Jerry Seinfeld, Margaret Cho: New Brunswick redemption

It was a bad hair day.

That’s the way Margaret Cho explained what went wrong during her March 26 show at the Stress Factory in New Brunswick when some audience members left and the police were on the scene to break up a few scuffles.

“I’m grateful that you’re here and I think I figured out what happened. I think I cut my hair too short,” said Cho from the stage of a packed Stress Factory on Thursday, April 21. “I thought I was going to a Mia Farrow, Michelle Williams feeling but it now it’s just Chang from ‘Orange is the New Black.’“

MORE: Seinfeld, Cho set a New Brunswick date

Thursday’s show was essentially a do-over for Cho, who bombed in her second show on March 26 when she riffed about rape, Garry Shandling’s death and white privilege. This time, she had backup. Jerry Seinfeld opened with 30 minutes of his classic observational humor on parenting, bathrooms, Hungry Man dinners and more.

The crowd roared and began a “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry” chant. He also had a good word for Cho.

“She one of my favorite comedians, she makes me laugh so hard and I watch everything she does,” Seinfeld said.

Seinfeld works clean. Cho doesn’t. She’s edgy, raunchy and pointed. At one point she stripped off her pants to show the audience her tattooed buttocks.

“My act is very different than Jerry’s,” Cho said.

MORE: Fights, walkouts at Cho's Stress Factory show

Yet, underlying her comedy is a search for commonality.

“It’s such a weird election, I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Cho said. “I feel like all of it is centered around immigrants and trying to get rid of immigrants and that’s bizarre because the only reason America exists is because of immigrants.”

The set was hit.

Afterward, Seinfeld and Cho filmed a segment of his “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee” web series at the club’s Church Street entrance.

“On my bucket list of performers who had never worked here, Jerry Seinfeld was one and I’m a big Margaret Cho fan,” said Stress Factory owner Vinnie Brand. “For me it’s a double win. I get my bucket list and Margaret gets to come back and do a little redemption.”

“Any other performer can have a bad show and people will come back and see that performer. Comics, people take it personally,” Brand said. “So for her to come back and redeem the set, that’s phenomenal. People are walking out, ‘Oh, she is great.’“

Chris Jordan: cjordan@app.com