At first glance, it's a perfect hostage scenario: Two damsels, the girlfriends of the two best detectives in Idaville, Fla. are strapped to chairs in a grimy, underground lair. Their kidnapper, suspected of murdering the town's mayor, emerges, reveals in painstaking detail his nefarious scheme and prepares to torture his two captives.But, as the arch-villain-a crazed, but misunderstood groundhog-approaches carrying a toothbrush, disposable razor and aerosol deodorant, just before performing a "mating dance" to Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle with You," it's evident this tale's conventionalities unravel in the details.

The tale, of course, was "Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Missing Groundhog," a half-hour skit performed late Saturday night in Cholmondley's by the sketch comedy ensemble Friends Like These. The troupe formed last fall, and its shows pack the coffeehouse each week.

"People will go to parties, then come to see us, and go back to parties. It's flattering," said Josh Gondelman '07, one of the ensemble's founding members and de facto directors. "I kind of feel bad for them."

The group performs a brand of sketch comedy unique at Brandeis: Each show, consisting of a single story instead of a series of shorter skits, is conceptualized, written and rehearsed within a week. The result is something far more impromptu, even sloppier, than Boris' Kitchen, the older and established sketch comedy troupe that performs semesterly.

The group's membership, which includes about seven regular performers and several rotating ones, is composed mostly members of various improv comedy troupes on campus.

They invited me to observe their Friday and Saturday rehearsals. There, Gondelman described Friends Like These's style of comedy as more similar to Upright Citizens Brigade, a New York City comedy troupe that used to have a series on Comedy Central, than Saturday Night Live.

Gondelman said the group's name is well-deserved, given the intimacy he hopes surrounds Friends Like These's show. "We have a very easy rapport with the audience," he said.

On Saturday night, the plot was simple. Encyclopedia Brown (Ben Kuss '07)-the 12-year-old detective whose name has graced the titles of a series of popular children's books since the 1960s-vows to uncover the whereabouts of a missing groundhog (Jay Judah '08) after the murder of Idaville's mayor (Gondelman). Encyclopedia teams up with Bugs Meany (Matt Francis '07), a local bully and wannabe detective, and the two shake down a host of locals (all played by Ben Sandler '07) in hopes of uncovering the truth. In the show's finale, Encyclopedia and Bugs finally confront the groundhog and rescue their girlfriends, Sally (Molly Jane Rosen '08) and a girl whose name the inattentive Bugs can never remember (Ethan Feuer '07). Encyclopedia's burnout brother, the original creation Farmer's Almanac Brown (Doug Gately '07), provides much of the show's antics.

According to Gondelman, the group intentionally "superimposed adult relationships onto 12-year-olds." Encyclopedia is abused by his police chief father (Misha Miller-Sisson '07), who is jealous of his son's superior investigatory skills. The groundhog, unable to cope with the pressure of successfully predicting the weather each winter, has devolved into a psychopath. And Sally, whom Encyclopedia often neglects in favor of detective work, just wants her love for the boy detective to be reciprocated.

It's that dichotomy-"absurd characters . with grounded motivations," as described by Gondelman-that drives Friends Like These's approach to sketch comedy.

"Our show isn't [as much] about absurd characters, as it is about bringing real characters that wouldn't normally be put together," Kuss countered. "And the absurdity ensues."

The troupe plans each week's show on Sunday evening, comes up with a sequence of scenes by Tuesday or Wednesday and devotes Friday and Saturday to fine-tuning continuity and inserting jokes.

"The way people behave in our skits doesn't make sense in the [real] world," Gondelman said. "But we try to make it so the characters are consistent. It's a better show that way. Not only is it funnier, but the characters are thorough."

But at Friday's rehearsal, each member's improvisational background was evident. Each scene is crafted extemporaneously, with off-stage cast members shouting out recommendations to the actors in each scene. Rarely is something committed to paper, save the occasional note jotted down by Gondelman.

"Maybe I'll just read what Jon's writing," said Kuss, looking in my direction while practicing a scene.

But even their deconstructions can fall victim to absurdity.

"Can we give them a Jean Valjean/Javert dynamic?" Rosen asked during an encounter between Kuss and Francis' characters.

"Is that like The Old Man and the Sea?" Francis asked.

Feuer cut in: "Old Man and the Sea? Like The Life Aquatic?"

A half-second of silence. "Bill Murray could play Ernest Hemingway," Kuss said.

Some weeks, group members derive ideas from sources like The Encyclopedia Brown Mysteries or Brokeback Mountain, while others shows draw inspiration from real-life events, like when a kitchen fire rendered 145 South St., the home of most of the ensemble, uninhabitable.

Miller-Sisson said Friends Like These intentionally avoids "Brandeis-style" humor, and that jokes referencing the University-specifically the abundance of Shapiro buildings-are too easily made.

"Plus I die a little on the inside every time I hear [that type of joke]," Miller-Sisson said.

Sitting down before Saturday's rehearsal, Gondelman told me that while Friends Like These strives to make its comedy as accessible as possible, there are benefits to a cult audience.

"We've done some disgusting, disgusting things," Gondelman said, referencing a show in which Miller-Sisson drank a "meat shake." "The feeling is that it's all between friends, that we don't mean anything by it." He said that, nonsensically, every show ends with a reference to the television show Moesha.

Later that night, a scene with Kuss and Sandler proved particularly revealing.

"How do you know about the mayor?" Kuss asked.

"I-I-there was a scandal in the paper!" Sandler responded.

"Paper. paper. scandal. candle. candles burn. paper burns. paper burns at 451 degrees. 451 degrees... that takes me back around to you, Stinky LaRou!"

"Wait, can we do this scene over with some fake blood?"

Friends Like These performs at Cholmondley's every Saturday at midnight. It is on hiatus this week, and will perform at The National College Comedy Festival at Skidmore University.