Apparently it’s sketch comedy flashback week.

After posting an old Foe Pa video on Monday, now the internet has been hit with classic audio sketches from The 3rd Floor: LA on Vimeo.

I was in this group before Foe Pa. I have a terrible memory unless it has to do with comic books or James Taylor, but I think this would’ve been around 2002-2003. One of the members Mari Levitan saw me perform in the Theater That Shall Not Be Named and asked that I audition, since the group was looking for new members. I did and in a lapse of judgment, they welcomed me to The 3rd Floor: LA. The group was the Los Angeles branch of the Portland-based sketch group The 3rd Floor, which seems to still be going strong. I had great fun with the group, even if I usually felt out-classed and overwhelmed. We performed at sketch comedy festivals in Chicago and San Francisco, and had several successful shows here in Los Angeles. It’s actually where this sketch originated. (It started as a monologue I wrote to audition for the group. There was no speedo used then; our Foe Pa guest director at the time suggested we add it.) While we all contributed material, the primary writer was Joe Douglass, who was part of the original Third Floor. I still love his writing – some weird mix of brash and coy, smart and blunt. He’s since moved on to TV news, which seems like some kind of crime against humanity, but no surprise he’s good at that too. Fortunately Mari is still doing comedy. She recently did a show with Hit and Run: Musical Improv at the Westside Comedy Theater. I think the only other member of the group that I’ve managed to semi-keep in touch with (thanks to Facebook) is Shannon O’Connor, who I think still works in animation (and drew this awesome cartoon of me during one of our rehearsals).

Anyway, The 3rd Floor: LA used audio sketches in our live shows (partly to buy us time to do costume and set changes). The first five that have been posted were created before I joined the group, so I’m not in any of them but you should listen to them anyway. Hopefully some stuff with me will pop up sooner or later (although I honestly don’t know if there’s all that much recorded stuff with me in it).

The Remedy (Audio Sketch) from The 3rd Floor: Los Angeles on Vimeo.

Satchmo (Audio Sketch) from The 3rd Floor: Los Angeles on Vimeo.