A few weeks ago I bought tickets to an event being held at the UCB Theatre that was simply titled "Judd Apatow Presents An Evening of Comedy." All that the description said was that Judd would be bringing us an evening of stand-up featuring surprise guests. Considering that Judd Apatow has a lot of funny friends and how much fun I had at his event at PaleyFest (which featured Gary Shandling and Andy Dick as surprise guests) I knew I had to go. Read on for the full report.

Follow up:

Judd definitely didn't let us down. First off, Apatow himself is really stinking funny. Each time he got up on stage he had the audience nearly in tears. I was lucky enough to be sitting on the side of the stage in the front row. We found out the reason for this show was that Apatow's new directing project, Funny People, is about a group of comedians and that the actors were practicing their stand-up routines.

I won't go in to each actor's routine since I'm not really good at retelling jokes and also because most of the content is completely NSFW. It was very funny though. The lineup was simply incredible. Jonah Hill kicked things off and was really good. It was really interesting to see the actors up on stage with their notes. Some seemed more comfortable than others. Jonah had a couple jokes where he just tossed it out before even finishing it after deciding it wasn't working. This made it even more funny. Next up was a relative unknown who will be starring in the movie. Her name is Aubrey Plaza and she was pretty amazing. I don't really know what it was about her but it had something to do with her delivery and timing. If you haven't heard of this gal you will definitely be seeing a lot more of her in the future.

Judd came out in between each act and told a few more jokes. He also noticed I had my Freaks and Geeks Yearbook Edition and at one point in the show he took it backstage. I'm still not sure what he did with it because I had to ask him to sign it for me after the show. Maybe he doesn't have one and wanted to look at it. The next act was Seth Rogen who was just as funny as I thought he would be. The dude has lost a ton of weight. He made a funny comment about how he wasn't too happy with his body right now because he didn't look like a fat guy who got skinny, he looked like a skinny guy who got fat. Following Seth was Kevin James from The King of Queens who literally told one joke and then left. Judd said he was just trying out some new material and wasn't in the movie. He was pretty funny though.

After Kevin we had what ended up being the main event for the evening, Adam Sandler. Sandler made sure to tell the audience he would be performing in-character as his character George from Funny People. I had trouble telling exactly what kind of person this character was but the act was really funny. He was on stage for at least 30 minutes. He even did some of his signature voices which I hadn't heard in years. Following Sandler we got a performance from Million Dollar Strong who were just crazy and hilarious. They did their viral hit "What's It Gonna Be" and a couple other tunes.

Finishing the night was a newly sober Andy Dick, who was accompanied by acoustic guitar. Before he got very far into his routine a friend of his started heckling him, came on stage, and threw up on Andy. That was the end of the show. On the way out I got my picture taken with Judd. He was very nice. As I walked to my car I noticed a film crew setting up at the side of the building. It turns out Andy Dick is filming a pilot for VH1 and his on stage stunt was part of it. I got to talk to him for awhile and they filmed me for the show. Andy was seriously one of the nicest guys I've ever met. We talked about his time on The Ben Stiller Show and News Radio for a bit and he even had his assistant take down my address and offered to send me some DVDs. Sweet.

Overall it was an amazing evening. It was probably the best ten dollars I've ever spent. The UCB theater is very small so every seat in the house is great. Apatow is doing another show this Saturday but it is already sold out. There is a stand-by line so maybe if you get there early enough you might get in. I highly recommend it. If I wasn't going to San Diego I definitely would. I'll end this post with some pictures I took:

Jonah Hill

Aubrey Plaza

Seth Rogen

Kevin James

Adam Sandler

Judd Apatow

Andy Dick