Ariel Elias tells jokes to audience in Graham Chapel (Alan Zhou | Student Life).

Comedians Mellisa Villanseñor and Ariel Elias came to the Graham Chapel stage for the Student Programming Board’s (SPB) fall comedy show at Washington University, Nov. 28.

Opener Elias’ jokes spanned many topics, including growing up Jewish in Kentucky, Joe Biden’s presidency, and carrying bedazzled pepper spray. Villaseñor, an acclaimed impressionist, imitated celebrities, discussed the challenges of dating men who love Pokemon, and approved an undergraduate’s petition to use the restroom. 

Villaseñor, a former Saturday Night Live performer, joined the show in 2016 for six seasons as the first-ever Latina cast member. Elias has performed on the set of “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and was featured on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” 

Elias talked about when she went viral in 2020 for chugging a beer can that a heckler threw at her during a comedy show. She said the beer can was thrown because the audience member could tell she had voted for Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

“It genuinely sucks to have taken a beer can for Joe Biden,” Elias said. “I want to take a beer can for someone cool like Beyonce. Joe Biden is the Jason Derulo of politics — you never hear anyone say, ‘Oh, that guy’s my favorite.’” 

Elias also spoke about growing up in the only Jewish family she knew in Kentucky and being told she was going to hell by her friends in middle school, and joked about the differences between Jewish holidays and Christian holidays.

“Christians celebrate. We commemorate,” Elias said. “Passover and Easter happen at the same time, and at Easter, all my Christian friends were like, ‘Our lord has risen,’ and I was like, ‘Our bread hasn’t.’ Easter, by the way, should be a dark, scary holiday. Like, he died. It’s upsetting. And then he came back to life? That’s more upsetting. But Christians were just like, ‘Pastels.’”

Elias discussed using public transportation in New York City, where she lives now, and how on one Halloween, she saw a man dressed as Super Mario running to catch the train, barely missing it.

“I was like, ‘Aww, you should’ve held down B. You would’ve gotten there faster,’” Elias said.

Elias also recounted her mother buying her pepper spray before she went to college in New Orleans and voiced confusion at the rhinestone exterior of the spray. 

“Why do they keep bedazzling our weapons?” She said, “It’s just weird, because the only people who are going to see that pepper spray are me and my attacker. I’m not dressing for him.” 

After her act, Elias introduced Villaseñor, who began her portion of the show talking about achieving her dream of being on SNL and shared some of her memories doing impressions of celebrities on the show. She has imitated the voices of Natalie Portman, Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson, Steve Buscemi, Kim Kardashian, Gwen Stefani, Yoda, and many others. 

Leading into her Yoda impression, Villaseñor talked about being a people pleaser and her inability to communicate with waiters. She said she is overly smiley and laughs too much when she interacts with waiters, especially when she asks them to bring her the check, or when she needs her water refilled. She then compared the way she speaks to waiters to the way Yoda inverts his words.

“Water? Water? Do you have it? Check! Check! We are ready for the check,” Villaseñor said in Yoda’s voice, before breaking character to say, “Nah, forget it, I don’t want to poop. You have to push to do that  [impression].”

Despite the loud laughter that came from the crowd during both portions of the show, the majority of Graham Chapel was empty, which sophomore Blair Migdal found surprising, having seen Villaseñor on SNL. 

“I thought it would be more crowded and harder to get seating,” Migdal said. 

Villaseñor addressed students leaving the performance, twice. The first time she noticed people leaving, she said it was okay and acknowledged that they probably had a test to study for.

The second time, she was in the middle of a joke about visiting the upscale supermarket Erewhon in Los Angeles when a student stood up and made his way to the door. Villaseñor called him out for moving and asked if he was trying to get a better view. The student then asked her if he could use the restroom, which resulted in laughter from the audience. Villaseñor chuckled and approved his request, telling him to have fun.

During the rest of her performance, Villaseñor talked about how her Hinge profile attracts men she called “cute nerds” and how an attractive man she matched with messaged her first to ask if she liked Pokemon. 

“Guess he wants to trade Pokemon — ‘C’mon let’s trade Pokemon.’ I don’t want to trade Pokemon; I want to trade bodily fluids,” she said. 

She talked about trying to lure her Hinge match into her house and decided she would try to use her impression of Ash Ketchum, the 10-year-old protagonist of the Pokemon franchise, to attract the man. 

“C’mere! There’s a really special Pokemon in my bedroom! C’mere, c’mere! It’s…Squirtle!” she said, doing an impression of the character.

She then made a joke about the Pokemon-obsessed man fictitiously getting sexually transmitted diseases after his bedroom encounter with Villaseñor, and she incorporated a popular catchphrase from the franchise.

“I got chlamydia, gonorrhea, HPV. Huh, guess I gotta catch ‘em all,” she said, in the voice of the man. 

She ended her show by singing a song titled “Solo Trip” in what she called a “winter-indie-girl” voice, telling the story of a girl getting murdered in the woods. First-year Faheem Rahman, who is a member of SPB, said the song was the part that stood out to her most from all the jokes that night.

Villaseñor talked about wanting to experiment more with comedic songs and mentioned that she is currently taking guitar lessons.  

In several parts of her show, Villaseñor voiced uncertainty about her future and talked about trying to find something new after achieving her life goal of being on SNL.

“That was the only goal, and I did it. And now people are like, ‘What else?’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t know,’” she said. “To reach a life goal and still have years left — that’s funny.”