On Thursday, Sacramento State students, teachers, and family members were packed together to enjoy a night of hilarious comedy from ten comedians in the semi-finials round of the 33rd Annual San Francisco Comedy Competition.

The competition began in 1976, with young Robin Williams and Bob Sarlatte taking 2nd place and 1st place, respectively. More than 30 years later, the show now has a reputation as one where a chance at stardom is just a few laughs away.

Besides Williams and Sarlatte, several finalists of the competition have gone on to become well-known names in the American comedy world, including Ellen DeGeneres, Carlos Alazraqui, Kevin Pollack, Sinbad, and Rob Schneider.

Since then, thousands of hopefuls have auditioned for a chance to be “the last comic standing.”

The audience who came to watch this years’ semi-round, however, didn’t care about any of that – these people had come to laugh. The expectation was fulfilled and then some.

Master of Ceremonies, Mike E. Winfield – who kept bringing to mind Chris Rock in an afro – did a great job getting the audience excited in the beginning and entertained between acts.

The comedians were of all different colors and creeds; no two were the same. That’s what made it the most interesting, they all drew upon entirely different experiences.

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Some of the funniest routines were those who didn’t just have talking, but included other talents as well, such as Leif Skyving’s harmonica playing or the eye-raising “butoh dance” (which resembled more of a hilarious strip tease) performed by Brent Weinbach. Usually short and towards the end, these little quirks are what made them stand out.

Those who stayed more traditional but still stood out were Derick Lengwenus’s impersonation of his German father’s accent and Steve White explaining the difficulties of being a black Jew.

Although each comedian brought their own flavor to their routine – from Jose Sarduy’s anecdotes of flying cargo in the Air Force to Dax Jordon’s reason for working out (to “flee from danger,” he said) – it seemed that they only joked about homosexuality and race.

Both are high up in the California interest scale, and you can see why the comedians included these, but frankly it got slightly old towards the end. At the same time, however, each were so funny and different in the way these subjects was approached that you really didn’t notice.

Despite that, by the time the show was over, throats were bone dry and cheeks were sore from laughing so much. For me, I probably haven’t had so much fun in months.

In the end, the comedy show did everything that it was suppose to: Made people laugh and have a chance to relax.