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Comedy

The Happy Humor of the Harvard Sailing Team

Before there was "Shit Girls Say," there was "Boys Will Be Girls." The funnier take on the concept from the Harvard Sailing Team made the Internet rounds in the spring of 2010 and forever popularized the phrase "Totes the best hun-cal fro-yo." Now, the sketch comedy group comprised of neither Harvard grads nor sailors has a regular stint at the PIT in Manhattan and brings their brand of subtle, lovable humor to universities and clubs across the country.

The group, always dressed in preppy summerwear, garner the kind of laughs that Parks & Recreation is famous for, in which no one gets hurt or snarked at and at the end of every episode the characters maintain an element of human nobility. The actors and their type of comedy aren't as bold as a Tom Haverford or Ron Swanson, but they do excel in absurdist, observational quirk humor.

What starts off as a PSA in the above sketch culminates in a tiny prod about wearing socks with sandals and even though it's a joke you and your friends might have come up with, it's executed with such loveably precise tone that it transcends itself. In another sketch, two actors discuss the possibility that when you push someone's belly button, they die. It isn't political or sociological, but it does capture a particular feeling in the air, this desire to "play nice" as seen in shows like Parks & Rec, New Girl and even the new Comedy Central sketch show Key and Peele, in which the two comedians tease Lil Wayne and Chopped. It's the flip side of the angry humor coin that has been pervasive for so long.

Sure, jokes about front butt are juvenile, but a little innocent fun seems more likely to bring about world peace than an indulgent '80s pop star flanked by LMFAO and the most excessive display of projection screens this side of Tokyo. Then again, that Madonna insult might have been a little mean.

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Nikki Metzgar
Contact: Nikki Metzgar