Donald Glover prefaced his 65-minute set last night at Gaston Hall with a disclaimer: “Who’s seen my show Community?” he asked the audience. “This will be nothing like that. I talk about my dick a lot more.”

This proved to be half true—he talked about his dick a decent amount. But if you know Glover best from his role as Troy on Community, a lot about his set was familiar. Glover’s character is known for his silly, nerdy antics with best friend Abed, and above all its his child-like quality that endears him to viewers (one of the funniest scenes of the series shows him paralyzed in awe upon meeting his idol, Levar Burton of Reading Rainbow). It’s no surprise, then, that large portion of Glover’s very funny material was about childhood, kids, and growing up. Yes, there were dick jokes, but if Community weren’t a network show, I bet Troy and Abed would talk about their dicks all the time.

In front of a nearly sold-out crowd, Glover started off with a few spot-on campus observations: “Georgetown has its ‘white guys looking like white guys’ game on LOCK.” He went on to tell a few stories about show biz, like the time he was rumored to be in the running to play Spiderman. And with this material, Glover proved that although he’s better known for his TV and YouTube work, as well as his hip-hop efforts as Childish Gambino, he is a very polished stand-up comic.

About 20 minutes into the set, his wireless mic stopped working. As Georgetown Program Board members tried to get it back on, he did about 10 minutes of material without the sound system. And although I can’t speak for those in the balcony, people pretty far back on the floor level heard him just fine. And even though he had to project more, the technical difficulty actually improved his delivery, as he got a chance to showcase his talent for physical comedy.

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This clip from last night’s Jay Leno Show, in which an actor sporting a Georgetown Hoyas sweatshirt pretends to be a mentally handicapped guy imitating Man vs. Wild in his backyard, raises a number of questions: What about this is remotely funny? Why is Jay Leno still on television? Who watches this? And, most importantly, why’d you have to bring that innocent Georgetown sweatshirt into it, Jay?

Via HoyaTalk.

In this week’s issue of the Voice, I had the chance to talk to quite a few former Georgetown comedians. Unfortunately, we didn’t have space for all of their quotes in the article, so here are a few of the extras:

Alison Becker (COL ’99) on the advantages of being a comedian at Georgetown:

“Because the comedy vibe at Georgetown was so under the radar of the administration, we did whatever we wanted. It was student-run, and that’s how comedy should be: without rules. And Georgetown gave me something that few other schools could have: the chance to create with genuinely intelligent people. You can’t be an idiot and be a good comedian. You have to play to the height of your intelligence. And I am thankful that my fellow improv players challenged me intellectually and comedically. “

Mike Birbiglia (COL ’00) on benefiting from Georgetown’s erudite culture and bureaucratic red-tape:

“The upside of Georgetown is that I was surrounded by people from all different fields. government, language, science. so in some ways, I feel like I benefited by osmosis, and it gave me a slightly more balanced view of the world.”

“When I was at Georgetown, I resented the administration and bureaucracy of the performing arts, but when I have distance from it I can see that they really have more of a long view and that yes, it was a struggle to get something up and running on campus but that actually there ought to be a struggle of some kind, because the struggle students will face when they leave Georgetown is far more arduous.”

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