Scott Aukerman is bringing his long-running brand of unscripted comedy to downtown San Antonio, with the Comedy Bang! Bang! Ground Beefing Tour set to take the stage at the Aztec Theatre on Wednesday, September 10, at 8 p.m. Tickets for the show run between $53 and $196.50, and the performance is expected to last about one hour and 45 minutes.
The tour stop lands the 56-year-old Aukerman and longtime collaborator Paul F. Tompkins inside one of San Antonio's most storied buildings, a 1926 Mesoamerican Revival movie palace at 104 N. St. Mary's St. that is now in the middle of a major transformation. According to the San Antonio Current, the Ground Beefing Tour features Aukerman, Tompkins and other comedians performing entirely improvised material, with the cast declining to discuss onstage bits beforehand.
Tompkins, who voiced Mr. Peanutbutter on Netflix's BoJack Horseman and co-hosts the podcast Threedom with Aukerman and Lauren Lapkus, is one of the most frequent guest improvisers in the show's 17-year history, according to Earwolf. Aukerman himself got his start as a writer and later a performer for Mr. Show, working within the 1990s alternative comedy scene before launching a live radio show and podcast in 2009 that would eventually become Comedy Bang! Bang!, the Current reports.
Aukerman on Podcasting, Fame, and Getting Better With Age
Aukerman told the outlet that Comedy Bang! Bang! gave him a clear professional direction, describing himself as “a podcaster who dabbles in everything.” He also reflected on how crowded the podcasting landscape has become, saying the sheer volume of shows now available makes it difficult for any single podcast to attract attention, and noting that celebrity guests tend to pull focus away from lesser-known podcasters trying to build an audience.
Despite the format's unpredictability, Aukerman called the unscripted live show's ongoing success a minor miracle, per the same account. He also said he has improved at both podcasting and live touring over the years — though he hasn't been immune to the occasional slip-up on the road, at one point forgetting which city he was performing in during the tour's third stop. Asked about his future with the format, Aukerman joked that he expects to still be doing the live show on stage in San Antonio at age 80.
A Historic Venue Mid-Transformation
The Aztec Theatre itself carries a layered history that predates Comedy Bang! Bang! by eight decades. Designed by Los Angeles firm Meyer & Holler — the architects behind Hollywood's Chinese and Egyptian Theatres — the venue opened on June 4, 1926, as a $1.75 million movie palace, complete with a two-ton lobby chandelier installed in October 1929, the same day the stock market crashed, according to the Aztec Theatre. The building closed as a movie triplex in 1989 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992, a designation that helped protect it from potential demolition, per Wikipedia.
In its centennial year, the 1,500-capacity theater is now undergoing a multi-million-dollar redevelopment by owner Sam Panchevre and developer Shreem Capital, adding a 77-room boutique hotel, an agave lounge called Kellwood, and a rooftop restaurant above the Live Nation-operated music hall, according to the San Antonio Report. Hoodline has previously reported on the long-delayed Aztec hotel project nearing completion upstairs, as well as a new ice bar attraction that opened in the basement space beneath the theater.
Comedy Bang! Bang!'s Long Road From Podcast to Franchise
Comedy Bang! Bang! began as a live radio show and podcast Aukerman launched in 2009, arriving at a moment when late-night talk shows were largely the only outlet for weirder, more absurdist comedy, the Current notes. The format later expanded into a televised comedy-variety series on IFC, hosted by Aukerman with house bandleaders Reggie Watts and Kid Cudi, running for five seasons and 110 episodes from 2012 through 2016, according to Earwolf. Watts, notably, has been in the news separately this year — Hoodline reported in August that the comedian denied any role in a former girlfriend's death.
Beyond television, the brand has grown into a broader multimedia operation. Aukerman co-founded the Earwolf podcast network in 2010, which was later acquired by Midroll Media and folded into SiriusXM. In 2021, he and producer Brett Morris launched CBB World, an independent, ad-free subscription platform hosting live tour recordings and spin-off shows. In 2023, Aukerman published Comedy Bang! Bang! The Podcast: The Book, an oral history and character anthology that became a New York Times bestseller.
San Antonio is one stop on a broader multi-city route for the Ground Beefing Tour, which continues to the Riverbend Centre in Austin on September 11 before heading to The Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles on September 19. It remains unclear whether the San Antonio performance will be recorded for release on CBB World, and the full lineup of additional comedians joining Aukerman and Tompkins on stage has not been announced. Tickets and further details for the Aztec Theatre show are available by phone at 210-812-4355.
