by M. Berru

Popular comedy troupe Kasper Hauser is infinitely more entertaining than an omelette, even one from the tasty Alcove Café in Los Feliz. I discovered this last week, when we met for an early breakfast interview before their flight back to San Francisco. The group had performed at the Comedy Central Stage in Hollywood the previous night, delighting the audience with Powerpoint presentations, fake pregnancies, monks, and ill-fated karate kicks. John Reichmuth — who wore sunglasses for the duration of the morning, distinguishing him from his twin brother, James — suggested I turn to fellow groupmates Dan Klein or Rob Baedeker if dealing with the four of them got overwhelming.
“We promise if we ever tell you something that’s not true,” says Dan, sensing my difficulty in assessing John’s dry sarcasm, “someone will say ‘that’s not true.’”
“That’s not true,” John quips, and the table laughs.
Kasper Hauser are a well-known sketch troupe based in San Francisco and have participated in such acclaimed events as San Francisco Sketch Fest and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. They published their first book, SkyMaul: Happy Crap You Can Buy From a Plane, in October 2006, and their popular podcast was an iTunes staff favorite last year. Though at first glance they may appear to be your average sketch troupe, I got the distinct sense from the group that Kasper Hauser haven’t gotten to where they are — or where they’re going — by any traditional comedy model.
The foursome met at a Stanford University summer camp in Lake Tahoe. James and John, inevitable performers who grew up in Ashland, Oregon — a place they describe as being “funky and thespian” — soon drew the attention of Rob and Dan (who both hailed from Southern California).
“The first time [Dan] saw us perform he came up to me afterwards and said that he wanted to be my agent,” says John.
“There was a lot of alcohol,” Dan responds.
“At camp?” I ask.
“It was an alcohol camp,” says John. “For heroin addicts.” They immediately began performing together at the camp.
After a couple of “false starts,” as James puts it (including a paying college dorm show, whose profits went to the always-reliable causes of pizza and beer), the timing wasn’t quite right. In the next five years, Dan, James, John, and Rob would collaborate in various forms creatively while each pursued his own career. It’s here that the comedy troupe’s path deviates sharply from the norm.
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