Kalisch was still bound to a mercantile career, however, as neither literature nor the stage had yet made a place for him; and so in 1846 he found his way to Berlin and took another position as salesman.

He found time to continue his literary efforts by writing a number of the peculiar verses which, under the name of Couplets, were first employed by him, and which he afterward utilized with great success in his stage pieces.

He also tried his hand at adaptation from the French, the little farce Ein Billet von Jenny Lind being produced at the summer theater at Schöneberg, near Berlin; the principal result of this was that it secured for him an invitation to write for the Königsstädtisches Theater, where his Herr Karoline was produced, and later (23 December 1847) his Einmal Hunderttausend Thaler, which at once achieved a veritable triumph.

At the old Wallner-Theater [de] in Berlin and in the great comedy houses throughout Germany there were years when none but his pieces were produced, some of them having runs of hundreds of performances.

Just as Kalisch was entering upon the successful phase of his dramatic career he made another fortunate bid for fame by establishing (1848) the celebrated humorous sheet, Kladderadatsch, the publication of which was suggested during his work on the little paper issued by and for the members of the "Rütli," a club composed of humorists.