Phos
by Jason Bucy
In the course of my studies at MIT, I found it necessary one evening to attend the 1993 Ig Nobel Prizes Ceremony. I found myself within the dark bowels of Kresge Auditorium, surrounded by the sights and sounds of revelry and the Cannibals at MIT retinue. Once I had convinced them of the toxicity of my blood and flesh, caused by crystalline deposits of caffeine my body had adapted to store, I was able to observe the show in a less paranoid manner. I have been asked to report the impressions the Ig Nobel Prizes left on me.
Stalking the auditorium like crazed weasels were the members of Roadkill Buffet, MIT's esteemed, foremost, best, and only improvisational comedy troupe. Their job at the ceremony was to act as audience manipulators. The emcee introduced various old people, including the man who portrayed Skipper on Gi...
Oh fuck it. You want my impressions of the Ig Nobel Prizes? Buddy, you got them. NOT FUNNY. With a capital not. The emcee was impossibly dry. Let's face it people, we are living in the nineties. It's not bloody fucking funny unless every other fucking word is fuck, eh, wankers? This dry-ass humor has no fucking place in the fucking United States so let's give it up and let those Brahmin English bastards laugh at it until the IRA bombs them back into sulking. British dry humor. Y'all think you're soooo superior, don't you!?!
There was also a designated heckling section which was nearly as thrilling as watching an armadillo flattened by an 18-wheeler. Every time they would open their big, moronic mouths, the audience would listen in hopes that they would at last be funny, finally make one person somewhere laugh, speak one relevant or intelligent word. To no avail. Our hopes were dashed like that armadillo's armor plates, skittering along the highway.
On top of that, the Roadkillians were not allowed to be funny. The ceremony called for the Buffet to ``secure the doors'' and other such structured events. Although flinging neon blue Jell-O at the audience was inspired, the very idea of giving the improvisational troupe such rigid, scripted, and ultimately lame things to do seems it should have been anathema to them. Hell, Roadkill should have been left on its own and the hecklers could have used a script, I dare say.
On the whole, the 1993 Ig Nobel Prizes Ceremony made good use of the stage and projecting system in Kresge, as well as jokes that had been floating around the Internet for several months. Seeing what the rest of the world must think of MIT humor has inspired me. Inspired me to consider even base comedy rags which went on extended ``hiatus'' (read ``defunctitude'') funnier than the Ig Nobels.
Phos