Michael Ian Black talks about the time he spent touring the country as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. Black entertained more than 1,000 students in the Student Center Ballroom last night. AMANDA SOWARDS | DAILY KENT STATER

Credit: Carl Schierhorn

Last night comedian Michael Ian Black confessed he only knew one joke. It was a “knock-knock” joke told by his son, and it lacked an intelligent punch line.

“He’s 4 years old; you’d think he could write a knock-knock joke that would make some fucking sense,” Black said. “He’s not really college material; he’ll never go to Kent State. Akron maybe…”

More than 1,000 students packed the Student Center Ballroom last night for the event sponsored by the All Campus Programming Board. Though his jokes ranged from making fun of college women to Intelligent Design, the “Stella” star’s straight-faced comedy style meant there was rarely a lapse in laughter.

“College women look for sex with men in this order: basketball players, professors of art history and TV stars,” Black said. “Not me! I’m married; I’m taken! Your feminine wiles will not work on me – until you buy me a couple beers. Or maybe one beer. Maybe a root beer. Then we’ll have ourselves a sex sandwich at Olson.”

University of Akron student Jessica Doyle cheered at the prospect.

“I love Michael,” sophomore marketing major Doyle said. “I came from Akron and paid the $5 to see him. I saw a sign in a friend’s window saying he was going to be here. I had to come.”

After discussing random subjects, Black shared memories of his youth in New Jersey.

“I grew up in a lesbian household, which wasn’t great for my parents’ marriage,” Black said, listening to the audience’s laughter mix with sighs of sympathy. “The neighborhood kids just think that’s the ‘bee’s knees.’ Kids walking around with eggs in their pockets and no place to throw them.”

Despite his popular guest commentary on VH1’s “I Love the 80s,” Black said his experience of the decade while in high school was “a disaster that made me pray for death.”

“Our sports team was the Violets,” Black said of his college mascot. “Yours is the Golden Flashes? That’s not much better, but at least you have talons. But Violets? What will they do? Aggravate your allergies?”

Before starting the acting troupe in New York that became MTV’s “The State,” Black said he quit college for acting experience as a traveling Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle on the “Coming Out of Their Shells” tour.

Black later showed the audience the “Pizza” episode from his Stella short films made with longtime co-workers David Wain and Michael Showalter. He also answered audience questions, gave hugs and signed chests.

“Being famous without being correspondingly wealthy is like being a really, really hot nun,” Black said of his self-proclaimed C-list celebrity status. “The way I see it, I’m already going to hell. So why not fly coach?”

Contact on-campus entertainment reporter Ally Melling at [email protected].