This past Friday night in Templeton-Blackburn Memorial Auditorium, the Ohio Performing Arts & Concert Series kicked off Ohio University’s Parents Weekend with a comedy set from 'Saturday Night Live' cast member, Alex Moffat.
The event was a way for students to bond with their families, even when Moffat questioned the true meaning of Parents Weekend: “Is it because you spend time with your parents, or do some students become parents this weekend?”
Before Moffat took the stage, stand-up comedian Zach Brazao opened the show to warm up the audience. Moffat expressed his gratitude for OU’s provision of an opener during his set. Normally, he said he would begin the show with a German character spewing fake German words to get a feel for the audience, which he did for only five minutes, unlike other shows where he does it for twenty minutes.
Moffat is most known for his impressions of Eric Trump and ‘A Guy Who Just Bought a Boat' on SNL, he made sure not to disappoint any SNL superfans by giving quick impressions of these well-known characters.
“I’m Eric Trump,” Moffat said, then quickly turned in a circle back to his regularly scheduled set.
For the majority of his set, Moffat seemed to take an interest in the school’s history, especially surrounding the ghost stories in The Ridges, convinced that instead of Rufus the Bobcat, OU’s mascot should be a ghostly woman in an 1804-styled smock.
Students overall enjoyed the event, each joke landed with a perfect amount of laughter between them. Madison Russell and Rachel Montemayor, both freshmen studying musical theater, said they enjoyed the show, despite not being completely sure of who Moffat was at first.
“I didn't recognize him from SNL,” Russell said.
It was their parents' love of comedy that inspired them to come to the show.
“Our parents are both big comedy people, and my family’s a big SNL family,” Montemayor said.
Despite sitting through a few awkward jokes with their parents, the night was a success for those who were celebrating Parents Weekend. Emily Jones, a senior studying communications sciences and disorders, attended the show with her parents and said this was a good start to their weekend.
“I've been watching SNL for a couple of years now … I was really excited to see that [Moffat] was going to be here,” Jones said.
