Last Friday, on Feb. 21, nine hopefuls vied to win the audience’s laughter—and votes—at the Georgetown Program Board’s Funniest Human stand-up competition. The jokes were mixed: falling off the top bunk of a twin XL, desperate attempts to meet Jack the Bulldog, peeing your pants in a liquor store, and imposter syndrome, amongst other topics. Perhaps they all have one thing in common: you just had to be there.
But for those who missed it, the Voice caught up with this year’s funniest human, Eli Blumenfeld (CAS ’25), for an interview to figure out what makes him just so funny.
The Voice: What is your prior stand-up experience?
Blumenfeld: I had done it a few times. Obviously, I did it two years ago for Funniest Human, and that was actually the first time I ever did stand up. And then after that, I’ve been doing it at Sketch Comedy shows, for Comedy for a Cause, and a few times I did stand-up in D.C., but those didn’t go so well.
The Voice: Do you have a certain process for creating a stand-up set? How do you predict that your jokes will land?
Blumenfeld: I kind of knew what I wanted to talk about for a little while, or joke about. The process of that was just writing, and rewriting—it is mainly a writing process. Then the rehearsal of it all came the day before and the day of, where I was able to add some parts, remove some parts. I got feedback from some friends, but it’s kind of hard. Sometimes some parts of my set I thought would get laughs didn’t, and other parts I didn’t even think were jokes got laughs. It’s hard to tell what people find funny, but I think that’s kind of fun.
The Voice: Perhaps similar to that of an athlete, do you have a pre-performance routine?
Blumenfeld: You know, that’s a great question. I was light on the food. I didn’t want to feel too heavy. I had one slice of pizza. I had a swing of Soju before I left my house, which I thought was essential to kick out the nerves. Other than that, I just did one final rehearsal before and tried to convince myself I was in a good state after that.
The Voice: It seems you are funny by trade. Have you ever considered charging friends and family for your comedic company?
Blumenfeld: No, I never thought of that. I try to make money in other ways, but I would never charge friends and family. That’s all for free.
The Voice: As you know, Sophie Maretz [CAS ’26]—who I must admit is a personal celebrity of mine—was crowned Funniest Human last year. How do you reckon with the fact that there are somehow two “funniest humans” still on campus?
Blumenfeld: It’s hard to answer that question. I love Sophie. Sophie did a great job emceeing the event, and I think she’s super funny. I’m in Sketch Comedy with her and I love what she does in Improv. So how can there be two? I don’t know. There are a lot of unanswerable questions in the universe, and perhaps this is just one of them.
The Voice: Who is your funniest human?
Blumenfeld: A lot of people did a great job in the standup. Anna Dewey [CAS ’26] did a phenomenal job, especially going first. Stephen Purdum [CAS ’26] is also great and really great in the competition. But for me, the person who always makes me laugh the most would be Murphy Bonner [CAS ’26]. He is really, I don’t know, something about him just tickles my bone. I love it.
The Voice: Do you have any off-campus picks? A non-Hoya funniest human?
Blumenfeld: I’d say, beyond my girlfriend, I love Nathan Fielder a lot. I know he doesn’t really do stand up, but I think his ideas are really funny. I like seeing the rehearsals a lot, it’s his show in “Nathan for You.” I’d say I love watching a whole bunch of different people and picking up different parts from everyone.
The Voice: In your set, you mentioned some fans approaching you in public. Have you had any exciting fan encounters recently, especially with this newfound title?
Blumenfeld: Wow, that’s actually a great question, because it’s true. In the bathroom here on Lau 2, someone, while I was washing my hands, recognized me. I had someone recognize me outside of Leo’s after playing an intramural pickleball game. I think it’s quite great. I’m humbled, but it’s hard to say it doesn’t feel really good, too.
The Voice: Do you think any of your professors would find you funny?
Blumenfeld: My English and writing professors would think so, because I write a lot of comedy writing. So, they hopefully would get a sense of what I like to do, which is to try to make people laugh. But no, I’m actually a pretty different person in my Econ classes. I’m actually an Econ major. If you ask any of my Econ professors if they thought I was funny, they’d probably say something like, “I didn’t even know he was in my class.”
The Voice: What is the funniest thing about Georgetown?
Blumenfeld: You know, it’s kind of funny that I’ve noticed recently everyone at Georgetown always talks about D.C. They love D.C., and they can see themselves living here because it’s so quiet. I think people fail to recognize that we’re in a certain part of D.C. that’s especially quiet. I don’t know if that’s laugh-out-loud funny, but it’s kind of interesting, right?
Another really funny thing is how sometimes the student government elected officials will have an Instagram account dedicated to their candidacy. And I remember one candidate, after they won, they changed their handle. And you know they must have had that handle, @SenatorBlank, held for a while.
The Voice: What’s the least funny thing about Georgetown?
Blumenfeld: Frankly, we’ve got a big rat problem. It’s gotten better since the Henle construction and they cleaned up the Vil B dumpster. But that was seriously unfunny for a while. I lived in Vil B for two years, and it wouldn’t be a day gone past without me seeing multiple rats.
The Voice: Anything else you want to tell the Voice, the readers, and your fans, generally?
Blumenfeld: Thanks for attending the event, if you did, it was a lot of fun. It was a really strong crowd and I hope you laughed at more than just me. But if not, that’s fine with me, too. You probably won’t see me next year, unless they invite me back to emcee, which I heard is a tradition. So I’ll leave that up in the air. You know, New Jersey is not that far from D.C., so I’ll never say never. Also, thanks for reading to the bottom of this article!
