Four Monmouth College students to compete for major acting scholarship

By: Natalie Pistole
Contributing Writer

It was a tough decision with many options, but Erik Kammerer, comedian chair, and the Association for Student Activities Programming (ASAP) board voted unanimously to invite comedian Ray Ellin to perform at Monmouth College. The selection process even included bringing a few showcase performances to ASAP meetings.

On Wednesday, Jan. 24 at 8 p.m., the Monmouth College campus was given a sweet treat as Ellin entertained a small crowd at the Underground. Kammerer’s choice appeared to be a good one, as Ellin seemed to be a hit with the audience.

He seemed to feel at home right away and it was obvious that “being funny” was something he has been doing his whole life. According to Ellin’s website, rayellin.com, he knew he wanted to be a comedian when he performed at his sixth grade graduation.

When he turned fifteen, he began to perform on open-mic nights, and by the time he reached the age of eighteen, he was well-known throughout his local scene.

Ellin currently lives in New York City, and has made appearances on “The Conan O’Brien Show” and Comedy Central. He is also known as the “Guy-who-licked-the-Volkswagen” in one of the Volkswagen commercials.

Here at Monmouth, Ellin used his experience from his past and of the two shows to enlighten the crowd with a blunt yet relaxed humor which kept the crowd laughing the entire hour he was on stage. He cracked jokes about Internet education, asking the audience, “Would you trust a professor from Yahoo U?” He also made jokes about working in restaurants such as McDonald’s and Round Ground, two places where he has worked in the past.

But most of the jokes that Ellin delivered concerned relationships. He dealt with anything from Internet dating to even having his own dating show on-stage, where he chose one female member of the audience and three male members to go through some goofy questioning which he had prepared for her to ask. The questions included asking each contestant to make an animal sound, make a rap with her name in it and even to compare their kissing to an academic major.

Another thing Ellin liked to do was pick out a member of the audience to ask a question to and then go off into a series of his own stories related to that person, making the stories even funnier. Ashley Ricchetti, a freshman, said “I liked how personal he was with the audience. It’s always funny when someone makes fun of someone else, unless you’re the one being made fun of, of course!”

It seemed as if the whole audience, including Ricchetti, found Ellin’s jokes funny. The laughs kept coming the entire time. Another freshmen in the audience, Stephanie Bieschke, said, “My favorite joke that he told was when he asked what Knox’s mascot was, and after we told him, he asked us if we carry giant hoses to the games to put out the ‘Prairie Fire.’” Ellin seemed to find the right thing to make fun of because most Monmouth College students love to hear a good joke about Knox.

So as the ASAP members look back at their chosen comedian, they can be satisfied with their choice. He proved to do exactly what he came here to do: make people laugh.