From left: Abbi Jacobson, Ilana Glazer and Hannibal Buress in a scene from Comedy Central’s ‘Broad City’
Credit: Photo by Walter Thompson, courtesy of Comedy Central
The same day Comedy Central released the first full trailer for “Broad City’s” second season, the comedic duo and the show’s creators — Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer —took the stage in the Archie Griffin Grand Ballroom alongside comedian Hannibal Buress — a show regular.
“Broad City” depicts the unlikely pair — Jacobson and Glazer — navigating their 20-something lives in New York City. The duo’s day-to-day ordeals highlight their obliviousness as they strive to just survive — not necessarily succeed — in the Big Apple.
After opening the Ohio Union Activities Board-sponsored show Monday evening with the same pre-gaming dance session one might have with their girlfriends before a night out, the two began to breathlessly explain the concept of their skit for the night: The soundtrack to their lives.
Hitting only the important milestones of one’s life, from birth, hair removal, preparing for brunch and having sex to dying in your sleep, Jacobson and Glazer attempted the raw versions of their song choices.
Bringing to life their on-screen characters, Jacobson hilariously struggled to put into words the meanings of her selections while Glazer confidently belted out hers.
Despite being true to form, the song selections often fell on deaf ears, sometimes unrecognizable by a moderately younger crowd. Selections such as Peggy Lee’s “I Enjoy Being a Girl” and Billy Joel’s “The River of Dreams” kept some jokes from resonating with the crowd.
“I think it would have been a little funnier if I understood the song references,” Nicholas Sears, a second-year in mechanical engineering, said. “I’d never heard a decent amount of them, so I didn’t really understand the joke.”
Nicholas Halliday expressed the same inclination.
“Obviously, there were songs I knew, but I still have no clue who Bonnie Raitt is,” Halliday, a second-year in business administration, said.
Although the “Broad City” duo was the headliner, Buress drew the biggest laughs.
Taking the stage after the ladies’ first skit, the comedian, actor, television writer and self-proclaimed rapper performed his stand-up.
Covering a broad array of subject matters, Buress’ delivery summoned applause. No subject was off the table as Buress joked about how little of adjustments the Republican Party would have to make to get his vote. If Mitt Romney had allowed keeping shoes on when going through airport security, Buress would have voted Republican. He travels way more than he has an abortion to take off, he said.
Ryan Heber, a first-year in earth science, said that Buress was his main draw to the OUAB event.
“I don’t usually watch ‘Broad City.’ I came to see Hannibal,” Heber said.
The ‘Broad City’ ladies still garnered laughs, though. After all, the notion of their sketch is one that almost everyone has given a moment of thought to before — the desired and situationally appropriate background music that plays in your head.
As Glazer so delicately explained: “It gets you laid or it makes you funnier.”
