Totally False People (Sketch)
Totally False People (TFP) was a sketch-comedy group from San Francisco, featuring Gabriel Diani, David Owen, Cole Stratton (me!) and Janet Varney, formed in 2000 when we were all students at SF State. We were all brought together by our love of SNL, The Kids in the Hall, Monty Python and countless other contemporary and classic comedians, and found we had a similar goofy, arbitrary sense of humor. We put up our first show (a 90 minute sketch collection) and debuted that year at a small (now closed) venue called The Delivery Room, and did showcases at places like The Mock Cafe, Spanganga and Rooster T. Feathers Comedy Club in Sunnyvale. Finding there wasn’t too many venues dedicated to sketch, in 2002 we banded together with five other local groups (Fresh Robots, Kasper Hauser, The Meehan Brothers, Please Leave The Bronx and White Noise Radio Theatre) and rented the tiny 70 seat Shelton Theater in Union Square and started the first ever SF Sketchfest. The rest, as they say, is history.
TFP went on to perform at the fest most years, and performed at the 2004 HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, paired with Kirk Ward‘s solo-show. We loved Aspen, palled around with Rob Huebel and Rob Riggle (there as Kung-Fu Grip), saw David Alan Grier walking around a lot, sucked on oxygen tanks backstage, and was told our show was funny by Jack Black. We promptly broke up.
Totally False People took the stage once again this past January at the 10th Annual SF Sketchfest as part of the 10 Year Reunion Show featuring all the original groups from year one and longtime host Joe Klocek (many pictures in the gallery). We all are great friends and perform together in other incarnations often, and may take the stage again as TFP in the near future!
