In the fall of 1973, two students at Northwestern University resolved to create something on stage that was wholly their own. Soon, they would be joined by a cohort of performers, musicians, and staff, and the resulting production would go on to launch the careers of scores of entertainment professionals, including some of the most well-known and awarded names in comedy today. This book is not only an account of the rebellious fifty-year history of the Mee-Ow Show, now the longest-running student sketch comedy and improv show in the country, but also its far-reaching influence. The storied group's alumni include such household names as Craig Bierko, Ana Gasteyer, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, John Cameron Mitchell, Dermot Mulroney, Seth Meyers, and Kristen Schaal.

Based on more than a hundred new interviews with group members, presenting their words alongside never-before-published photographs and ephemera, The Mee-Ow Show at 50 provides a chronicle of the last half-century of the American undergraduate experience--and reveals how, from New York to Los Angeles, contemporary comedy can trace its roots to an upstart student production in Evanston, Illinois.