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Students team up to bring comedian to MSU

March 27, 2011
Kinesiology sophomore Brent Money helps teach a choreographed dance to a group of students Friday at the Union. The dance was part of a video being made to convince Daniel Tosh to come to MSU. Tosh hosts the show Tosh.0 on Comedy Central. Kat Petersen/The State News
Kinesiology sophomore Brent Money helps teach a choreographed dance to a group of students Friday at the Union. The dance was part of a video being made to convince Daniel Tosh to come to MSU. Tosh hosts the show Tosh.0 on Comedy Central. Kat Petersen/The State News

A large group of dancing MSU students with props, costumes, music and a film crew overtook the Union on Friday afternoon to practice and film a video to vie for an appearance by the host of “Tosh.0.”

The hubbub was inspired by an open call for videos from college students by comedian Daniel Tosh. In a March 15 episode of Tosh’s television show “Tosh.0,” Tosh announced he was participating in a College Campus Invasion and would plan to film an episode of the show live from a location across the U.S. that produced the best video convincing him to show up.

“Tosh.0” is a Comedy Central show that features humorous commentary on online video clips and pictures.

About 125 students who were interested in convincing the comedian to appear at MSU practiced for about three hours before filming actually started, social work sophomore Erin O’Donnell said.

O’Donnell said she put more than 45 hours into planning and coordinating the event. She said she was pleased with the results, although the final turnout was less than expected.

“We assumed we would have around 250, but a lot of students wouldn’t have been able to make it into a couple of shots (if more people had come),” O’Donnell said. “It ended up working out a lot better than what we had hoped for.”

She said the video was shot and edited by four MSU film studies students.

Students who participated in the video were involved in a variety of skits based on videos featured on “Tosh.0” with an MSU twist, followed by a choreographed dance sequence to popular songs, including “Club Can’t Handle Me,” by Flo Rida.

Katy Matson, a medical technology junior, said Tosh hopefully would be convinced to visit MSU because of the effort students put into the creation of the video.

“We really want him to come — not because we’re partying all the time but because we’re really fun to hang out with and we do put time and work into it,” Matson said.

The video likely was unique compared to other submissions because it shows MSU students having fun together without the presence of alcohol, kinesiology junior Thomas Onderlinde said.

“A lot of people peg MSU as a big party school,” Onderlinde said. “(The video is) just showing we can all come together and have a good time without drinking.”

The time spent on practicing and filming the video helped students who didn’t necessarily know each other bond over a common cause, physiology senior Sarah McKee said.

She said even if the show wasn’t filmed at MSU because of the efforts of students, the experience still was a good one.

“It’s just kind of the random thing where people are like, ‘What are those college kids doing?’” McKee said.

Brooke Merrill, a fisheries and wildlife freshman, said helping with the video was entertaining and said she was glad she decided to come out and help convince Tosh to come to MSU.

“We’re actually putting a ton of work and creativity into this, and I’m glad to be a part of it,” Merrill said.

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