Comedian Melissa Villaseñor performs in the Student Union Theater during the Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2017 comedy show, presented by SUBOG. Villaseñor is a regular cast member on Saturday Night Live. (David Anastasio/The Daily Campus)
Melissa Villaseñor took to the Student Union Theater on Wednesday to perform her unique and hilarious blend of impressions and awkwardly charming anecdotes. Villaseñor is the first of many comedians in a series of weekly shows put on by SUBOG Comedy, making Villaseñor’s entertaining performance a great way to start the semester.
Villaseñor has risen to fame recently as one of the newest cast members of the long running sketch comedy show, “Saturday Night Live.” Before Villaseñor brought her comedy to SNL, she was a semi-finalist for season six of America’s Got Talent. On both shows, the comedian displayed her hilarious impressions, many of which she performed for her latest show in the Student Union Theater.
Villaseñor’s performance got off to a great start, with her confirming to audience members that her interesting voice was genuine and not a joke, saying, “I sound like a crochet yarn and also eat the yarn.” This set the tone for the remainder of the show, which featured many self-deprecating jokes and anecdotes. Villaseñor’s loudest laughs came from her impressions, which were extremely diverse and side-splitting.
Rachel Nadell, a second semester HDFS major loved Villaseñor’s impressions,
“Her impressions are fantastic. Her Owen Wilson and her Wanda Sykes impressions were really funny,” Nadell said. “It was crazy because I’ve seen those impressions on SNL, and then I get to see them here.”
Villaseñor’s impression of Owen Wilson during a building fire was definitely a highlight of the show, leaving attendees laughing throughout the entire bit.
Even students like eighth semester MCB major Sajin Cyr, who were not familiar with Villaseñor’s work on SNL and “America’s Got Talent,” thought that her impressions were a highlight of the show.
“I definitely was pleasantly surprised by how funny she was. Her impressions were very spot on, very funny. That Sim bit she did, where she impersonated a Sim, was very funny,” Cyr said. “She had me in stitches for a good part of the show.”
Some of Villaseñor’s other notable impressions included Ash Ketchum from Pokémon, a moonwalking Michael Jackson and Gwen Stefani getting pulled over.
Although a standup comedy show that heavily features impressions can get repetitive fairly quickly, Villaseñor managed to keep the show interesting by providing funny anecdotes from her life, which maintained a steady stream of laughter coming from those in attendance. Much of Villaseñor’s content was regarding her quirks and “weirdness,” including the fact that she often wets herself when she is happy, her attraction to Simba from “The Lion King” and how she narrates Facebook posts out loud to herself. Villaseñor performed a dramatic Facebook post as Gandalf from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, causing attendees to burst with laughter after hearing her impression of Ian McKellen’s iconic Gandalf dramatically recalling how CrossFit saved his life.
While people began to file out of the show, the Student Union was filled with laughter as attendees recalled their favorite moments from the performance. Villaseñor’s comedy routine was a fantastic way to begin SUBOG’s comedy shows for the semester, setting a high bar for comedians to come.
Lauren Brown is a staff writer for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at lauren.brown@uconn.edu.
