Once again, we stamped our feet in the cold as we waited for the doors of Shanley Pavilion to open. My wife and I were there to see the March 1 performance of this year’s second Mee-Ow Show, Knives Mee-Out. This was the third year running we were attending The Mee-Ow Show, but the first year since the publication of my book The Mee-Ow Show at 50.

We entered with the reserved seat ticket holders, and I greeted Zoe Davis, the brilliant producer of this year’s Mee-Ow. In addition to the title parodying the hit 2019 streaming show, the set emulated the circle of knives in the show’s namesake series, but with the Mee-Ow cat logo at the center.

The band all rocked white shirts, skinny black ties, and sunglasses, à la The Blues Brothers. If my experience teaching college students is any indication, I expect that as musicians, more of them have actually seen the movie than most of their contemporaries. Their warm-up music got the eager audience in an even better mood than when they walked in.

Following a welcome and introduction by Davis, and co-directors Shai Bardin, and Brenden Dahl, including an acknowledgement of the ancestral homeland of indigenous peoples, and at this performance acknowledging my presence as “Mee-Ow Show royalty,” the band kicked off the show performing House of the Rising Sun, perhaps alluding to the criminal theme of the show.

The opening sketch parodied the streaming mystery series, complete with a murder, chalk outline on the floor, and Dahl as detective “Beignet” Blanc. Blackout. Another murder. Blackout. Another murder. The sketch transitioned into the opening dance number featuring the entire cast, to the tune of Murder on the Dance Floor.

I wasn’t in attendance at the previous show, The Mee-Owgic School Bus, but I did have the opportunity to watch a video of the show, which I used to inform my write up of Mee-Ow year 52, and designed pages in the style of The Mee-Ow Show at 50, and sent a PDF, so all this year’s participants could have pages of their year to add to their copies of the book. I’ve already committed to continuing this practice.

I thought it notable that the cast bookended both shows this year by a concluding blackout that followed up the opening sketch. While there have been a few years that carried a theme throughout, more recently this has been the exception. The closure provided was appreciated by the audiences.

I was impressed by the fearless physical humor and clever wordplay that were defining features of both Mee-Ow Shows this year. This included sketches featuring an amusingly squeaky-voiced May giving a synonym and cliché-filled high school valedictory speech; Bardin as a student emailing her professor about why she would be missing class, with each successively clichéd excuse becoming more extreme; Bardin as a mother showing her children May and Thomas a family photo album, in which each photo has been innocently captioned in a sexual double entendre; Wilson as a singer attempting to improvise a bridge monologue at a recording session at producer Snedegar’s direction; Wilson and Moscat clad in black bodysuits with bowler hats and canes as twins in the womb singing and dancing, while a pregnant Bardin, with husband Dahl and doctor Snedegar watch the twins via ultrasound; Bardin as a strip club dancer who is unable to see due to wearing blackout goggles after having Lasik surgery that morning, giving a private dance to Alemu; and German tourist Dahl as a passenger in Moscat’s car, being introduced to the drive up restaurant Sonic, where their clumsy roller skating waiter Thomas spectacularly fails.

As usual, the final improv of both shows was “Sex with Me (is like…)” with audience suggested topics including a wedding ring, Nosferatu, and toothpaste.

Davis arranged for me to be interviewed by Daily Northwestern reporter Desiree Luo. Her questions were solid, and I appreciated that she accurately quoted me, saying, “Committing fully to what you’re doing is a lesson of Mee-Ow that everyone can take away.”

I look forward to returning next year to see what combination of social satire, madcap zaniness, stunningly impressive improv, and fearlessness will ensue.