Night at the Improv

An evening of vulgar, funny, roastlike jokes is not necessarily what one might associate with the Fulfillment Fund Stars Gala (the Fund helps economically disadvantaged kids get through high school and go on to college). But when one of the honorees is Judd Apatow (with wife Leslie Mann) and Jonah Hill and Jason Segel are hosting the affair, that's what you get. Maybe this is a new trend—throwing out the TelePrompter, which left the building after Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa speechified before heading out the back door. Hill and Segel, in English accents, opened the show with a shaky high school musical-esque Oliver Twist/Fiddler on the Roof number. "Raise your hand if you're famous or really rich," Hill began the evening. John Mayer got in on the hijinks. He told off-color jokes, gamely offered $5,000 a request (many took him up on it), and crooned to Leslie Mann. "Pretend we have just gotten back from the hottest club, and you've just got done telling me for the last half hour how you never do this," he instructed her before launching into "Your Body Is a Wonderland." "Even I'm wet," he sighed after he sang the song.

If Garry Shandling hadn't hopped onstage, Mayer would have happily gone on all night upping the ante (the singer also threw in $10,000 of his own dough). "How loaded are you, buddy?" Shandling couldn't help asking Hill after watching his swearing and rat-tat-tat chatter all night. "Are you Judd's dad?" Hill answered without missing a beat. To stop the barbs, Segel, looking lost, came onstage with the award. "I've known Judd Apatow for 20 years, and he's a real guy," Shandling remarked after unsuccessfully trying to get Segel to expose himself for even more money. "I think it's fucking perfect," he said of the evening. The Apatows gave their award to Fulfillment Fund recipients Jaime and Antonio Gonzalez, who spoke earlier in the evening (and who also gave some good jabs to Hill), and offered to pay full tuition for one Fulfillment Funder: "preferably one who is not going to medical school but two years at Santa Monica College." This jaded party girl hopes this is the latest thing for award and fund-raising galas—the fiasco with heart that raises a lot of money.