This week’s Happy Hour with Programming featured a well-received performance by standup comedian and writer Steve Hofsetter.

A total of 21 people were in attendance at the show, held in the new multipurpose room in Kessel.

Despite low attendance, Hofsetter received an overall positive response from the crowd.

Hofsetter, who has worked on various projects in comedy, television production, and sports journalism, recalls his beginnings as a student journalist for his Alma Mater’s newspaper at Columbia University.

“I majored in American History and minored in writing,” he said. “[My intent] was to go into print journalism. But then I graduated when the dot-com bubble burst, so all the web writers were going back to print and there were no print jobs…so I started doing standup to pass the time.”

Although Hofsetter can recall getting into comedy as early as 13 years old, his career as a fulltime performer didn’t take off until he graduated college. “I started comedy to impress a girl…didn’t work. But then I ended up impressing many down the road!”

As well as his standup performances, Hofsetter has worked as a sports and comedy writer for outlets such as The National Lampoons, Sirius XM, Maxim, and ESPN. In addition to this, the comedian has released five comedy albums with plans to release a sixth.

“The new album is called Ginger Kid,” said the comedian. “It was crowd funded…and we’ve been editing and perfecting it for a year now, and it’s finally going to come out soon.”

A former New York native, Hofsetter now resides in Los Angeles where he is currently working as the executive producer and host of Fox’s late night comedy show Laughs.

The show, which competes in the same midnight timeslot as NBC’s long running Saturday Night Live, premiered in August of 2014, and is currently in it’s thirtieth week on the air.

Formatted into half hour episodes, Laughs is available on both My9 on Sunday nights and uploaded on YouTube on Monday mornings.

“It’s a highlight reel for standup comedy,” Hofsetter said while describing Laughs. Hofsetter continued, “the idea is we go around the country and we find the best comedians there are and we give people a taste of them. [Laughs has] all the homeruns and slam-dunks of everyone’s set.”

As for his take on standup and the acts brought to the Pace community by the Programming committee, Hofsetter pushed students to enjoy it while they can.

“If my school offered free comedy shows, I would’ve been to every single one of them. And, it’s amazing that this stuff exists, but not everyone takes advantage of it. So, I just encourage people to do so.”