Sacramento State will play host to a trio of young comedians when the Comedy Central on Campus tour rolls through Thursday night.

The de facto troupe features names perhaps known to faithful viewers of the cable channel or fans of popular comedy websites like Funny or Die. Comedy Central bills the event as a showcase of some of the best underground talent in the business.

Headliner Rory Scovel should be familiar to fans of Comedy Central programs like “Jon Oliver’s New York Stand Up Show,” on which he has appeared. Scovel describes his comedy as a silly, sarcastic take on topics like drugs and politics. His inspiration to perform comedy came when he heard an album by funnyman David Cross, whose perspective as a liberal growing up in the Christian conservative South rubbed off on him and helped him find his voice.

“I looked at it from an outside perspective and realized that I was like that too,” said Scovel. “Not on board with some of the people around me.”

Still relatively unknown to the general public, Scovel said he enjoys playing college campuses because it means he is reaching a younger crowd. This is the same reason he said he is especially fond of music festivals, of which he is a seasoned veteran. Also, when an audience is already having fun, it is easy to make them laugh.

Opening for Scovel is 22-year-old Jerrod Carmichael. Carmichael is a rookie with Comedy Central, but Variety Magazine recently named him one of its “10 comics to watch.” He told Variety he likes to keep his act as unstructured as possible to leave himself plenty of room for improvisation.

Comedian Duncan Trussell will play host for the evening. Trussell is by far the most widely known of the three; he appeared on HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and is a regular writer for Nick Swardson’s “Pretend Time” on Comedy Central. He also was in a couple videos for Funny or Die, most notably one of the popular “Drunk History” sketches.

Trussell recently received some bad news from Comedy Central. A television pilot he had been working on was turned down by the network. The proposed show, titled “Thunderbrain,” was to be about psychoactive drugs and their “positive” effects. He said the first episode saw him taking psychedelic mushrooms and playing chess with a chimpanzee. Trussell was most emphatic, however, that he would not be working with the large primate anytime in the near future. The chimp became violently angry and Trussell feared for his safety.

“Imagine a 6-year-old who for some reason his parents have been blasting him with testosterone,” Trussell said. “And he has been pumping iron and he has the worst (Attention Deficit Disorder) on the planet. That is what a chimp is. Never will I ever work with a chimp (again). Ever.”

Trussell said the show at Sac State will be an opportunity for students to get out and enjoy themselves. This is especially important, he said, because such opportunities may soon become increasingly rare. After all, comedy will become hard to come by after the Mayan apocalypse of 2012.

“If you decide to spend the majority of time in the last few months before the singularity in your room studying instead of at a comedy show laughing,” he said, “that makes you insane. You think you’re going to be an accountant in the smoldering wasteland?”

Alex Grotewohl can be reached at [email protected].