The stars were on display Thursday in Lutkin Hall for A&O’s Spring Speaker Event. Comedian, rapper, writer, and Abbott Elementary actor Zack Fox joined forces with Jury Duty actor and Emmy-nominated writer Mekki Leeper for a night of stand-up comedy, a showing of their short film, Fintech, and a Q and A with students. The duo has been touring with this stand-up and screening routine.
[Janitza Luna] We’re really lucky that we got to have that come to life on campus for free for students because that was a tour that obviously people had to pay tickets to go attend.
That’s Weinberg Senior and A&O Co-Chair Janitza Luna. She says while A&O usually goes with someone in a traditional film role for their Spring speaker, they elected for comedy this time around.
[Luna] But since this year, with the strikes at the beginning of the year in the entertainment industry, we haven’t really been able to get as many speaker events as we would have liked to, which meant we got to, this was really our only chance to do some kind of comedy stand up event. So we felt it tied together really well with Mekki and Zack being in a short film together.
The two certainly attracted a large crowd for a Thursday evening. School of Communication Junior Diego Goldfrank attended after being a fan of their prior work.
[Diego Goldfrank] I love Zack Fox. Mekki Leeper too. Big fan of Jury Duty, big fan of Abbott, big fan of Jesus is the one (I got depression).
But with a show high in demand came a student body thrilled to attend the evening’s festivities.
[Luna] They’re very culturally relevant to the age group we’re at, the interest that our crowd was able to pull together, we sold out the show in 14 minutes.
As far as the routines were concerned, both comedians had a tendency to cover controversial topics. Fox utilized political humor and elaborated on some of the allegations from Kendrick Lamar’s recent diss track toward Drake. Leeper’s humor varied drastically with references from teletubbies all the way into serious mental health battles. As for the cherry on top of Fox’s routine, however… well, there are seven words that you can’t say on the radio, [law and order sound effect] so I’ll move on.
[TV Static Sound Effect]
As for Fintech, it featured the pair working in Silicon Valley as “idiots,” as Leeper described. The two worked to sell NFTs as a sort of trading card, after failing to recoup money on an investment. The show featured even more odd references, from Pokemon to MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.
[Soundbite from Fintech] I’ve never met a more delusional pair of dip *bleep* in my life. Our team doesn’t care about money, they care about making the best, non… fundible… “fungible” totems “tokens” in the world
With his improv background in shows like Jury Duty, Leeper emphasized the joy of goofing around with his friends on a project. This was apparent with the dynamic relationships between characters and guest appearances from Jury Duty co-stars Ron Song and David Brown.
Weinberg Senior Sean Dukes enjoyed the film.
[Sean Dukes] I thought it was funny. I love how the plot developed and how the plot thickened later.
[Goldfrank] It was also inspiring because they did it, like, they threw it together, like the crew and two camcorders. It was sick.
The film has been picked up by Amazon, and a pilot is currently in the works for it to be made into a series.
Students certainly took to the show this evening, with long lines to take pictures and get autographs from Fox and Leeper. At one point during the Q&A, Fox even signed a bag of Doritos. Between’s Leeper’s work writing Jury Duty, among others, and Fox’s work as a writer for the Eric Andre Show, the two continued A&O’s tradition of bringing in comedic writers.
[Luna] In the past, we’ve had standup from the stars of HBO’s Hacks as well as SNL Writer Sarah Sherman. So every year we at least try to pull in some of that sketch comedy/standup vibe.
For WNUR News, I’m Gabe Shumway.
