Despite a snicker here or there, the punch line falls flat.

In the wide-open ground level of Tasty World on a Monday evening, the 35 people in attendance for the UGA Comedy Club performance don’t quite fill the room with any sense of atmosphere.

"What a crowd, woo!" Trevor Williams barks from the stage. "Oh, don’t laugh. You’ll just encourage me to keep making sh***y jokes," he coos, feeding on the nervous tension, rebounding back into his routine. His words blurt out in tense syllables before crumbling to near-mumbles.

And the crowd laughs, perhaps a little from the booze, but mostly because Williams’ brand of goofy humor — not so much physical comedy as acute observations from a hyperactive mind — is so infectious.

Infectious enough to land him a spot hosting "The Other Night Show," the University’s telecommunications department’s answer to late-night humor/talk shows. He sees it as an opportunity to perform comic stunts on an entertainment show, a la Tom Green or Conan O’Brien. This task differs from his main gig as co-creator, producer and writer of "The Silly Spider Monkey Fiasco," now in its third year on University television station Housing 12.

Williams never expected to be considered funny. A hyperactive youth with an appetite for attention, Williams says he had hoped to parlay his hyperactivity into the sports arena. It didn’t quite work.

"I can trace most of my life to failure at sports," he says in the half-familiar, half-serious tone he maintains in private conversation. His delivery offstage stumbles out in blurted fragments that waver in pitch similar to that of his thought process.

"I had to find something to fall back on," he says. "I’ve always had a knack for making, not really smart-ass, but É like that question that everyone in class doesn’t want to raise their hand to ask. It’s like saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, but in a good way."

Always the wild one in school, Trevor says his mother’s strict discipline is the only thing that can keep him in line. And despite of his obvious hyperactivity, she wouldn’t give him Ritalin. "She believes it kills personality," he says with a grin.

Four years ago, William’s off-kilter personality attracted the attention of Travis Holcombe, a high school classmate.

"I saw him doing a Jimi Hendrix impression, playing his leg as a guitar," Holcombe says. "I knew I had to work with him. He’s just goofy."

The two became friends and started "Toilet Jokes for Filthy Blokes," a raw sketch comedy program that featured the duo and whomever they could cast as extras. Holcombe had the film bug; Williams had the personality and plenty of ideas to write on. The show aired on public access television in north Atlanta, but it wasn’t until the two arrived at the University that the idea was taken a step further.

"Once we heard there was Housing 12, we knew we could get on it," Holcombe says of the duo’s decision to continue the program while in college. With a name change to "The Silly Spider Monkey Fiasco," Holcombe and Williams found others interested in working with the show and learned to produce a show that didn’t look like a standard low-rent student series.

Today, Williams has stepped back from "SSMF" and mainly serves as peacekeeper and producer. Holcombe has long since left, off to pursue his own filmmaking concepts while spinning as DJ 33% God.

The show now rests on the laurels of Ed Mundy and Andrew Jedlicka, the technical brains of the operation. Jedlicka also does a fair amount of writing for the show. But Trevor’s influence on the cast remains apparent.

"When he gets on screen, he can make anyone laugh," says Jedlicka, a sophomore from Dunwoody. "He’s a lot like Bill Murray, and he’s like that all the time," Though Williams and Jedlicka attended the same high school, the two never spoke until college. Still, Jedlicka says he remembers Williams’ senior-year campaign to be elected Class Clown. Williams won, of course.

With the growth of the show, Williams’ presence behind the scenes at "SSMF" helps keep conflicting ideas from halting the show’s progress.

"He can get along with any type of person," Jedlicka says. "If there’s ever a problem, he solves it like that. But sometimes he’s too accepting. He doesn’t have the heart to be mean."

Though he claims to have "turned social retardation into an art form," Williams himself admits there are topics he tends to stray from. No making fun of people with disabilities. When and if he does "go there," he says he tries to make the humor an individual thing, not a stereotype.

With his efforts turned more to his job as co-host of "The Other Late Show" and as a featured comic in the UGA Comedy Club, Williams has a lot on his plate. He mainly excels at performing, but he says his goal is to write and produce a sketch comedy show.

"Acting sounds like a lot of work," he says. "I’m always going to have the desire to perform; I just don’t want to take it seriously. I’m not too good at committing to things."

"Saturday Night Live" would be the dream, he says, but whatever he does he says he wants to work in television — or attention span reasons, of course. "I’m not so much hyper as flaky. I don’t listen very well."

Then there’s the stand-up. Williams says he works on new routines constantly, never repeating one more than twice.

"Writing comedy is sort of a release," he says. His bit usually includes discussion of his mother, his social anxieties and things he fears ("pale people, Q-tips, clowns"). "Usually when I’m nervous is when I’m sharpest. Anxiety makes me talk a lot."

From the reaction he elicits from the small gathering at Tasty World, Williams may need to rethink his plans when it comes to writing. His anxiety may provide ammo for a few good jokes, but it also feeds his sense of doubt over his ability.

"I don’t think there’s a consensus agreement that I’m funny," he says. "My one die-hard fan is my mom, but she laughs at everything. That can be bad because it encourages me to do things that aren’t funny."

But he knows as well as anyone who’s ever met him — his mother’s not the only one laughing.