It was roughly 8:20 p.m. when Sinbad finally took Staller’s center stage. He slid into the spotlight, his black pants and a translucent cerulean blue shirt helping to light up his smile. He dominated that stage. He didn’t skip a beat. And that cheesy, happy grin never left his lips.

Sinbad eased into his set by poking fun at Long Island. From the start, he noticed that there weren’t a lot of college students in the crowd. But that didn’t make him nervous.

“What’s going on, Republicans?” Sinbad asked, realizing that he was dealing with an older audience. “Y’all suck this year. And there’s a black Republican running? We all thought he was just there delivering a pizza.”

He continued by poking fun at Mormon candidate Mitt Romney. “Any man that has eight wives can run a country,” he said. “You come home and that’s like, ‘We need to talk. We need to talk. We need to talk. We need to talk…’”

It was a sold-out show that Saturday night. Roughly 70 percent of the act was improvisational.  Yet it didn’t feel like Sinbad was underprepared. If anything, it made him funnier. Backstage later, he admitted that he wasn’t really sure what to expect.

He allowed the audience to ask him a plethora of questions that he answered with hilarious ease. The most popular topics were relationship advice and child-rearing tactics.

“Why do men snore?” a woman from the crowd asked.

“Because,” Sinbad answered. “You have sucked the life out of us. We’re trying to kill ourselves in our sleep.”

He continued.

“Men hide being in love. You want to be a good husband?” Sinbad asked. “Let go of your dreams.”

Sinbad, whose real name is David Adkins, is a Michigan native. He starred in movies like First Kid, Jingle All the Way and Good Burger. He’s had his own show, The Sinbad Show, and was featured on HBO specials. Today, he is continuing his career as a stand-up comedian and entertainer.

He interwove topics like silk thread. People who “smell like piss”; old folks needing talking menus; lying to get better financial aid; the nonsensical use of capital letters in text messages; bacon grease; men who faint at weddings; weed-smoking philosophy professors; bowel movements; buying milk; dead possums; painful colonoscopies and perverted gynecologists all made it into his routine.

When a father complained about his teen’s inability to get out of bed, Sinbad suggested that he invest in a super-soaker water gun. He then played devil’s advocate, and allowed students to complain about their parents.

The Joe Paterno controversy, Occupy Wall Street protestors and Republican presidential candidates were all popular, currently trending topics that he also addressed. His set was anything but predictable. Sinbad swam through stories, keeping the audience transfixed on him for the entirety of his almost two-hour set.

“I’ve always enjoyed his stand-up style that [he] talks about real life. He can make you laugh with his humor and not by just being foul-mouthed, as is often the cases with some of the new comedians,” Alan Inkles, Staller Center director, said.

Inkles explained that out of the packed main stage, almost 100 seats went to students.  Inkles had hoped for a greater number of students, but acknowledged that “[Sinbad] may not be recognizable to all students as he was a bigger TV and film star when most of the students weren’t born yet.”

“We’re going to use the water pistol technique immediately,” said Gary Brown, a Setauket resident, referencing Sinbad’s parental advice with preteen’s who wont get out of bed. “We’ll try anything,” Brown laughed.

Brian and Georgia Early also loved the performance. The couple, both residents of Smithtown, came to Stony Brook’s Staller Center for the first time that night. Having seen the advertisement for Sinbad in Newsday, they decided to give the comedian a taste.

The best part of the show, in their opinion? Mrs. Early loved Sinbad’s coy teasing of romantic relationships.

Both ultimately agreed that it was thoroughly entertaining and that attending was a “good decision.”

What advice would Sinbad give to college students?

“Find something you love to do,” he exclusively told The Statesman. “We can all achieve greatness.”