Mr. Vet

Every year, the third years celebrate "halfway day," which, as you might guess, is the day they are exactly half way through with their degree. This tends to involve a big trip with the whole class going off to do something crazy like sky diving. Halfway day is in the second semester, and they spend pretty much the entire first semester fundraising for it. Doubtless, I will have many stories involving halfway day fundraising, considering the sheer number of events associated with it, and next year my class is the one that's going to be saving up.

One of the first major fundraisers this year was an annual event called Mr. Vet.

You may not be aware, but male vets are an endangered species. In our class of 100, I believe there's less than 20 guys. So in a celebration of manliness, each class votes two representatives to enter the Mr. Vet contest. Since the first years don't start until second semester, that's four classes and eight contestants. There are three stages: formal wear, swim wear, and talent. The contestants are also given a steady supply of alcohol throughout the whole event. They are judged by a panel of vet faculty; if I remember correctly there were two girls and four guys. I wouldn't be surprised if they had a steady supply of alcohol too.

So the show started at 8pm. I got there with my friends at 7:30 and we had to sit way in the back (these are all pictures other people took). I had to sit on my feet and crane my neck a lot and I'm pretty sure I couldn't see a lot of the funny stuff, such as their footwear or anything that happened near the ground.

Since this was the first time for our class, our guys didn't really know what to expect and ended up overshadowed by the upper years. For the formal wear, one had a dress and a beard, and the other was smart enough to give beer bottles to all the judges. Some of the other years were a bit funnier, putting on accents or just having more interesting outfits, but overall the formal wear was just a warm up. One of them thought he was a comedian and reenacted a Rowan Atkinson skit, but he really couldn't pull it off well. Another, not in the picture below, went on in fluorescent green tight pants and sparkly blue jacket, and flirted with the MC (this is important for later).

The swim wear section was much more interesting. One of our guys was the only one awesome enough to wear a bikini, but frankly all of them were hilarious. Almost all the acts included stripping, often of a completely ridiculous outer layer, and some poor dancing. Rowan Atkinson sketch guy got a lot of cheers for his daring G-string attire and triathalon dash and bike up the centre aile before stripping down. They each got to pick a music track to play when they came on, and I'm sorry I can't remember what any of them were now. You can just take my word that it was funny.

The talent section was the longest and had some of the best acts. Unfortunately there was a very marked trend of decreasing quality. The first guy up did an elaborate medley of songs, accompanying himself on the keyboard and with a guitar buddy, in which he had reworded the songs to fill them with vet jokes, references to faculty, and having an overall gay theme. This particular contestant was the same that had the tight green pants in the formal wear, and was now dressed in a nice pink outfit.

I don't remember the order exactly, but one of the next contestants did the classic can't-play-an-instrument-but-actually-is-really-good-at-it spiel. He started off with the good old "I found this violin in the attic and learned Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," played it horribly, got cheered for an encore, then of course played some popular Bach or other beautifully and dexterously. From there, the acts just went downhill. There was a guitarist and a guy that sang karaoke, and a lot of bad dancing. Rowan Atkinson fellow did another awkwardly unfunny rendition, and the crowd screamed for more of his near-nudity instead. One guy just kind of bounced around without much aim; he probably had a few too many to drink at that point. The upside to that is that one of the anatomy professors had also had a few too many, and the contestant actually got the judge up bouncing around drunkenly on stage with him.

The drunk professor is the one on the right. I think this picture is a good indication of the quality of some of the talent acts.

Our guys were the last to go. The first one, obviously smashed, called up a girl to the stage and gave her a little dance. Having set the standard of bribing the judges, they were very displeased when he didn't return with a second round of beer, and his score suffered accordingly.

When it was time for the second of our representatives, no one had high expectations for a grand finale. Amazingly, he surprised us. There was some set up involved: a table, bottles, some other stuff. Then he comes out in his sad clown costume, and actually does some fancy slight-of-hand. He did some juggling, and a lot of tricks with open bottles and fluid-filled cups. He handled them deftly, filling cups, transferring liquid, and taking plenty of drinks in between. He set a few things on fire and juggled those around too.

Then--then it was time for the final judging. Time to pick a Mr. Vet! Also, the two woman judges were in charge of selecting the second place "Hot Damn."

The winner of Mr. Vet 2011 was tight-pants gay-joke guy (5th year), who was also my personal favorite (I know I don't have a specific picture of him, but there are enough other pictures). The Hot Damn was none other than Rowan Atkinson guy (3rd year), considering that when he had his clothes on, all the judges could hear from the crowd was, "Take it off! Take it off!"

Then, of course, it wouldn't be a vet event without random nudity and streakers at the end.