HANOVER — Injecting color into the standard cap-and-gown routine, a pair of filmmakers delivered more of a stand-up act than a commencement speech to the Dartmouth Class of 2023.

Phil Lord and Chris Miller are the directing and writing double-threats behind blockbuster hits including “Cocaine Bear” and “Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse.” The duo, alumni from the class of 1997, addressed this year’s graduates and the college’s outgoing president Phil Hanlon, who retired Sunday after a decade at the helm.

“Make space for silliness and playfulness; it will keep your mind from turning flabby,” Lord said, to an audience of 12,000 on the Dartmouth Green. “It is a dumbbell for your soul.”

Lord likened the college’s Hopkins Center of the Arts to the “Lincoln Center’s fun older sister,” and added that in his time at the college two decades ago, “bagels were considered a healthy weight loss strategy.”

Jokes (not quite) aside, Lord and Miller emphasized the importance of imagination in a world increasingly paranoid at the possibility of artificial-intelligence takeover.

“Computers are going to take some jobs away but the thing that’s going to be more valuable than ever before … will be your originality and creativity,” Miller said, addressing just over 1,200 undergraduates.

“You will help everyone imagine goodness.”

In his speech to his classmates, Johnathan Lee, one of the 13 valedictorians, celebrated — among the rigors of a Dartmouth education — the role that “pong” — a ping pong-style drinking game — plays on campus.

“Pong facilitates friendships all across campus with amazing people,” said Lee, who will be working for Amazon as a software engineer after graduation.

His advice: “Stay curious, embrace challenges, and build pong tables in your apartments.”

But Hanlon had a more sober message for the Class of 2023. In his tenure as president, he saw the college through the trials of the COVID-19 pandemic and oversaw a record-breaking $3.7 billion capital campaign.

Speaking from behind the stump of the proverbial Dartmouth lone pine, Hanlon made one last plea for fundraising as president.

“Above all, do what you can to ensure that a Dartmouth education remains accessible to all students, regardless of their life circumstances,” he said.

He also balanced Lord and Miller’s celebration of imagination with a call for objectivity.

“Let’s leave the fantasy to Phil and Chris,” Hanlon said, waving to the commencement speakers behind him.

“Use your mind to seek truth and speak truth to a world that desperately needs it,” Hanlon said. “You’re entering the so-called real world … a world where too often opinions dominate and evidence and reason are dismissed.”

Upper Valley Dartmouth College graduates: Ethan Adner, Hanover; Adner Ethan Caleb Alexander Frowein Benjamin, Norwich; Emma Catherine Duranceau, Quechee; Eleanor Dunne Hackett, Etna; Karsten Kleyensteuber, Claremont; Geneva Natasha Kwaku, Hanover; Brook Pines Leigh, Norwich; and Eliana L. Ray, Hanover.

Frances Mize is a Report for America corps member. She can be reached at fmize@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.