Comedy Bang Bang: The Podcast · Earwolf and Scott Aukerman

Best of 2025 Pt. 3

·2 hr 15 min

Comedy Bang Bang starts Part 3 of its Best of 2025 countdown with a delightfully nonsense-friendly music comparison. The conversation asks what the modern equivalent would be of David Lee Roth covering a Louis Prima song from the 1950s in the 1980s. It then tries to land on a 1995 pop analogue and wanders through names like Pearl Jam, Oasis, Roxette, and Sheena Easton. The whole exchange keeps tripping over its own logic in the exact way the show likes best. A song title is corrected. A memory is challenged. A tiny phrase ends up carrying the bit. The episode then shifts into how the featured segment came together. Someone reached out after hearing an earlier episode and wanted to do a Comedy Bang Bang episode with the group, and the appearance landed at number five on the countdown, which is framed as very exciting for new people to be that far up the countdown. The lineup is then laid out in blunt, practical terms. Jason plays himself. Anna and Isabella play the entrepreneurs Austin and Tony. Stephanie plays the Waymo. That setup becomes the engine for the rest of the segment. The show also connects Isabella Escalante to Joe Escalante, long known to listeners as Engineer Joe. Joe is described as an old friend who has been part of the show’s history from the early Indie 1031 days. The conversation reminds listeners that he was involved because he recommended the host for the station in the first place. His other jobs come up too, including playing in The Vandals, working as a lawyer, sometimes judge, sometimes talk show host, and managing Sublime. That history gives the episode a little family-tree texture without ever losing the joke. The segment also points out that the characters get into the Waymo for C Block and spend the rest of the show inside it. That detail is treated as both practical and funny, which is exactly the balance the show likes to strike. There is also a reminder that the earlier Rupert McDougal material is not being repeated here because it already happened earlier in the show. The episode keeps moving by stacking logistics, aliases, and lore on top of one another. The tone stays fast, clipped, and self-correcting. Questions get asked before the previous answer has settled. Names get revisited. Titles get rechecked. The show keeps acting as if it needs precision, then uses that seriousness to make the whole thing sillier. Even the closing stretch keeps that energy, with the hosts talking about how the next episode will cover the top three episodes of the year. The goodbye lands as a joke about ending on a good note while still sounding like the conversation could keep going forever. It finishes with the usual mix of exhaustion, teasing, and affection for the show’s own chaos.

As heard by us

A Best of 2025 part that turns music trivia, casting, and Waymo chatter into one long comic detour.

Best of 2025, Part 3 starts with a music-math riff, then slides through countdown chatter, a quick correction about Roxette and Sheena Easton, and a stretch of back-and-forth over who is playing whom.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

You want a year-end Comedy Bang Bang Best of 2025, part three, that keeps derailing its own logic.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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