After 15 years, ‘Comedy Bang! Bang!’ host Scott Aukerman is just getting started

Originally published Jun. 6, 2024 in the Boston Globe

Come out to The Wilbur on June 12 and 13 to see comedian Scott Aukerman interview Andrew Lloyd Webber … or an underwater treasure hunter … or the “world’s busiest man” … or a resurrected John Lennon.

Aukerman’s guests are unpredictable, but so is everything about “Comedy Bang! Bang!,” his improvised comedy podcast which celebrated its 15th anniversary in May. This summer, Aukerman is taking his spoof ”talk show” across the US and Canada, featuring a rotating crop of talented improvisers portraying an oddball assortment of fake guests.

Reflecting on the show’s “quinceañera,” as he referred to it, the 53-year-old Aukerman (”Mr. Show,” “Between Two Ferns: The Movie”) noted it’s the longest continual project he’s ever been a part of, joking that “Bang! Bang!” made up ”more than half my life,” during an April phone interview with the Globe.

The show has spanned several different mediums since 2009, beginning as a radio program called “Comedy Death-Ray Radio,” before transitioning into podcast form in 2010. It’s also taken the form of an IFC television show, which ran from 2012-16, as well as a 2023 book titled “Comedy Bang! Bang! The Podcast: The Book.” Aukerman is the center of it all, emceeing with his highly insincere, quick-witted brand of humor. Still, he credited the improvisers as the lifeblood of the show, keeping the format feeling fresh and drawing listeners in.

A given episode of “Comedy Bang! Bang!” typically has a celebrity interview at the top of the show, including the likes of Allison Williams, Jon Hamm, and Jack Quaid, before character interviews follow. Here, Aukerman and his celebrity guests pepper their subjects — whose identities are either fabricated by the improvisers or are silly interpretations of real people — with questions, uncovering absurd details along the way.

“It’s an improvised conversation that has never happened before and will never happen again, unless we suddenly start doing ‘Comedy Bang! Bang!: Taylor’s Version,’” he said.

The stage show doesn’t differ too much from the podcast, though the shift in medium allows Aukerman and company to engage in more traditional, physical improv. Celebrities occasionally drop in — the previous tour in 2022 saw a brief Conan O’Brien cameo in Charlotte and Adam Scott in Medford — but for the most part, the focus is on the improvisers.

Initially, when taking “Comedy Bang! Bang!” on tour for the first time in 2012, Aukerman “was not convinced that people would think it was worth paying money to go see a live podcast,” and supplemented these earlier shows with his own stand-up and opening acts. However, audience feedback over time persuaded him a live taping format was enough to keep his fans satiated: “Now I’m just totally confident in it and we go out there and we do it.”

Generally speaking, he doesn’t view a newcomer’s lack of familiarity as a roadblock to enjoying the show, even out on tour where an audience might have some plus-ones who are totally unfamiliar.

“Most of the people there know what they’re going to see, but it’s not impenetrable for the people who don’t,” he said, offering a tongue-in-cheek likening of his show to Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett’s podcast “SmartLess,” where they interview celebrities, politicians, and industry experts. (”Instead of the experts on ‘SmartLess,’ these are fake experts,” he said.)

For his podcast persona, Aukerman portrays a heightened, overly annoying version of himself (a description he took as a compliment.) This act often leads to contentious relationships with the characters he’s interviewing. The mutual combativeness is key,he explained,creating more lanes for comedic opportunity, though when performing night after night on tour, it can occasionally start to wear on him.

“I remember one tour in particular I got home and was like, ‘Why do I feel sort of depressed?’ It was because I’d just done 30 days of people despising me on stage,” he said, “which is sort of the opposite of what a comedian gets — love and adulation from a crowd. This was 30 days of being harangued and yelled at by Paul F. Tompkins.”

Tompkins, Aukerman’s long-time friend and the all-time leader in podcast appearances, will be on every stop of the tour this year. Beyond his billing, however, each stop’s guests aren’t officially revealed until they walk on stage.

“There’s a level of comfort between us that really makes me feel like I’m safe,” he said about performing with Tompkins. “I always think, ‘Well, if everything goes awry and things aren’t panning out, at least Paul will be funny.’”

Celebrating its 15th year,with 867 episodes at the time of reporting, “Comedy Bang! Bang!” has persisted longer than many hit television shows, Aukerman said. And, assured by younger faces in the audience and fresh guests on his roster, he believes the show has plenty left in the tank.

“It doesn’t feel like we’re at the end of our rope or anything,” he said, “it kind of feels like we’re just getting started.”

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