Emerson comedy team finishes 2nd in national comedy festival

6/18/09Emerson College comedians put up a great fight at the Wheeler Opera House in Aspen, Colo., June 13 and finished second to the University of Minnesota in the 2009 National College Comedy Competition.

Just three months ago Reggie Williams,a senior writing for film and television major, Dan Perrault, a senior theater major, Max Fox, a sophomore WLP major and Blake Wexler, a freshman broadcast journalism major, had no idea they would end up being named the second funniest college team in the country.

In the final round all eight contestants, four from each college, received just one chance to wow the crowd. The winners, decided by online voters and judges, would be given the title "The Funniest College" in the America.

It took five rounds for 32 college teams to be trimmed down to four finalists: University of California- Berkeley, University of Minnesota, Emerson College and University of Florida. Their members received an all-expense paid trip to the Aspen finals.

"I was pretty excited," Fox said when he found out they were headed to the finals. "I was pretty sure we won the round because we had way more views. It was a big relief because we had worked so hard to get there."

The second annual competition began in March at Emerson where each student, along with 23 others, had to sign up to perform at the Cabaret. Only eight were chosen to move on to the next round at Nick's Comedy Stop two weeks later where they performed against Boston University.

It was the same kind of set up, except this time the winners were chosen by judges as well as the audience. After the regionals, the final four emerged. One finalist from the West, East, Midwest and South.

Emerson team members had received great laughs with lines like, "I saw an ad for a dating site called plentyoffish.com. It said we delete users unfit to date. Ya they are all unfit to date, they are fish!" Perrault said with an energy like no other.

"As a stand up team, we made it to the finals through good comedy, work shopping as a team, networking, building a dedicated community and abusing Facebook," Perrault said.

Williams said the tour was long and exhausting. Fox said the high altitude in Aspen bothered him on a daily basis, but he still loved being there. He said it was probably the most beautiful place he's ever been to.

"The best part of the tour ... it's kind of hard to narrow it down to one moment-- the vacation, being a finalist, being around a lot of great comedians," Williams said of the Rooftop Comedy Competition. "(The people on the tour) made us feel important there. They made you feel like you really accomplished something there."

Williams said he has been performing stand-up comedy for two and a half years. Originally from Brockton, he said he used to goof off in high school making jokes. He said he wanted to try performing his jokes and once he did, he became addicted.

"I like the attention," Williams said. " (In the future) I want to really start diving into the Boston comedy scene. Hopefully I can start winning festivals and get an agent in a couple of years."

Fox will be attending Rooftop Comedy's Talent Institute in San Fransisco for two weeks in July. They recruited him and offered free housing, classes, workshops and a plane ticket.

"I just applied for it," Fox said. "They give us industry people that come and talk to us and we get stage time. It's more well rounded than the festival.