The choice was hard.

Deciding between the Ivy League, party-prone Madison, Wisc., and the University of Michigan put the Sklar Brothers in turmoil as teens. But just one visit, a simple taste of Ann Arbor, was all it took for the St. Louis natives to uproot and begin their journey toward unsuspecting fame here.

That instant connection is one of reasons the LA.-based twin comedy duo found it hard to turn down an opportunity to come back and perform at a fund-raiser for the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor at 7 p.m. on Thursday at Live at PJ’s, located at 102 S. First St.

“Once we visited and saw how the kids here were so dynamic and from all over we were convinced to come,” Randy Sklar said in a telephone interview from California last Tuesday. “It’s a small town, but a progressive town and it just felt like it had everything we needed. It still feels like home to us.”

At 37, identical twins Randy and Jason are enjoying their 13th year entertaining audiences with their unique brand of clever conversational humor.

It’s a talent partly honed at college parties and many a comedy night at the Michigan Union, they said. Mixing curiosity with ambition, they both deferred enrollment to law school upon graduating U-M with English degrees, and moved to New York to give comedy a go in 1994.

The duo worked a plethora of menial jobs while honing their comedic skills in nightclubs and within two years found themselves at the ground level of the alternative comedy movement. The notion of comedians moving away from punchline-based jokes and performances to more observational humor, political satire, and personal narrative improvisations caught on quickly.

In 1997 they filmed a pilot for MTV’s “Apt. 2F.” It never took off, but provided comedic credibility and created opportunities to work with a number of rising stars like Stephen Colbert and Amy Poehler, they said.

The Wolverine football diehards parlayed their childhood love of athletics into their careers with four seasons of “Cheap Seats” on ESPN Classic.

The Sklar’s are also regular fill-ins on the nationally syndicated Jim Rome Radio Show.

In between they have appeared in movies and numerous hit shows such as “Law & Order”, “Becker”, “Providence,” and most recently HBO’s “Entourage” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” Last year they appeared on an episode of ABC’s hit series “Grey’s Anatomy” as bickering adult conjoined twins.

They didn’t expect it, but aren’t surprised that their brand of comedy translates well whether on stage, on set, or in studio.

“I think that it’s because at the heart of whatever we do is that relationship between two brothers” Randy said.

“Most people have a sibling or a close enough friend that they consider to be a sibling,” Jason continued, finishing Randy’s thought without hesitation. “What they see with us or hear with us on the radio is that real relationship that people recognize and relate to. They get it.”

Practically, their genetics provide a niche that other comedy pairs can’t match.

“People have always encouraged us to do our own things, and we’ve worked separately before, but the reason we still perform together is that there’s more we want to do comically together and we’re still having a lot of fun,” Jason said.

Among their fondest recent memories was standing on the sidelines of the U-M/Ball State game in 2006 when a cheerleader who recognized them offered the block “M” flag for the next Wolverine score.

“They scored, I grabbed the flag and I started booking as fast as my 5-foot-8 inch, white Jewish legs could go without falling off,” Randy recalled. “And the crowd started chanting ‘Cheap Seats! Cheap Seats!’”

Jason, who trailed behind — and was not in the photograph of the event that later marked the inside cover of the 2007 U-M student planner — called it the thrill of a lifetime.

That is, until he remembered meeting famed British actor Patrick Stewart, who was performing in a rendition of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” on campus that weekend, on the sidelines.

‘That’s the great thing about Ann Arbor, is you can be at a football game with 100,000 screaming people one day, then on the next day watch one of the best Shakespearean actors on stage,” he said.

Tickets are $25 in advance and $30 at the door. To order, visit the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor web site or call Jeff Lazor at 734-677-0100 or e-mail him at jefflazor@jewishannabor.org.

Art Aisner is a freelance writer for AnnArbor.com. Reach the entertainment desk at entertainment@annarbor.com or 734-623-2540.