The Dead Alewives was an improvisational comedy troupe during the 1980s and 1990s from Milwaukee. Some of the group's individual members went on to become noteworthy after the group's breakup. The Dead Alewives began as a splinter group from the Milwaukee-based national comedy organization ComedySportz. The split occurred out of a desire to do a less family-oriented, more uncensored style of improv than the "clean" variety offered by ComedySportz. The group took its name from the local phenomenon of multitudes of dead alewife fish washing up on the shore of Lake Michigan during summers in the mid-1980s. Its shows featured music from local bands during their set breaks.