisingly loving relationship between his traditional father and transgender nanny TiTi Jerry. One crazy story revolved around his daughter getting in trouble for calling kids on the bus “poopy.”
“She’s a kid,” Distefano said. “She goes ‘you’re a poopy, grandpa you’re a poopy.’ He’s like, ‘I haven’t shit in three weeks.’”
Another good moment was Distefano’s biting humor toward his biggest public mess-up.
“By far the most viral thing I have ever said is [mispronouncing] the word fucking ‘Tupperware,’” Distefano said. “Instead of saying ‘tupper’ with a ‘p,’ I said it with a ‘b.’ And you know what, I graduated from a state school, so the joke’s on you.”
In the end, Distefano took a handful of questions from the audience. There were many funny ones, ranging from whether he has ever had sex with Joe Biden to what Sal Vulcano smells like.
As comedy chair of SAPB, Manfredi was responsible for choosing what act to bring to BU, reaching out to agents, corresponding with the team of each comedy act and promoting the show. Manfredi had no complaints about the outcome of the show.
“The show went really well!” Manfredi wrote in an email. “I’m happy to say that everything went smoothly behind the scenes and Chris and Sergio were both so funny during the show. I could tell the crowd really had fun with them.”