Journals

At last, Godfrey comes to the Hilltop

January 30, 2007   

Stand-up comedian Godfrey came to campus last Saturday night to perform. While you might not be very familiar with his act, I’ll bet you would recognize his face. Godfrey appeared in a string of 7-Up commercials (he was that black guy in the green sweater vest). More importantly, though, Godfrey had a memorable appearance in Zoolander. You know that scene where Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson are trying to go under cover, and they disguise themselves (and are actually replaced with different actors)? Well, Godfrey was the black Zoolander.

Godfrey had actually been slated to perform during the fall semester, but illness kept him from coming. The Hamilton community was quite disappointed. When he finally rescheduled, I think even more people were excited that he would be here. Indeed, I have never seen as many people in the Events Barn for a CAB comedy show as there were on Saturday night.

As a performer, Godfrey is edgy and energetic. His delivery is often loud with a high degree of physicality. I found most of his material to be genuinely funny, and so I don’t think his over-the-top presentation was a way to compensate for weak jokes. That’s just his personality. His jokes covered a variety of subjects, and the students enjoyed almost all of them. A few touched on some sensitive areas, but overall he was very well-received.

After the show, I stuck around with some friends to talk to the comic and get some pictures. The comedians who come to Hamilton are usually obliging, but Godfrey really takes the cake. Not only did we all get our picture taken with him, but we actually chatted for over 20 minutes. In fact, Godfrey asked us about as many questions as we asked him. We could have talked longer I’m sure (Godfrey makes a living talking), but eventually we let him go – or he let us go. It was a very enjoyable evening.