Here we are at last! Comedy Bang Bang, formerly Comedy Death-Ray, formerly broadcast on Indie 103.1 and a continuous stage show at the UCB, is a podcast that masquerades as an interview show, but with much sillier intentions at heart. The spawn of Scott Aukerman, one-time writer for Mr. Show and co-creator of web sensation Between Two Ferns, CBB bobs and weaves around the idea of an actual talk show, using a lax security policy and constant desire for distraction to keep them from ever approaching anything like a serious discussion. It is also one of a minor spate of podcasts trying to make it as television shows (10/9 central on IFC if you were wondering) Comedy Bang Bang is comedy so twice they niced it bang. Or at least that’s what I think the tagline is.
Scott Aukerman!
Comedy Bang Bang is hosted by the eminently silly Scott Aukerman, alongside various comedy guests of varying sanity. As with any show whose only consistent elements are host and atmosphere, these cogs must retain a quality and comedy so as to keep the audience concurrently surprised and in raptures. But luckily, in Aukerman, CBB boasts a constantly excellent host, who clearly works exceptionally hard to keep the guest roster tight as well as making sure each and every episode is worth listening to. Much as he is at his best when the show is being recorded late and with an adorable giddiness, his ethos weighs heavily into each and every episode. A comedian who always drives for silliness as the core for his humour, frequently wrapping himself and his guests up in strange nets of mind-melting semi-gross out humour, Aukerman puts his essence into every second of the show. His own short segments, including attempts to interview famous musicians at parties, or the ‘Entourage Wrap-up’ being highlights of the show when they appear; not only lending the group a strange non-sequitur to work from (reacting with confusion, hilarity or dismissal) but also contain some of the shows funniest moments.
Reggie Watts! Aukermans co-host on the CBB TV show!
What Comedy Bang Bang does best is harness a constant sense of variation and unpredictability, the combinations of guests, characters and segments meaning that each show is decidedly different to the last. They veer from the occasional almost serious episodes, to shows which are so delirious they almost dissolve in their own madness, such as the recently revisited Parks and Recreation shows (episodes 120 and 166). The more serious shows are often infused with a quieter, more deadpan humour which suits the guests, such as Tim Heidecker; and whilst rarely reaching Marc Maron levels of desperate honesty, do retain a sheen of truth that overlays the thick currents of humour swimming underneath. Far more often though, we are treated to episodes which degrade more and more as the show goes by, gradually revealing larger and larger insanities as the characters and guests become more and more extroverted, bizarre and irretrievable. Andy Daly, James Adomian, Paul F. Tompkins, Matt Besser and Nick Kroll excel at this execution of swirling chaos, partly due to the characters organically forming as we listen to the show, with Aukerman and his other guests probing these absurd characters in ways they haven’t previously been challenged. For comedy of this extreme absurdity, the high water mark was around episodes 75 to 125, though there are many other great episodes of the show before and since, but they rarely come in such consistent sequences. But in this, it falls into the sketch comedy bracket it naturally resides in, veering from a couple of weaker episodes into one that reduces you to a trembling mass of laughter.
Often, the final sections of the show are devoted to games. Devised essentially as a way to take a side-on route into digging deeper into a character or to put a little electricity back into the show, these improv games tend to involve a little pre-written material, around which the group provides the live magic. Most frequent of these is ‘Would You Rather,’ a common podcast game, but one made new and unusual by the encouragement of questions, and the ludicrous answers that these result in. Frequently the situations posed will heavily overlap by the end, before a largely arbitrary winner is announced (usually the person least disrespectful to Scott). Other games are more heavily pre-written, such as the deliciously pun based ‘Alive or Dead’ wherein various living people are proclaimed to have died in various horrific and ironic incidents.
A show that revels in its stochasticity, pursuit of giddiness, curiosity and deliriousness, Comedy Bang Bang, is a real powerhouse podcast. One that gives off such lunacy, intricacy and fun that means Scott Aukerman really deserves any and all success that will hopefully emerge from the TV show.
You can find the podcast on iTunes or over on earwolf.com. The TV show, also called Comedy Bang Bang, is on IFC at 10/9 Central, so that’s good. Scott Aukerman also managed to snag the twitter account @scottaukerman too, so tweet him if you like. I hope I’ve filled your eyes with enough deliciousness for you to want to stuff your ears with comedy!