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Kasper Hauser tonight in San Francisco
Kasper Hauser Need Your Couple Photos!
 Kasper Hauser are working on a top-secret new book (fans of the podcast might be able to guess its subject), and they need your couple pictures. Dear Friend,
SkyMaul authors Kasper Hauser will release their next book, a parody of the New York Times wedding announcements, in 2009 (St. Martin's Press).
Would you like to be in our next book?
Send us a picture, and if we use it, we'll give you a free signed copy of the book.
DETAILS:
We'll need a high-res digital close-up of you and your partner. (Or you and anyone else pretending to be a couple -- straight, gay, young, old, whatever).
Most of the photos will need to look like the real ones (like these).
SHOULD IT BE A FUNNY PHOTO?
You don't need to be funny in the photo. It should look real (see below).
WHERE?
Send your photos to info@kasperhauser.com, or email if you'd like more details.
WHEN?
Immediately.
WHAT?
If we end up using your picture, we'll use fictional names and we will let you know before the book goes to press.
CAN I FORWARD THIS?
Please forward this message to fans of Kasper Hauser, SkyMaul, Fishing with Gandhi, Barack Obama, Hilary Clinton, Star Wars, the zoo, Nike, museums, medicine, BMW, falcons, fishing, Tibet, dog parks, philosophy, the Olympics, or anyone you think would like to be a part of comedy history. Labels: kasper hauser
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Interview: Jonathan Green and Gabe Miller of "What We're Not Writing" by Rob Baedeker
Jonathan Green and Gabe Miller are Emmy-nominated writers whose credits include CBS’s “Late Show With David Letterman,” Comedy Central’s “The Showbiz Show With David Spade,” and MTV’s “The Andy Dick Show.” When the Writers Guild went on strike in November, they launched a new website, “What We’re Not Writing." Rob Baedeker interviewed the pair this week.Describe your site, “What We’re Not Writing,” and tell me how it got started.GM: Every day we’ve been posting a description of the show or movie we’re not working on because we’re on strike. The idea was to bring the studios to their knees by letting them know the brilliance they’re missing out on. JG: We know there are important issues at stake, but we felt like a lot of writers were starting to take themselves too seriously, as far as the contribution they’re making to society with “One Tree Hill” or whatever. So we decided to make fun of that a little. These unwritten scripts are jokes, but have you come up with any that actually seem viable? For example, I would watch "Small Plates, Big Problems", a feature screenplay about a petty thief on the run from the mob who hides out by opening a tapas bar. GM: Really? Do you want to buy it? 35 bucks. JG: Most of the time, we try to play on some recognizable genre or premise or character, but we try to make the idea a little bit worse in some way. But it’s a fine line. We don’t want to get too wacky. We’d rather err on the side of “I could imagine them making that.” GM: Sometimes we come up with the title first, usually a bad pun, and then figure out what the show or movie would be. JG: In general, we’ve realized that it’s a lot easier to come up with ideas not to write than ideas to write. Do you each have personal-favorite entries?JG: Asking us to choose between these horrible ideas is like asking us to choose between our children. In that having children was also a horrible idea. GM: I like anything where the story is set in motion by someone getting struck by lightning. So that’s been a recurring theme. JG: But we do have a place on the site where other writers can post what they’re not writing, and some of those have been really funny. Like “Keepin’ It Zipped!”, a teen sex comedy about a bunch of guys trying not to lose their virginity. GM: And I also liked the one-stop TV drama called “Detective Law, M.D.” What’s the worst idea you’ve actually pitched (as non-striking writers)?GM: We pitched a movie called “Mathletes,” which played all the conventions of a sports movie in the world of high school math. But we were told that for some reason audiences wouldn’t want to watch kids do math for an hour and a half. JG: And we once put together a pitch for an idea a production company had, which was basically that a kid wakes up to find he has an alien penis. That was before we realized we were allowed to say no to things. Is that true?GM: Yes, unfortunately. The idea was something about how when you go through puberty, you feel like you’re an alien, and making that literal. But it pretty much boiled down to “alien penis.” Has it been cathartic to step out of the industry and parody it?
JG: A lot of the writing we’ve done, especially on late-night shows, even though it’s done within the industry, has sort of a critical point of view, making fun of all the crap that’s out there. So it’s not new to us, but it’s definitely fun. GM: Also, since back on The Andy Dick Show, we’ve loved writing characters who are overly confident idiots, and in a way, we get to be those guys on the blog. JG: So, yes, it’s been nice to “step out of the industry” for a while, but we can’t wait to step in it again. We want to step in it so good that we can’t wipe it off, and it starts stinking up the place, and you try to take an old toothbrush to it, but at some point you realize you’re just going to have to throw out the shoes. Wait, what are we talking about? There are rumors that the strike may be ending soon. Are you going to continue to do the blog? Has it been fun enough to keep it going, or was it just a way to kill time? Have you been getting a lot of good response to it?JG: We’d like to keep some kind of Miller & Green website going. We don’t know exactly what it’ll be, but this has been fun to do, and a good way to make sure we write at least one joke every day. And it seems to be getting a good response, and even some press. Which is fun, too. GM: I guess the first thing we’ll do on the blog is take a lot of credit for ending the strike. It took over 60 unwritten projects, but it worked. You’re welcome, America. You can find What We're Not Writing online here. Rob Baedeker is a member of the comedy group Kasper Hauser and freelance writer.Labels: comedy, film, interview, kasper hauser, tv
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Kasper Hauser at SF Sketchfest
Tuesday, Jan. 22, Mill Valley (shorter set)
Thursday, Jan. 24, 8 pm, SF (shorter set)
Seriously, just go. On the 18th if you can, when they'll be stretching out and performing with another favorite of mine, the acerbic "Oh, You & Your Bone Spurs." On the other hand, you shouldn't miss them on the 24th, either, with mad genius Will Franken and the very charming Apple Sisters. Buy the ticket now, and get your ass out to the show. It will be amazing. There is no better sketch group in the country than Kasper Hauser, and there is no better place to see Kasper Hauser than at the SF Sketchfest.
Labels: kasper hauser
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Kasper Hauser in NYC: "An event of magnitude."
 Our very good friends The Kasper Hauser Comedy Group are bringing their brilliant, off-kilter eye to New York City tonight and tommorow night. Kasper Hauser coming to NYC is a big enough deal for Time Out New York to have declared it "an event of magnitude." Tonight (Thursday), they're performing their show SkyMaul. See SkyMaul CEO Jerry Ponda detail the decline of the SkyMaul company, and meet the mis-matched characters who are hoping to bring it back to the top. Features original sketches specific to the show, plus material drawn from SkyMaul the book. The show's at 10 at Ars Nova. Tommorow (Friday), they're co-headlining The Longest Sketch Show Ever at the UCB in NY. The show starts at 10 and runs for 24 straight hours. It's part of the New York Comedy Festival. They'll be performing lots of classic Kasper Hauser sketches in a show that's completely different from SkyMaul. Be there or be square! Labels: comedy, kasper hauser, live events, New York
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Kasper Hauser return to LA with SkyMaul Wednesday Night
Podcast: Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast: SkyMaul Pg. 8: Gnomes & Gardens
Kasper Hauser in LA Wednesday Night!
Podcast: Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast Ep. 15: Fake-a-Wish
Fall on Your Sword f. Kasper Hauser - "Back to the Ship"
Podcast: Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast: Ep. 14: The News 6 Update
Kasper Hauser in New York Magazine
 Hey! New York Magazine's " Approval Matrix" picks up on Kasper Hauser's This American Life parodies, as heard on the Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast. Needless to say, they approve, though they use the variant spelling Kaspar Hauser, which I worry will keep anyone from hearing them after seeing it in the magazine. Here's the first of the shows, and here's the second. You can of course get them free in iTunes as well. NY Magazine isn't the first big media outlet to pick up on the genius of Kasper Hauser. Just a few weeks ago, the prestigious Very Short List described the parodies as "sweet, imaginative portraits of sweet, ridiculous people too genial to realize how ridiculous they can be." Which is a nice way to put it. By the way... have you bought Kasper Hauser's SkyMaul yet? If you haven't, you're making a terrible, terrible mistake. When Patton Oswalt was over the other day, he was talking about his copy. "Oh my God, those guys are SO FUCKING FUNNY," was the specific quote, I believe. Labels: kasper hauser
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Times Podcast of the Week!
Guess who's the Times of London podcast of the week? Hint: it starts with "Kasper" and ends with "Hauser Comedy Podcast," and is the Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast. Kasper Hauser was the mysterious 19th-century foundling about whom Werner Herzog made a film in 1974. It is also the name of an enigmatic blog by a quartet of San Francisco comedians. Wonderfully realised, the podcast’s wistful and surreal laughs are conveyed in parodies of the cult radio show This American Life with Phantom High School, in which people talk about a fake school where diplomas “crumbled into dust” and the building was made of “spider web crystals”. Very silly and great fun. Labels: kasper hauser
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Pledge Drive Update
 Wow!Our first-ever MaximumFun.org pledge drive is going really fantastically well. We're giving away a bunch of prizes, including t-shirts, hobo illustrations, a copy of SkyMaul and a copy of The Areas of My Expertise, and a DVD box set of Get Smart. We're also getting lots of listeners stepping up and becoming supporters of maximumfun.org. And, of course, they'll all get Maximum Fun Packs in the mail, with their own Maximum Fun Club cards and more. So far we've had (by my count) 34 new pledges -- most of which are monthly commitments. I want to thank the following folks for supporting the show thus far: Sarah Z, Kyle H, Margaret H, David B, Craig S, Edward M, Mike D, Jeff M, Ayesha M, Marylee R, Reena R, David S, Guan Y, Tim A, Mark M, Scott S, Justin Z, Tom S, Brian S, Adam L, Nicholas L, Adam K, Chris F, Elias G, Matt A, Maryam M, Kristen S, Neal S, Elisabeth C, Zack S, Carol M, David L, Mason P, Daniel S, William R, Keren K, Rachel L, Charles F, Alex T, Ben W, Derek H, Joseph C, Aaron M & Linus B. Not yet a donor? You still have time. I'm absolutely committed to keeping this drive to two weeks, but there's still a full week left. If you haven't yet given, what's holding you back? Just haven't pulled the trigger yet? Donate now.Labels: Coyle and Sharpe, jjgo, kasper hauser, Pledge Drive, tsoya
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Podcast: Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast: SkyMaul Page 7: Pepper Self-Spray
Kasper Hauser profile in The Coming
Megan Berru wrote a wonderful profile of Kasper Hauser in The Coming this week. 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. LinkLabels: kasper hauser
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Pledge Drive: 5/1 - 5/15 (Inclusive)
 Preamble
It's officially been one year since The Sound of Young America and MaximumFun.org starting accepting donations. In that time, dozens of listeners have stepped up to the plate to support our programming (and blogging). Your support has allowed me to expand our offerings, buy some new equipment and quit my day job (though I still spend too much time on contract work). In celebration of a year of donation-supported content, we're having a good old-fashioned pledge drive. The goal is to build a base of supporters that can carry the show into the future. Here's the deal.
I give everything away for free. The blog, all the shows and all their archives, the radio show... everything. There's no mandatory subscription fees or pay-per-downloads here. My first priority is sharing this work with you. In order for me to do that, I need your support.I ask that you donate to support the show. You can give $20 a month if you have the means, or you can give $2 or $5 if you're as broke as I am. I ask for monthly gifts because I'm not a professional fundraiser, and I'd rather dedicate my time (and yours) to programming and not to asking for money. This way, instead of fundraising two or three times a year, I can do it once. That said, if you'd like to make a one-time donation, or simply mail a check, you can do that as well. I appreciate your support -- and because of that, I'm giving shit away to say "thanks."
Thank You Gifts
Everyone who donates will receive a Maximum Fun Pack. That means a Maximum Fun Club card, personally inscribed (not to mention laminated) by yours truly, some stickers, and a pin for your lapel. If you donate at the $10 or $20/month level, I'll send you a Sound of Young America t-shirt. If you've already got one, get one for your spouse! It'll be great, they'll love it, I promise. And furthermore... The Big Prizes
Everyone who donates will be entered into a prize drawing. It's different from most drawings in that you have a great chance of winning. You could win:Kasper Hauser's SkyMaul: Happy Crap You Can Buy From A PlaneJohn Hodgman's Areas of My Expertise, personally autographed by the authorOne of FIVE personalized Hobos drawn according to a name you choose by the great Ape Lad (also known as Adam Koford) Or the grand prize:A complete box set of the legendary spy spoof series Get Smart (created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry) -- a set which costs $300 in the store! So Donate Now Click here for our donation page, where you can choose the level of your support. If you'd like a t-shirt, be sure to include your shirt size and address. And once you do donate, be sure to record an intro for The Sound of Young America! Labels: college years, Coyle and Sharpe, jjgo, kasper hauser, podcast, tsoya, tsoya classic
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Kasper Hauser LIVE and FREE in LA!
Podcast: Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast: Ep. 13: More This American Life
Podcast: Kasper Hauser Comedy Podcast: Ep. 12: Slide Show
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