By Anna Marden, News Staff

Getting two hours of sleep each night as a new father is a lot like tripping on acid or shrooms, joked comedian Patton Oswalt, as he compared recent sleep deprivation-induced hallucinations to some trippy experiences he had in the early ’90s.

Oswalt entertained the audience at Blackman Auditorium Monday with his self-deprecating and vulgar sense of humor.

“It was profane but delicious,” said Stefan Halvorsen, a middler biomedical physics major.

Northeastern alumnus and comedian Ken Reid opened the show, which was hosted by Council for University Programs, Delta Zeta and Sigma Phi Epsilon.

Reid, a Boston based act, launched the show with some crazy personal stories about his childhood – his father once exploded a pepper spray grenade in his own face while trying to fight off raccoons, and at one point Reid said a pig lived in the family car.

“It was a good opener,” said Joshua Siler, a 2009 graduate in mechanical engineering. “He came in and broke the ice.”

When Oswalt took the stage, he lowered the mic stand nearly a foot to match his height. He started off by letting the audience know he was going slightly senile and had forgotten his opener’s name, then played off of a few of Reid’s jokes that had inspired him to tell certain stories.

There were various themes and crowd-pleasers that Oswalt must have prepared for his stand-up shows, but he mostly just went with the flow and did a lot of improvisation. Some of the recurring themes incorporated sweatpants, being fat, parenting and masturbation.

“It was really awesome, much better than I expected,” said Rachel Rimm, a freshman environmental studies major who said she’d never really heard of Oswalt before.

Oswalt performed many hilarious character impressions, pantomimes and sang a few songs as he told his jokes.

“I liked when he was talking about the guy who was really good at throwing up on a plane,” Siler said, referring to a story Oswalt told about a professional barf-bag user, which he acted out using role-play and silly sound effects.

Another notable joke Oswalt told was about the time he auditioned for the role of a gay best friend in a romantic comedy. He said he can’t remember what it was called, because all movies in that category should be called “Tryna [Expletive].” This bit prompted many cheers and a big round of applause from the crowd.

At times, Oswalt lost his place and rambled on before coming up with a new joke to tell, but it was never too awkward or obvious to the audience. Additionally, some of his jokes may have been a little dated for the college crowd;  he referenced 1981 film “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and jazz trumpet player Dizzy Gilespie, who died in 1993.

“Some of it went over people’s heads,” Siler said.

Oswalt made a point to include Northeastern in his jokes when he addressed the audience; he made a few jokes about college and then picked a victim in the front row to make fun of.

He singled out one girl and asked her about her studies. The girl, a communication studies major, admitted to wanting a career as a music manager, but when Oswalt asked her to tell him about any cool bands she had seen recently, she said “Good Charlotte,” which cracked up the audience.

The girl’s answers were entertaining to the point where it almost seemed like Oswalt was instructed to choose her on purpose, because apparently she worked at the Wilbur Theatre on co-op and sold Patton Oswalt posters during his recent show there, which prompted him to tease her about what a bad job she did.

When he asked her what year she was, her response was “middler.”

“What the [expletive] is a middler?” Oswalt retorted, before the girl tried her best to explain the five-year program.

“He was a pretty funny guy,” Siler said. “He did a good job making fun of himself and he had a way of appealing to a younger crowd.”