A new season of Comedy Bang! Bang! has arrived, and with it comes another new band leader. Farewell, Kid Cudi—it’s “Weird Al” Yankovic’s time to shine. That’s already two new things to check off the the Comedy Bang! Bang! checklist, but surprisingly, nothing really feels like it’s changed with “Kevin Bacon Wears A Blue Button Down Shirt And Brown Boots.”
Comedy Bang! Bang! returns to its absurd version of the status quo with every new episode, and that also applies to its season premieres. The introduction of “Weird Al” Yankovic as the new bandleader truly falls in line with that; with the exception of a line about how Scott hasn’t really taken to “Weird Al” like the rest of the crew has, there’s no sense of him even being the new kid in town. Already, he’s just a part of the show, with no introductory frills needed. Honestly, “Weird Al” instantly works in the show seamlessly, so no big deal needs to be made about that. As for Kid Cudi’s departure, in reality, Cudi wanted to go back to focusing on his music, and as such, that obviously meant not getting the same sweeping farewell as his predecessor. But as we were constantly reminded during the Cudi episodes, the show’s version of Scott Aukerman barely liked Cudi and didn’t consider him his friend at all. The Reggie/Scott friendship required a big, emotional send-off—just like it also required an episode about the aftermath in Cudi’s introduction.
Basically, Scott’s “eh, fine”—especially in contrast to his reaction about Eric The PA leaving to be Cudi’s roadie—is just right in this particular situation.
But in remembering that Comedy Bang! Bang! isn’t a show all about logical human behavior, let’s also keep in mind that the show’s very ability not to be bound by time and space is why it can have an episode of television about a leprechaun happen in early June. In true Comedy Bang! Bang! fashion, the very concept of the leprechaun (John Milhiser) plot is almost too nerdy for words, and that’s even before it becomes a Hobbit riff or Scott explains how the name “Aulis” (“an acronym for: gold-loving Irish shorty”) ultimately comes from the chemical element name for gold (“Au”). That’s really damn nerdy.
Despite the aggressive nerdiness, this return to the world of television’s Comedy Bang! Bang! feels almost too safe once it really gets going (post-“DaVinci’s Demons!” exclamation). An early part of that is how Yankovic’s version of the theme song takes the show back down memory lane to the days of Reggie Watts’ original version, going with the motto of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” in its variation of the song. For all the comparisons between the show and the podcast, the idea of having different versions of the theme for both makes sense in a way to keep them even more separate, and while Cudi’s version of the theme took some getting used to, it worked in that regard.
The safeness also comes in the form of the return of Ben “The Elegant Mr. S” Schwartz’s return as Rodney Wayber, a moment that’s expected as soon as “Weird Al” announces “Leonardo DiCaprio” as a guest on the show. On a personal note, Ben Schwartz is one of my favorite Comedy Bang! Bang! podcast guests, and I fall into that handful of people who don’t mind Scott and him devolving into constant singing fits during their solo bolos. But on Comedy Bang! Bang! the television show, Ben Schwartz kind of feels trapped—for a lack of a better word—in this particular character. It’s a delightful character, especially every time he ends up in Scott’s crotch… but he’s also a character that has one gear (again, a gear that’s delightful and done well), from a performer who could easily do other things on the show. Even the idea of an episode having Rodney outside the context of his misunderstanding of the show’s booking would be something different. Instead, it’s more of the same. Yes, it works, but that’s simply because Ben Schwartz is just a pure force in the role. And the crotch laughs. We’ve seen it before though.