The walls of the Center for the Arts echoed with laughter Friday night as Rory Albanese, Wyatt Cenac and John Oliver of The Daily Show flaunted mastery of the comedic arts.
???Albanese, executive producer for The Daily Show, was the first to grace the stage with his presence Friday night. With jokes ranging from the weather to foreign nations around the globe, his performance was hysterical.
???Within seconds of taking to the stage, requests were already coming in for him to drop his pants. Though slightly funny, it ran a bit dry after the same person yelled it out for the fourth time.
???Luckily for the audience, Albanese's jokes were funnier than the ones coming from the front row.
???Albanese started his set off (which tends to be a favorite of comics whenever they visit here) with some comments about the local weather.
???Anyone living in Western New York has heard hundreds of jokes about the weather. He somehow managed to make this overused topic feel fresh and funny, which is not an easy feat.
???A man of tact, Albanese decided to close out his set with a story about jolly ol'e England. Long story short, he annexed every McDonald's in the world and declared it U.S. soil.
???From there he informed a customer stating, "Nobody tells me how to act at McDonald's. Nobody."
???From his first joke to his last, Albanese gave a performance nothing short of what one would expect from the show's executive producer and departed the stage with an excited applause.
???Daily Show Correspondent Wyatt Cenac was next to walk on stage. Possessing a much cooler demeanor than Albanese, Cenac gave a bit more laid-back performance.
???After informing the crowd that a good way to support Native Americans was to buy a red Jeep Cherokee, he further advised them to use it to hit girls to obtain a government-paid second date, aka arraignment.
???The third and final comedian to perform was the British-born Daily Show correspondent John Oliver. Speaking in an accent dripping of tea and crumpets, Oliver fired joke after joke into the crowd.
???The shear expanse and randomness of Oliver's topics had the audience in sidesplitting laughter from start to finish. A short list of the material covered in his act would consist of Plaxico Burress, Canada's "orgasmic" national anthem, penguins with cocaine on their beaks, Oreo pizza and his 11-year-old penis.
???When Oliver finished his set, he turned his attention to the people in the front row that wouldn't stop talking.
???"What are you talking about? Has it been important? I presume it's been f*cking important. It's taken two hours," Oliver said.
???Upon completion of this sentence, the crowd exploded into cheers.
???A short Q&A with all three comedians followed Oliver's performance. Several posed questions covered everything from Long Island towns to The Daily Show.
???"With college kids it's always a mixed bag, and some colleges like to drink more than others," Oliver said. "Colleges are always fun. With theater gigs you often get people checking their watches knowing they're on baby sitter time. At least college kids got nothing to do other than, as was established here, drink and go to strip clubs."
???A veteran of the show, Albanese divulged what he truly loves about working for The Daily Show: his office.
???"My office now, what's cool about it is, it's glass. Below the glass is everyone else who works there so I look down and see people writing and doing things and I go 'hahaha' and I laugh at them," Albanese said.
???When posed with whether they preferred stand up to working on The Daily Show, each of them had the same response. They made it clear that they couldn't pick.
???"The balance of them is very nice," Cenac said. "...Guys that have been doing stand up for years and have been on the road always say, 'I wish I had a consistent gig that would keep me in one city.' I think at the same time if you're doing this show and you're just doing this show it's like 'I wish I had an outlet that I, could go and just do jokes I write. So it's sort of that nice balance."
???With things coming to a close for the night, each of the comedians offered up their opinions on their jobs.
???"My dream job was to play football for England," Oliver said. "To be honest for me, if I was on another TV show, I would be trying to get on this one."
Photo: Breadchastick / Wikimedia Commons
