Patrick Trimble sweeps into a lecture hall packed with 200 students and steps onto the stage. He has one purpose in mind as he faces his audience -- to spark discussion in a class so large many teachers have given up on the idea.

He takes off his brown safari hat and reveals a shiny head, places his Pepsi on the podium and schmoozes with a gathering group of students.

After his lecture begins, a student walks in and instead of taking a seat to the rear, he saunters in front of Trimble and sits down. Trimble pauses and stares at the indifferent student.

"What, are you gonna insult me?" the student asks.

"Nah, nature's already done that to you," Trimble quips back in that extra-high voice he reserves for the highest of insults. Whamo, Trimble's at it again.

Welcome to Theatre 109, the Dramatic Arts in the Mass Media, a popular course on campus and the only class where watching The Young and the Restless is a requirement and viewing I Love Lucy is studying the classics. Each day, students sit back for 30 minutes and do what many students do remarkably well -- watch television.

But television isn't the only entertainment they receive during this course. Every day students have the bonus of a Trimble lecture, stand- up comedy included. Trimble's philosophy on teaching is simple.

"Teaching is not that far from performing," he explained. "Maybe at the end of a show they applaud and at the end of class they turn and walk out, but if you do it right you get a great deal of satisfaction from it. And you don't have to put makeup on."

Trimble admitted he has a reputation as a wise guy but the Don Rickles approach keeps the students awake and interested.

"What's really magical is when you find that person who becomes the butt of every joke and the class scapegoat," he said. "And the funny thing is, they love it."

Students are not the only victims of classroom jokes.

Once a student raised his hand to answer a question and his whole arm was on fire.

"I was a bit taken aback," Trimble chuckled. "But then I found out he was a magician."

One time, however, even one of Trimble's jokes backfired. He was passing out papers in a smaller class and a student received a poor grade. It was a student he usually joshed with and when he handed her the paper she went into convulsions.

"I thought she was playing around so I started to make jokes, but she was really having a seizure," he said, even now red in the face. "I just cringe to think about it."

Trimble is careful who he picks on, noting he usually has a feeling about a person, but if they take offense to his joking, he backs off.

"I don't want to give a student the impression that they can't speak up in class," he explained. "I want to create an atmosphere where they want to speak up."

Back in Trimble's office in the Arts and Crafts Building, students may be surprised with the person they meet. His mellow-yellow and orange room reflects the man who sits behind the desk. Long gone is the caustic wit, replaced by sincerity. The high taunting voice is won over by a deeper more caring tone. If Trimble's classroom is his stage then this is his dressing room.

A student is sitting in his office with him, teary eyed about two consecutive poor test grades.

"Look, I don't doubt that you are studying, but you can't memorize the information for this class, you have to understand it. The tests are designed for that," he explained.

The student stays for 30 minutes to go over material.

"He's a dynamic teacher in that he gives so much in the classroom and out of the classroom. He makes himself accessible," said fellow theater professor and friend, John Neville Andrews.

Trimble's style is inspiring, Andrews said. "If there's one thing I've learned from him, it is to maintain a sense of humor."

Trimble had his start at Penn State as a student at the Behrend campus where he majored in English. After graduation in 1971, he traveled with an acting troupe until he ended up at University Park where he went for his masters degree in Fine Arts and began his long connection with Theatre 109 as a teaching assistant. Now he's studying for his doctoral degree.

Many students find Trimble interesting, but the one thing that intrigues them the most is his immense television knowledge.

"That man knows every episode of every T.V. show, even if it was cancelled after the first one," said Claire Coggins (junior-biology). "He must have sat in front of the T.V. all night when he was younger."

Not true, Trimble said. He just watches every new show at the beginning of the season. Besides, when he was younger, television wasn't an attraction -- baseball was.

"I was set to make it to the pros, and I did too. I played for the Cleveland Indian's farm team." So much for the couch potato hypothesis.

Back in the classroom, Trimble is finishing his lecture.

"So as you can see, the main problem with public television is the fact that it does not broadcast the Pittsburgh Steeler games and it's lack of original programming." He pauses and looks around the room. "I just wanted to see how many people would write that down."