We went to the third Hopped Up on Goofballs show at the Hip Pocket Theater tonight, and it was amazing. The New York Goofs (directed by Dick Monday) put on a brand new show every month. It’s a mixture of vaudeville and circus, and its so much fun!

Of course, I always love seeing Slappy and Monday (Tiffany Riley and Dick Monday) perform. They’re amazing.  This month, they were joined on stage by my friends Chet and Lily Monday, Jess Patterson, and Asaf Mor, as well as a magician and several other New York Goofs comics.

Lily Monday is a great singer, and Jess Patterson has to be one of the very best hula hoop artists in the world. I’ve been watching both of them for years, and they keep getting better. The routine Jess did in this show was amazing — I never get tired of watching her. As for Chet, he played guitar in this show — I’ve seen him act, clown, juggle and dance, but I had no idea he could play guitar.

Slappy (Tiffany Riley — who is Chet and Lily’s mom) did something I’ve never seen before. She blew up a giant balloon, climbed inside, then bounced around the stage before climbing out of it. I wondered why she was wearing a bunch of layers of clothes when she climbed into it, but as she was crawling out (it looked really hard to get out of it without popping it), she said, “Word of warning here. I’ve never actually made it out and kept all my clothes on.” She did tonight, though. I was kind of glad about that. It would have been really weird if she hadn’t managed it. I mean, I’ve known her since I was 7, and she was my first circus teacher.

All of the clowns in the show are really funny, and Magic Mike (the magician, not the one from the movie about male strippers) is really good, too — and very funny.  He juggled butcher knives tonight in one of his bits.  I didn’t know he could juggle.

Asaf Mor is another of my favorite performers. He makes the corde lisse (vertical rope) look easy. It isn’t. He is so strong! And he’s a really good teacher, too. (He teaches on Thursday nights at Lone Star Circus School in Addison.)  The ceiling at the Hip Pocket Theater is really low — Asaf went to the very top of the rope for several tricks because he needed all the height. On one of them, his foot hit one of the overhead lights, and he finished his act with his heel bleeding. He never missed a beat, though. After the show he admitted he’d made a mess bleeding backstage — but he was out front, smiling and talking to the audience just the same.

It’s a show that adults and kids love. Some of the jokes go over the kids heads, but that’s ok — there’s lots of interaction with the audience, and everybody has a good time. If you get the chance to go, don’t miss it.