Piscopo's Arm Culls Laughs from Cat Audience

"Every cheerful chicken dies, not every cheerful chicken really lives," read the front cover of the Piscapošs Arm programs circulated at the student comedy groupšs Sunday performance at the Cat in the Cream.

Esoteric declarations and in-jokes such as this are what often prevents student comedy groups from achieving widespread campus success outside a small band of supporters. However, Piscapošs Arm succeeded in generating hearty laughs from the substantial crowd because of their willingness to avoid obscure and exclusive humor and needle more obvious targets like campus security and Regis Philbin.

Senior Keith Friedlander provided early laughs for the crowd with his soprano-voiced accompaniment of senior Jeff Harveyšs take on a typically straight-laced campus security officer. While Harvey threatened to "break heads" if he were to catch students having unprotected sex or smoking pot, Friedlander played the gruff officeršs sidekick perfectly, demonstrating a broken head with an apple and a baseball bat and even performing a charming dance in the background while singing "Me so Horny."

A solid performance from both junior Aaron Mucciolo and sophomore Mike Connor followed, as they presented their version of the popular television game show "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" Mucciolo successfully played the part of the very vanilla host, Peaches Million, while Connor personified a money-hungry yokel competing for the booty. Connor drew some of the biggest laughs of the evening in making the unusual comparison of a million dollars to "the smell of warm butter and lamb fur." Meanwhile, the producers slowly got stoned in the background while Connor verbally expressed the desire of many college students ‹ drowning his stress in 40 ounces of Colt 45.

Brief "Drojan Man" skits resembling the parodied Saturday Night Live commercials appeared three times during the show, with Drojan Man appearing during interactions with sexual potential to preach the safety and comfort of Drojan condoms. Although Harvey proved adept at playing the constantly smiling Ren and Stimpy-like superhero Drojan Man, his farcical sales pitches proved tired and predictable by their third appearance.

Friedlander proceeded to steal the show over the course of the next two skits with his stirring rendition of both Chester the Cheerful Chicken and a zealous preacher/judge at the Ms. Teen Christianity Pageant. At the very least, he doubtlessly earned the respect of the audience by donning a full-body chicken suit in the sweltering coffeehouse climate.

Chester, a chicken paid to make a pre-school appearance to preach sobriety and chastity, had the crowd roaring with his highly inappropriate ditties ending with him lighting a cigarette and mentioning the attributes of Yasmine Bleeth in leather. Sophomore Duncan Gale provided deft keyboard accompaniment to Chesteršs riotous rhymes.

Friedlander proved his versatility in resembling the Ms. Black U.S.A. judge in "Coming to America" as he acted the part of religious judge in the Ms. Teen Christianity Pageant. Gale added more tasteful ballgame-like organ blips and Friedlander delivered his best line, correcting a contestant who guessed that Jesus multiplied by Jesus would equal Jesus squared, shouting, "Jesus squared would imply something greater than Jesus. There is nothing greater than Jesus!"

Although they performed essentially the same show they did during second semester last year, Piscapošs Arm did so spiritedly and almost entirely free of error. Although the cryptic program notes provided little concrete information about the group, they mention that they will audition for new members before the end of the month. Oh, and they know they spelled Piscopo wrong. They like it that way.