Fake Radio: Old Time Radio Comedy Troupe

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Fake Radio: Old Time Radio Comedy Troupe

Fake Radio is the nation's premiere old-time-radio comedy troupe, featuring loving parodies of classic shows from the 1940s and 1950s!

Since 1998, Fake Radio has been re-creating Hollywood's finest radio classics from the 1940's & 1950's along with a healthy dose of improvisation. Featuring some of the biggest names in comedy, the cast of actors, improvisers, stand-up comedians and voice-over artists recreate actual radio broadcasts — including all of the original commercials — to help introduce new generations of fans to some of America's greatest radio stories.

12/16/2025

Thank you (and posters!) from Fake Radio! - https://mailchi.mp/ba33919ebea6/thank-you-and-posters-from-fake-radio

11/25/2025

Many of you know that we perform in both LA and Stumptown. Well, I have good news and bad...

On the one hand, we sold out our first show. On the OTHER hand, you still have one opportunity to see Jon Lovitz guest stars as SANTA CLAUS in our recreation of Lux Radio Theater's "Miracle on 34th Street" on December 7th, 2025.

https://www.fakeradio.net/shows/2025-miracle

11/24/2025

REAL RADIO alert!

For all of our friends and fans in both PDX and Los Angeles, I've got late-breaking news: Our guest star Jon Lovitz will be on KLOS radio tonight (Sunday) talking about his career and upcoming shows with us, including Jon Lovitz guest stars in "Miracle on 34th Street" - December 7th, 2025 — Fake Radio and Jon Lovitz in "It's a Wonderful Life"!

He tells me that he's on air for 20min sometime between 10pm-midnight, Pacific time.

Tune in here:

Southern California's Rock Station

11/13/2025

Link in bio! We’ve just added a second show with on December 7th at the in

so if you like, for or then come out and join us for all of the you can handle with Jon playing

11/12/2025

OMG, we JUST added a second show!

Our first show is selling so well that Jon wanted to do a second show with us! So join us Sunday, December 7th at the Whitefire Theatre in LA for the funniest version of Santa Claus that you've ever heard.

11/02/2025

JON LOVITZ joins Fake Radio for "It's a Wonderful Life"! 🎭 -
https://www.fakeradio.net/shows

Funny man. Funny show. One night only.

05/08/2025

One of the great thrills of my career has been wrangling many of my comedy and acting heroes to join me on stage for my shows with the Fake Radio: Old Time Radio Comedy Troupe. I've not only been able to direct them, but also perform with them, sometimes with my own material.

They are all "pinch yourself that you're so lucky" kind of moments. But none were more nerve-racking than working with John Larroquette, a comedy titan who won more Emmy Awards than should be allowed.

John joined us for our 2014 show on the anniversary of Orson Welles historic "War of the Worlds" radio broadcast. I'd pitched him on playing the role that Welles played in that October 1938 broadcast.

Miraculously... he agreed. Then, I wrote a comedy sketch about the sad and amazing life of Orson Welles to start the show. And he agreed to perform that as well.

Link provided to the audio below. I had a few laughs re-listening to this one. Let me know what you think.

Endless thanks to Jeffrey Johnson, Jenn Hasty, Jake West, Dan Kinsella, Jeff Purdue, Tony Williams, Julie Millett, Peter Lownds, Denny Siegel, Zach Hanks, and Scott Hennelly who all appear with me in the cast.

Megan Geraghty was my assistant producer for this show and she crushed it.

And, of course, to the late, great Dan Foegelle who created all of our sound and music effects.

After 20 years of live performances, it's nearly impossible to pick our favorites, but we've tried. With top talents like Ray Romano, John Larroquette, Mindy Sterling, Fred Willard, and members of “The Kids in the Hall”, you can’t go wrong. Below, please find some of the shows that we’ve ma...

04/05/2025

World Premiere: Next Week in Portland! - https://mailchi.mp/e3beffa62e7e/fake-radio-returns-18233052

11/20/2024

What's better than our Fake Radio shows? How about appearing on the REAL radio?!?

Tonight, at 5:30pm Pacific, Jonathan Stark and I will be featured during KBOO's "News in Depth" segment, talking about two different productions that I have in town this weekend:

1) Our upcoming "It's a Wonderful Life" recreation this weekend and
2) Erin Fitzgerald's masterful take of playing 27 different roles as she recreates the entire Wizard of Oz

Tix for both shows are available at: https://fakeradio.net/shows

Tune in via kboo.fm or via TuneIn. "Alexa, play K-B-O-O radio!"

Fans of comedy, improvisation, sketch, and history will love how Fake Radio recreates old-time-radio broadcasts on the stage in both Los Angeles and Portland, OR for new generations of fans. But we weave in unexpected improvisation, breathing new life into an art form that's still just a powerful to

Address

Los Angeles, CA

Telephone

+13234726754

Website

https://linktr.ee/fakeradio

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A Long Time Ago in a Theater Far, Far Away...

I'm the first to admit that what we do seems ridiculously simple. So simple, that it's hard to understand why it's so funny and entertaining. Why would a bunch of actors, improvisers, stand-up comics and voiceover artists simply reading old radio scripts, be that be entertaining?! But it is and I knew it the moment I first saw the show.

In 1998, my pal Robin Jones gathered a few old time radio scripts and some friends. Once a month, they gathered at the Border's bookstore on La Cienega Boulevard in Los Angeles and performed the scripts. The reenactments were so underground, that they were nearly invisible. This, despite the fact that many of Robin's friends were up-and-coming or established comedians like Maria Bamford, Tom Kenny, and Jeff Garlin.

Word spread. Slowly. The show moved to the now-defunct Fake Gallery, kind of in Korea Town, kind of in Little Mexico. Sometimes twenty people paid to see the show. Sometimes eight. And sometimes, a very loud Mexican brass band played at the event hall across the street and drowned out the actors. Fun times.

One Christmas, Robin invited me to sit in with the cast. They were reenacting the 1947 broadcast of "It's a Wonderful Life". He'd thrown together an entire program for the evening: a musical act, a funny sketch he'd written in the style of an old radio show and then, the main act: a radio script from 1947 performed by a hugely talented cast who would suddenly improvise off the script at key moments.

I was stunned. And totally hooked. I begged Robin, his wife Mary and his brother Brendan to let me help produce the show in some way. A few years later, I got my chance when they moved to the East Coast. I took over as artistic director in 2003 and fumbled my way through what Robin had started. It was rough. There were a lot of moving parts and no rehearsals.

Wait, what?! So a word about that... Robin never had rehearsals for the cast because:

We performed holding the scripts we read from, so no memorization was required.

Robin wanted the show to look and sound "fresh" which certainly happens when you don't rehearse

He wanted it as easy as possible for his cast and guest stars to participate because, In Los Angeles, it's always hard to attract top talent.

Instead, we did a voice check and got notes during the soundcheck process with our audio engineer. Robin would give little notes to tweak an actor's sound. It worked, but the theatre snob in me flinched every time the cast made a mistake during a performance. The comedian in me was amazed at how the cast improvised a brilliant solution every time a mistake occurred. Robin's format stayed.

Over ten years and 100+ shows later, and our performances have grown exponentially. We've now performed in theaters all over Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon. The press has praised our cast, our singers, our sound design and our hallmark of weaving improvisation into our shows. “An uncanny sense of a time warp gone horribly right.” is how the LA Weekly put it. We agree.

If you can't see us perform live, I invite you to listen to previous shows. You'll soon discover what we've known for years: that radio shows from "The Golden Age" of the medium are still just as entertaining today as they were over fifty years ago... especially when we add in a bit of improvised fun.

We're honored and excited to be creating new generations of radio fans. We'll see you at the theater!

David Koff, Artistic Director