Way sketchy

Here are some things that are hard to name: your pet, your baby, your band, your car (assuming you do that), your price, early prime ministers of Finland, your conflicted feelings about certain National Public Radio personalities, that thing with the weird stuff inside it, your poison, your sketch-comedy troupe. For inspiration on the latter, please see the Sacramento All-Sketch Festival, premiering next Thursday. The Keith and Kate Show, from Auburn, includes a gal named Kate and a dude named, um, Jason. Killing My Lobster is not a common euphemism but does come highly recommended from San Francsico. Sketch Armstrong cleverly puns on a reference to one of many weird, fondly remembered toys made possible in the late ’70s by overpaid chemical engineers and parenting through television. Sacramento’s own I Can’t Believe It’s Not Comedy, which includes All-Sketch co-founders Keith Lowell Jensen and Sid Garcia-Heberger, samples similarly from the spreadable toppings of pop culture. Sort of in the same way that Los Angeles’ Fakesweet alludes both to carcinogenic, birth-defect-inducing food additives favored by dieters and to an unpleasant personality trait perpetrated by the passive-aggressive. From Oakland, and pictured above, Boomtime may have been formed by combining genetic material from Devo, the Beastie Boys, a yeti, soybeans and your favorite comedian. Fresno’s Smooot Valley High features three O’s in a row. Naturally, the Trash Film Orgy All Stars hail from Sac; they impress, Jensen reports, “when they have more than five minutes to work with and an audience that isn’t screaming ‘Show us your tits!’ through their entire set.” The Weekly Armenian is this guy from Hollywood who’s hilarious. Neil Hamburger is this other guy named Neil Hamburger. Yeah, names, huh? Yeah. Thursday, February 21, 8 p.m.; Friday, February 22, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m.; and Saturday, February 23, 7:30 and 9:30 p.m. 24th Street Theatre, 2791 24th Street. Each show costs $17.50, but because you know you’re a sketch-comedy glutton, you should score the all-festival pass for $75. Visit www.allsketch.com for a full schedule.