Horatio Sanz may look innocent with his puppy dog eyes and big rosy red cheeks, but don’t be tricked. Underneath his rotund body lies the soul of a comedic pervert.

‘You know what happens in a Winnebago?’ Sanz, playing the part of a mother, said to his children when asked why they weren’t traveling in one for vacation. ‘You get raped, you get thrown off and then you make amateur porn.’

The Kings of Improv, including Sanz, performed Saturday night in Goldstein Auditorium. The group did an hour and a half of comedy with a 15-minute intermission for a crowd of about 200 people. Taking suggestions from the audience and working off each other, the Kings did a series of monologues and skits that were sometimes hilarious but often just dull and awkward.

‘I thought the flow was off,’ said Craig Jones, a sophomore finance major. ‘I have been to a couple improv shows, and a good show is when you can feel the chemistry between the actors. There were two of them who seemed to have it, but it seemed Horatio really carried the show. Overall, I thought it was pretty funny … about half and half (was good.)’

The Kings took any advantage to get a laugh out of the audience. They had no shame in making fun of things like the mentally retarded, the gay community, janitors, fat people, America, genitalia, suicide and Billy Joel. Many of the skits were clearly geared toward a college audience, especially at Syracuse. During a sketch about a basketball game, the mascot, an Orange instead of an Orangeman, didn’t know how to cheer properly. He was told that he could do anything, because he was an abstract color. These jokes were funny, but often pushed a little too far:

‘My grandpa was in Vietnam, and he said that they sprayed you on everyone,’ Sanz said to the mascot.

Beyond Sanz, it was clear who ruled among the Kings. Paul Scheer, from the show ‘Best Week Ever,’ and Jack McBrayer, from the upcoming Will Ferrell movie, ‘Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby,’ shone in their ability to not only stand alone during the monologues, but also work off each other to get a response. During a sketch where Jesus and his apostles lived in a fraternity house, Scheer told McBrayer, who was playing Jesus, that he was angry with him for turning fish into DVDs, a leper into a DJ and kegs of beer into bigger kegs of beer. To this, McBrayer offhandedly replied, ‘I just want to be popular.’

‘I thought it was really funny,’ said Alaina Kaczmarski, a sophomore magazine major. ‘I went to an improv show earlier in the year and I thought it was an improvement. I like ‘(Saturday Night Live).’ I like Horatio Sanz. (The whole group) was creative and they worked with what they could get.’

Sanz did a little stand-up at the beginning of the show about his time in Syracuse. He spoke about drinking at Chuck’s, being recognized at Carousel Mall and the awesomeness of Jimmy John’s, to which he received cheering from the audience as well as one loud ‘boo.’

‘That’s the owner of Subway,’ Sanz said.

Each skit, while sometimes long and awkward, did have at least one line that got the audience laughing. Whether it was about snakes actually being on a plane (making fun of the upcoming Samuel Jackson movie) during a piece about flight attendant training, or hitting Dave Matthews in the groin in a sketch about a male bonding group called ‘The Dickheads,’ the audience couldn’t help but laugh, no matter how bad or inappropriate the jokes were.

‘Ooh,’ McBrayer said, looking at Sanz’s palm while playing the part of a fortuneteller.

‘What is it? Will I meet a hot chick?’ Sanz asked.

‘No, you’ve got skin cancer. That’ll be $20,’ McBrayer replied.

These types of jokes were not for everyone though, as many people got up from their seats and walked out throughout the show, unsatisfied by the overall comedic performance.

‘It wasn’t my kind of show really,’ said John Troynousky, a freshman civil engineering major. ‘I’m more into intellectual humor … it was stupid humor.’

Published on April 1, 2006 at 12:00 pm