Melissa Villaseñor RULES!
There are some performers who make you laugh, some who impress you with how ridiculously talented they are, and some who simply make you feel better whenever you see them.
Melissa Villaseñor does all three for me.
I was reminded of that again this past weekend when I saw Melissa perform at The Den Theatre here in Chicago, and she was absolutely wonderful. I've seen her live several times over the years, including about five times now at The Den, and she somehow keeps getting better.
She's a terrific stand-up comedian, an absolutely remarkable impressionist, a musician, singer, songwriter, actress, voice-over performer, illustrator, author and just a really unique comic presence. But the thing I always walk away with after seeing Melissa perform is how genuinely good I feel afterward.
And before I get to Melissa, I have to say something about The Den Theatre itself, because it's become one of my favorite places in Chicago to see comedy. It's on Milwaukee Avenue in Wicker Park, and I actually have some personal history with the place.
Long before The Den became such a terrific destination for stand-up, it was primarily an independent theater facility, and I directed a couple of shows there many years ago. The upstairs still contains smaller performance spaces, while the downstairs main room has been transformed into a really excellent comedy venue.
It's just a great room for stand-up. The stage works beautifully, the sight lines are good, the staff is incredibly friendly, and there's a terrific lounge and bar right outside the theater. You can order drinks and food during the show, and the servers somehow manage to bring everything to you without becoming part of the performance, which is not always easy in a comedy club.
It's also right near the Blue Line, there are restaurants and bars all over the neighborhood, and The Den books an impressive range of comedians, from major national acts and people you've seen on television to local Chicago performers. If you love live comedy and haven't seen a show there, you should.
And Melissa Villaseñor is exactly the kind of comedian who benefits from seeing her in a room like that because there's so much more to what she does than the impressions that initially made her famous.
Villaseñor was born in Whittier, California, in 1987 and started doing stand-up ridiculously young, at around 15, when she attended a comedy camp at the Laugh Factory. She eventually became part of the New Faces lineup at the Just for Laughs festival in Montreal in 2010 and reached a much larger audience as a semifinalist on America's Got Talent in 2011.
People immediately noticed the impressions because she had this incredible ear for voices, rhythms and tiny vocal quirks that most of us wouldn't even notice.
She had actually auditioned for Saturday Night Live years before she finally got hired, which is one of those nice reminders that getting rejected by something doesn't necessarily mean the story is over.
She joined SNL in 2016 alongside Mikey Day and Alex Moffat and stayed for six seasons, leaving after the 47th season in 2022. During that run she became one of those cast members I was always happy to see walk into a sketch because even when the sketch wasn't particularly good, Melissa could make it better.
And obviously the impressions were insane.
Björk. Dolly Parton. Owen Wilson. Miley Cyrus. Gwen Stefani. Jennifer Lopez. Kristen Wiig. Sarah Silverman. Lady Gaga. Billie Eilish. Britney Spears. Christina Aguilera. Natalie Portman.
There are so many of them, and what makes her a great impressionist isn't simply that she can make her voice sound like somebody else. There are plenty of people who can do that.
Melissa understands the little behavioral things that make an impression funny. She finds the cadence, the facial expression, the posture, the weird vocal tic, whatever that one little thing is that suddenly makes you go, "Holy shit, that's exactly what that person does."
Her Owen Wilson absolutely kills me.
But SNL also allowed her to do strange original characters, songs and pieces that showed there was much more going on than celebrity mimicry. She has a wonderfully odd comic sensibility.
There's an innocence to some of her material that can suddenly veer into something bizarre, and her natural sweetness makes the weirdness even funnier. She doesn't have the aggressive energy that a lot of stand-ups have. Her comedy feels inviting. She brings you into her strange little world instead of beating you over the head with it.
That was certainly true at The Den. Her show had stand-up, storytelling, audience interaction, music and impressions, and she moved between all of them effortlessly. She's a very good musician and songwriter, which sometimes gets overlooked because everybody talks about the voices.
She released an album called Dreamer in 2019, and when she incorporates music into her live act, it's not just somebody picking up an instrument because comedians occasionally like doing funny songs. She can really sing, she can really play, and she understands how to build an actual comic song.
She's also really good with an audience, and that's another talent that isn't as easy as it looks. Crowd work can become obnoxious very quickly when somebody starts treating the audience like targets. Melissa's interaction with people feels playful rather than combative.
She likes her audience. You can tell. She meets fans, signs books, talks to people and creates this really welcoming atmosphere around the whole show.
Her creativity also extends way beyond stand-up and sketch comedy. She's an illustrator and visual artist, and in 2022 she released Whoops, I'm Awesome!, a book filled with her artwork, little exercises, observations and encouraging ideas.
It's exactly the kind of book you would expect from Melissa once you understand her personality: funny, colorful, odd, personal and genuinely designed to make somebody's day a little brighter.
She's also done an enormous amount of voice work, which makes perfect sense when you consider what she can do with that voice. Her credits include Adventure Time, Family Guy, Toy Story 4, Ralph Breaks the Internet, OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, Primos, Rock Paper Scissors, Dog Man, Kung Fu Panda 4 and plenty of others.
She has also appeared in live-action projects including Crashing, Barry, Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens, Alone Together and Hubie Halloween, and she voiced Robin in Batman: The Audio Adventures. She's one of those performers who can pop up almost anywhere, and sometimes you don't even realize it's her until you look at the credits.
I've been a fan since she joined Saturday Night Live, and I was genuinely sorry when she left. There were times during her six seasons when I wished the show had figured out even more ways to use her because she had such a specific talent.
When a sketch was actually built around the things Melissa does best (the impressions, the music, the strange characters, that wonderfully unusual voice) she could be spectacular.
And seeing her live makes you appreciate her even more because you get all of those things at once without the restrictions of a television sketch that has to end in four minutes because somebody needs to throw it to a commercial.
There's another quality she has that I don't think you can manufacture, and it's probably my favorite thing about her: Melissa Villaseñor seems genuinely kind.
That's not the same thing as saying she's harmless or that her comedy doesn't have an edge. She's just warm. There's something open and positive about her presence, and I find that increasingly valuable.
I've been going through kind of a dark stretch personally over the last few months, and sometimes you don't realize how much you need to laugh and feel lighter until somebody makes that happen.
Melissa does that for me.
Whenever I see her perform live, I walk out feeling better than I did when I walked in. When I watch one of her SNL clips, hear one of those insane impressions, listen to one of her songs, see some of her artwork or read something she's written, she gives me a little jolt.
My mood improves. My day gets a little better. You can't say that about every artist. And maybe that's why, beyond all the obvious talent, I keep going back to her work.
Melissa Villaseñor is genuinely hilarious. She's a phenomenal impressionist. She's a terrific stand-up, musician and voice performer. She's an artist and an author. She's weird in exactly the right way. And after seeing her at The Den again this weekend, I was reminded of why I've enjoyed following her career for so long.
She makes me laugh, and she makes me feel good. That's a pretty great combination.
So I've picked some clips that showcase some of the different things Melissa Villaseñor does so well...from Saturday Night Live and talk-show appearances to stand-up, impressions and music.
These aren't meant to represent everything she's capable of, because a few clips couldn't possibly do that. They're simply performances I love, and examples of why I think she's such a singular, funny and enormously talented performer.
MY FAVORITE MELISSA VILLASEÑOR PERFORMANCE CLIPS:
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