As the Shapiro Theater's screen began its infuriatingly slow descent, the audience buzzed in anticipation for Boris' Kitchen second day of the annual two-day sketch comedy festival. The first group to perform was Bard College's Olde English. When the screen was, finally, fully stretched and ready to role, a simple message appeared: "Olde English hates epileptics." The message was followed by a convulsion-inducing sequence of lines dancing about, followed by the words "Die, epileptics, die!" flashing on the screen. This video summed up the mood of the evening to come-a wacky and original mix of skits that, even at their most controversial, got the audience to laugh.And controversial it was. More than in their second video, which offered homosexuality as a solution to avoiding unplanned pregnancy, Olde English pushed the audience's comedic limit with a skit in which a young man attempts to penetrate the world of children's television by offering a show titled "The Swasticats," a program depicting crime-fighting cats from outer space brandishing the swastika as their official symbol. Other groups did not shy away from controversial topics like sex and even erotic dancing in the Dinosaur Club.

The second group to perform was Grand Lodge, a representative from Vassar College in New York. The highlight of its performance was a video about awkward encounters. At one point, they suggested that, to avoid speaking to a person you do not like, pretend to be speaking on a cell phone-even if that means talking directly into your hand. Another suggestion to eliminate the awkwardness of a conversation is to simply punch the person in front of you and run.

Following Grand Lodge was Syracuse University's Penguins Without Pants, a relatively new comedy troop that started their performance with a talking penguin. Being one of the bigger groups in the festival, Penguins Without Pants worked well when all members performed together. The best example was a skit in which a bunch of friends secretly usher another friend into what is believed to a surprise party, but what turns out to be a "we don't want to be your friends anymore" party.

Continuing the successful teamwork was Vassar College's second group, Happily Ever Laughter. Their sketches were wildly original, ranging from a "legendary heroes" therapy session group in which a cocaine addict pretends to be Achilles with an Austrian accent to an overly aggressive dinosaur club to real people involuntarily becoming Mortal Kombat characters. Happily Ever Laughter was followed by Elephant Larry, the only professional sketch comedy group of the night. This group received an especially warm welcome and repaid the audience with wildly original skits. Elephant Larry's performance stood out for its energy and comedic timing, and especially its originality. The sketches included police officers playing charades with a criminal, a toned-down skit about what one could do with eighteen billion staples, a video about a baby doll being sent down to fix a fuse box by an unsympathetic father, and even a rendition of Jon Bon Jovi's "Living on a Prayer" turned into "Sitting on a Bear."

Closing out the festival was Brandeis' own Boris' Kitchen. The group began its show with a pseudo-religious prayer, wishing for a good show and even unabashedly praying for a good review from the Justice. The skits themselves were creative and had themes that Brandeis students could relate to, such as the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry and problems with a TA (granted that in this skit the TA was a medieval calculus poet played with gusto by Elliott Veloso '05). Boris' Kitchen had its share of wackiness, as when a Spanish soap opera is interrupted by an appropriately dressed belly-dancer dancing to the "Chiquita Banana." Overall, Boris' Kitchen provided a wacky and entertaining end to what had become a wacky and entertaining evening.