Controversial comedian still a hit
Voltaire once wrote that God is a comedian playing to a world too afraid to laugh.
If that be true, what does that make Daniel Tosh?
“I thought he was funny,” said Nathan Lewis, a senior majoring in electrical engineering, “I just like the little things about him – his personality, his mannerisms and his randomness.”
Bringing a distinct sense of humor with him, Daniel Tosh made his first appearance at USU last Tuesday night.
According to his Web page, www.DanielTosh.com, “Daniel is one of the most requested headliners in the country, who has quickly evolved into one of the most popular and successful college acts, performing at more than one hundred campuses a year.”
Having appeared on the “Late Show with David Letterman” twice in April of 2001 and receiving the New Faces award at the Just for Laughs International Comedy Festival in Montreal in 1998, Tosh is a comedian who lives up to his self-billing.
“I thought [the show] was hilarious,” said Aubrie Zongler, a freshman majoring in physics. “I had never heard of him before, but my friend told me about tonight and I thought it would be fun to go see a comedian. He was so funny.”
With material that ranged from mocking magic midgets and Mexicans to white trash and homosexuals, none were spared from his humor.
“I don’t care,” Tosh quipped, “I’ll make fun of anyone.”
Tosh also had an interesting habit of randomness that kept the audience wondering what was coming next.
“How many of you have those WWJD [What Would Jesus Do] bracelets?” Tosh asked. “I had one once and I gave it to my Jewish friends. He put it on and it started burning his skin. He took it off and threw it down and it turned into a snake. We both laughed and now I have a pet snake.”
Though many students commented on some of the questionable material he presented, several students were pleased with Tosh’s jokes.
“It was nice that he kinda shook things up a little bit and upset the status quo and made people think,” said Steve Hutzel, a junior majoring in business information systems. “Some of his jokes were very pretty racy. I was impressed to see an outsider coming to Utah telling jokes about a 90 foot vagina. I think that it shocked people a little bit, but I was surprised at how well people took it. I expected a lot more people to get up and leave.”
There were also many students with differing opinions on both extremes.
“I actually think he was very mild in his humor,” Zongler said. “I don’t think it was as racy as some of his other stuff probably is. He didn’t use a single cuss-word, which I think is funny, but somewhere else he might have.”
Catie Findlay, a freshman majoring in interior design didn’t know exactly what to expect and went into the night “blindly.”
“I had fun, but I only enjoyed about half his stuff,” Findlay said. “The other half was a bit questionable, but I can tolerate it. I can understand it, coming from his background. He was kind of racist and there was a little bit of swearing, but I guess I’m just to ignorant to know what the other bad things were. I think his material was definitely toned down though, and there was a generally positive response from the audience.”
“I think it’s good that he toned [the show] down,” Lewis said. “It shows his talent that he doesn’t have to go off on something that he knows the audience won’t appreciate; he can adapt and that’s pretty cool. He’s as good as any other comedian I’ve ever seen.”
-mattgo@cc.usu.edu