Scott Aukerman prepares for the new season of “Comedy Bang Bang” with band leader Reggie Watts.
Credit: Cassie Wright/Getty Images for SXSW
Not to be confused with the podcast of the same name, the sketch show “Comedy Bang! Bang!” returned for its third season May 8 on IFC with host Scott Aukerman and band leader Reggie Watts. Watch them awkwardly (yet hilariously) interview such stars as Fred Armisen, Lizzy Caplan and Patton Oswalt in the new season. Aukerman took the time to answer a few questions about what changes viewers can expect.
Who would your dream guest be?
The whole first season I would get that question and I would say Pee-wee Herman all the time, and he ended up being on the show because of that, so I’m going to throw out some random people and hope they are Googling their name. Definitely David Letterman. I think Martin Short is another person that I’ve been trying for three years to get on that I would love to have on because I think he’s just the funniest human. I think Joe Biden. I think dead people. I’d love for dead people to start coming back to life, because there’s a whole bunch of them. Plato.
You’re going to corner the market on dead person guests.
I would love to just talk to dead people exclusively at some point. We’ll run out of living people. I mean, there’s not too many celebrities left, right?
It’s your third season. You’re running short on people, right?
We’re running out of people. We have 40 more shows to do for season 4. They need to start making new celebrities. I’m going to start watching Disney shows and try to get people when they’re 6 or 7. Get ‘em early before they get famous and decide they don’t want to do the show.
Well, and child actors are seasoned professionals, right?
I’d love to get babies, you know? A set of triplets who play one character on a show.
If you did get Joe Biden to come on the show, what would you have him do?
If Joe Biden came on the show, I think we’d probably make an election special, even though the election’s still a little while away. Do you think he’s going to run? I think we would try to get him to announce his candidacy on our show. That’s what we really need on our show is a serious politician. I’d love to switch it up and instead of doing goofy, silly questions, just ask serious direct questions about policy.
Global affairs, that kind of thing.
Mm-hmm. I heard that someone in Obama’s camp the other day said that Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” interview was the most hard-hitting interview he did all last year, and that’s how I would like to be.
So after the third season of “Comedy Bang! Bang!” you’ll be going in a different direction. Very serious.
Very serious. Very dry, yes. Informational! That’s what I want people to say about “Comedy Bang Bang.” I want them to turn off the TV and say, “Well, that was informational!”
How do you and Reggie keep it fresh year after year?
You gotta keep it in the refrigerator, first of all, unless it’s a banana. Then, don’t put ‘em in the refrigerator. That’s a common mistake that you make when you’re coming back from the farmers market — toss all that fruit in the fridge except for the bananas.
You know, I don’t know how we keep it fresh, other than every show is different. That’s what’s really great about this show is we don’t repeat a lot of stuff. I have a kinda slogan for this year, which is, “Every show a masterpiece,” which, you know, sounds kinda conceited, but we’ve seen the first six episodes at this point and every single one is so different. The second episode is a big space opera, the third episode is a whodunit, the fourth episode is a parody of the late-night talk show wars, the fifth episode is our series finale that we’re doing in the middle of the season.
“Every single episode is new and different and fresh, so it’s easy not to get bored because we always have these new challenges to do. And for Reggie, he gets to be a cop one day or he gets to be a medieval knight, or he gets to fly around in a spaceship. Doing sketch comedy is kind of an actor’s dream because you get to have so much variety.
“Comedy Bang Bang” airs on Thursday at 10:30 p.m. on IFC.
