Comedian Greg Wilson said the only time he ever felt noble about performing stand-up comedy was in New York City after 9/11. He lived just a few blocks from the towers at the time, and felt that it was part of his duty as a comedian to make people laugh again afterwards. Wilson recalled being “very aware [he] was part of history” just by being there.

Wilson, who now lives in Los Angeles, performed his stand-up routine at University of Wisconsin-Platteville for Stand-Up Saturday on Jan. 16 in the Markee Pioneer Student Center.

“I had to dig up the parka to be here,” Wilson said. He also said he had to pass up a role on television.

“It’s very hard to cancel on schools because they’re expecting [me], but it did not make my agents very happy,” Wilson said.

The night started out with a preshow called “Box of Lies” organized by Campus Programming and Relations. “Box of Lies” is a game that late night host Jimmy Fallon often plays with his celebrity guests. The preshow lasted about thirty minutes and then Wilson took the stage.

He performed for approximately one hour and drew the most laughs with jokes that involved calling out particular students in the audience. Wilson’s impressions of Donald Trump drew a few scattered laughs, but jokes involving vomiting, toilet humor and marijuana drew both applause and laughter.

“The beginning was okay,” freshman electrical engineering major Matt McCarthy said. “It got better later, and people got more into it.”

CPR typically hosts three Stand-Up Saturday’s per semester, CPR representative and senior industrial engineering student Ali Sieling said. They choose the acts they want to feature after viewing them at the National Association for College Activities Conference, which members of CPR attend every year.

Entertainers pay to be a part of the conference, and according to the NACA website, a national membership for a single artist costs $595.

Wilson, who has been featured in small roles on shows such as Modern Family and Ugly Betty, said that while “the challenges of doing the college circuit are well documented,” he enjoys performing stand-up for college audiences.

“College kids have always been skeptics,” Wilson said, “always wanting you to prove what you’re trying to sell them. It makes it more satisfying, like ‘haha, gotcha [sic]; you didn’t think you would laugh but you did.”

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