Courtesy of Alexa Marcus

What do you get when you combine an evil AI robot, a ‘roided up tee-ball player, and banging live music? If you guessed Kids on Campus (KOC), you would be correct. 

KOC, WashU’s only sketch comedy group, put on their biannual shows from April 16-18 in the Village Black Box theater. This semester, KOC was led by co-head writers junior Ella Rodriguez and sophomore Jack Krupnick.   

“Since my first semester in school, Kids On Campus has been my favorite thing that I’ve done,” Krupnick said. “Getting the chance to be the person behind it and really watch it come together has been incredible.”

The show opened with a sketch written by sophomore Arieh Robinson and centered around a medieval-inspired sword fight. The two head writers then took the stage to deliver their “Saturday Night Live”-style monologue, concluding their address with an enthusiastic recitation of the KOC classic: “Live from St. Louis, it’s Kids On Campus!” 

In total, the show consisted of 21 live and prerecorded sketches submitted by student writers. According to Krupnick, the first three months of the show’s preproduction are spent teaching club members how to write sketches. Therefore, while it may seem like KOC hopefuls might need prior sketch comedy experience, Krupnick emphasized that the group’s writing workshops let even those with no experience contribute. 

“The whole point is that the first three months of the club are just teaching [people] how to write a sketch, and not be funny, but rather figure out what will work,” Krupnick said. 

“Sketch comedy is a muscle that you can exercise,” Rodriguez added. “I showed up to college with no muscle there, and I learned it, and it’s super fun, and [now] we teach people how to do it.”

For many KOC members, the club is an important outlet separate from their academic obligations.

“Kids On Campus gave me a space separate from everything else to be creative,” KOC lighting designer turned actor, sophomore Sofia Malik, said. “I’m a bio major and a psych major, and those can be a lot of hard STEM, classic organic chemistry and calc and all of these things. So it’s such a good outlet for me to express myself creatively.”

Of the 21 sketches included, there were clear crowd favorites. One that the audience could not get enough of, entitled “I Don’t,” centered around a proposal gone wrong. It also happened to be Rodriguez’s favorite in the show. 

“I think it’s really visually funny with the switching back and forth, and the lines from each [person] really compliment each other, and there’s a lot of physicality in it, but also it’s just very ridiculous and exciting and high energy,” Rodriguez said. 

Another highlight was “Never Go To Bed Angry,” which introduced the concept of a “sound sommelier” and made audience members realize that they might just need a human Alexa in their lives. “Baseballfather,” Krupnick’s favorite sketch, had the crowd roaring with laughter as little Timmy transformed from a young tee-ball player to an artificially-enhanced baseball pro. 

The show’s recurring segment, “Semester in Review,” covered hot topics on the WashU campus and led the performance into its 15-minute intermission. From The Kid LAROI’s upcoming WILD performance to Mizzou’s up-and-coming theater program, the “Weekend Update” style sketch provided a summary of many once-viral-on-Sidechat subjects.   

In addition to onstage sketches, the show also featured several prerecorded video sketches. One sketch, co-written by first-years Hannah Dorval and Will Benjamin, detailed one woman’s series of disastrous first dates. 

“The fact that it was a video sketch made it so that there could be very quick changes in the scenes, which would not have been possible in a regular stage sketch,” Benjamin said. 

The show’s sketches were interspersed with performances from the KOC band, which played instrumental versions of popular songs. In between sketches, the audience danced along to covers of “Espresso” by Sabrina Carpenter, “This Love” by Maroon 5, “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, and more. 

While the line to get into a KOC show could take anywhere between thirty minutes to two hours, each night’s packed performance is proof of its popularity. The show is a representation of the myriad of talent within the student body.

“I’m so grateful that people come and wait for so long,” Malik said. “I hope everyone who wanted to see it [could] see it.”