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Aziz Ansari is a comedic actor. You know him from “Human Giant” and “Parks and Recreation.” But like many comic actors, he also does stand-up comedy. His stand-up comedy is funny, as proven by this clip right here:

In the new Judd Apatow film Funny People, Ansari apparently plays ‘Randy,’ a Dane Cook-style terrible comedian who substitutes weird voices and asinine catchphrases audiences in the place of actual jokes. Audiences love him. Awesomely, to develop the character, Aziz has been doing segments as Randy in his stand-up shows:

Randy is supposed to be awful, but the interesting thing about these segments is that the audience (including me when I watch the clips) laughs just as much at him as they do at the real routines. It’s like Spinal Tap: part of the glee comes from geniuine unironic enjoyment of dumb things, but the rest comes from recognizing how pitch-perfect the imitation is. It takes smarts to be that stupid.