False Advertising, Brandeis' oldest improv group, held its first show of the semester this past Saturday, packing Cholmondeley's with a show that featured current students as well as three alumni from the class of 2012: Jesse Appell, Louis Polisson and Hannah Wellish.

The show was divided into two halves, beginning with a long form piece, which, for the uninitiated, is a skit based around a topic suggested by the audience. In this instance, the topic was "cheesy dills" ("dill" as in the pickle, among...other possibilities), a subject that the group gamely ran with, setting the stage for a night of comedy and music.

Soon after the cheesy dills setup, the group took the long form in some very interesting directions, starting with a piece on the cosmetic benefits of microwaving one's significant other, a process that apparently can lead to some very aesthetically pleasing boils. They stuck with the subject of looks for the next bit, this time on the subject of the unibrow. The long form followed the unibrow's journey as it is first optioned for a work of erotic eyebrow fiction, adapted into a feature length film and finally inspires a cult obsessed with warning the world of the coming "Browpocalypse." This first half was a very solid piece of comedy; the group was able to nimbly jump from subject to subject while keeping a surprising amount of continuity between the sketches.

The first long form over, the group took something of a "half-time" break, with alumnus Appell doing a piece of Chinese standup. Appell, who studied abroad in Beijing last year and even earned a spot on a Chinese variety show for "Laowai Style," a "Gangnam Style" parody based around Chinese cultural tropes, performed a style of comedy known as xiangsheng, a form based around dialogues or monologues that's notable for its rapid speech and use of wordplay. Appell's skit was only a taste of the form, where he quickly listed out the names of 80 countries in Mandarin.

This break was followed by what makes False Advertising unique: musical improv, which is basically the same as their long forms with the added challenge of integrating music with the dialogue. Starting from the topic "grandma's napkin," the troupe regaled the audience with the tragic tale of a nameless man who was born with a napkin for a left hand.

Ostracized by a society that can never understand him, he finds companionship with fellow appliance people. Together, they form the Appliance Alliance, a group dedicated to helping their fellow household appliances break out of their assigned roles and choose their own path in life. All in all, this half was even stronger than the first. For one thing, the addition of music gave it a unique twist that the previous section lacked and made following the half-hour sketch a little easier. That said, one of the best parts of the show was the simple fact that it was obvious that the performers were having a good time. The audience could tell that they loved what they were doing, and their energy was infectious, which is probably the best thing that can be said of any live performance.

Overall, the night was a success. The troupe got a lot of laughs; the alumni were able to be on stage one more time and the audience, of course, got an entertaining hour of comedy. If this Saturday's show was any indication, the group's spring semester show, scheduled for later in the semester, is sure to be a hit.