Mad Cow Improv held a family friendly Homecoming show in Gibble Auditorium on Friday, Oct. 14. The audience consisted of students, alumni, families and community members, who interacted with the Cows. They helped pick the winner in some games and the topics for others. A few audience members also went on stage and became a part of the show.
Alumni in the audience who had been Cows during their years at Elizabethtown College returned to the stage for the game “173.” Alongside the current Cows, they made puns based on objects suggested by the audience. Each joke began with “173 [insert objects] walked into a bar.” Some objects suggested were earrings, forks and boomerangs.
“I think it’s important to have [the show] during homecoming because it not only gives alumni something to do to kick off their weekend, but it also welcomes Mad Cow alumni to see how the group has changed over the years,” senior member Jason Mountain said.
Senior Kevin Hughes picked sophomore Jules Kalish out of the audience to participate in the new game “Spoot the Megellan,” but once on stage, Hughes revealed that Kalish was actually participating in “This is Your Life.” Hughes asked questions about Kalish’s life in two sections: from birth to high school and from high school to college.
Junior Shannon Maguire, sophomore Quinten Yonkers and Mountain acted out Kalish’s life based on her answers. For example, Kalish said she went to a small high school, so the three Cows acted out having to crawl into the school because it was so small.
Hughes also asked Kalish about her death. Kalish said she would die skydiving for the first time at age 100 after having a successful career in geriatrics. The three Cows acted this out, as well.
Another game that required audience members to come on stage was “Rubber People.” Senior Connor Burke picked two volunteers, while Mountain and Yonkers pretended to be dolls. These volunteers had to move the Cows’ limbs as they acted out how to train jellyfish, a topic suggested by the audience.
Mountain’s favorite line during this game was when he said, “I’m going to put my suit on now.” Then, the volunteer had to move all his limbs at once to mime putting on a protective suit from the legs up.
During the game “Lounge Lizards,” the Cows also interacted with the audience. Each Cow sang seven seconds of a song about one of the topics the audience had suggested before the show. The audience yelled “choke” and eliminated Cows from the game if they sang a made-up song, the same song as a previous Cow, an off-topic song or the wrong lyrics to a song.
Mad Cow encouraged the audience to sing along during this game. Some examples of songs were Taylor Swift’s “Teardrops on My Guitar” for the topic of sadness, “Old MacDonald had a Farm” for the topic of animals and “It’s Raining Men” for the topic of weather.
The audience also contributed by providing props for the game “Props” and by purchasing raffle tickets. The Cows played and made puns with these props, which included a skeleton pirate, a bear puppet, a pink die wearing a baseball cap and a Halloween-themed table cloth.
After “Props,” junior Jerica Shuck announced the four winners of the raffle drawing. Two winners received tickets to Hersheypark in the Dark, and the other two received Mad Cow t-shirts.
On the back of each t-shirt, there was a nickname. The Cows usually choose each other’s nickname based on a memorable character they created for a game, but the names can come from the Cow’s personality or memorable actions as well.
Yonkers is called Baby Bird because he threw up on two kids while riding a circular rollercoaster. This reminded the other Cows of how baby birds eat regurgitated food from their parents.
Mountain is called Mayonetta because he once played the video game Super Smash Bros. as the character Bayonetta and then went to get mayonnaise out of the fridge.
Advisor of Mad Cow Improv Dr. William Stuckey of the engineering and physics department also has a nickname: Pops. Stuckey received this name because he always gave the Cows candy, such as lollipops. During the Homecoming show, Stuckey filmed all 13 games of the evening. After the show, the Cows critiqued each other based on this film.
The Cows’ next show is Friday, Nov. 11 in Gibble Auditorium at 8 p.m.
