The fifty-year history of the Mee-Ow Show at Northwestern University and its influence on contemporary comedy

In the fall of 1973, two students at Northwestern University resolved to create something on stage that was wholly their own. Soon, they would be joined by a cohort of performers, musicians, and staff, and the resulting production would go on to launch the careers of scores of entertainment professionals, including some of the most well-known and awarded names in comedy today. This book is not only an account of the rebellious fifty-year history of the Mee-Ow Show, now the longest-running student sketch comedy and improv show in the country, but also its far-reaching influence. The storied group’s alumni include such household names as Craig Bierko, Ana Gasteyer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, John Cameron Mitchell, Dermot Mulroney, Seth Meyers, and Kristen Schaal.

Based on more than a hundred new interviews with group members, presenting their words alongside never-before-published photographs and ephemera, The Mee-Ow Show at 50 provides a chronicle of the last half-century of the American undergraduate experience—and reveals how, from New York to Los Angeles, contemporary comedy can trace its roots to an upstart student production in Evanston, Illinois.