COME LAUGH WITH US Fred Armisen! Lance Bangs! Hugging!
  • COME LAUGH WITH US Fred Armisen! Lance Bangs! Hugging!

Its nightmare-inducing poster aside, one of the shows I'm most looking forward to at the Bridgetown Comedy Festival is tonight: "Lance Bangs Presents: Come Laugh with Us" pulls together Flight of the Conchords' Kristen Schaal, Saturday Night Live and Portlandia's Fred Armisen, and—here's the real draw, for me at least—this promise: "Lance will also be screening rare and unreleased comedy footage of Eugene Mirman, David Cross, John Hodgman, Patton Oswalt, Todd Barry, and others from his personal archive."

Bangs is local, and I have yet to be disappointed by anything he's done, whether it's his documentary about anti-retro viral drugs for HIV patients in Zambia, a portrait of Where the Wild Things Are author Maurice Sendak (which Bangs co-directed with Spike Jonze), or the jackassy shenanigans that ensue when he hangs out with the Jackass jackasses. Bridgetown's big selling point is great live comedy, I know, and there'll be plenty of that tonight—but I'm also super curious about/excited to check out that rare footage of Hodgman, Oswalt, et al.

Lance Bangs Presents: Come Laugh with Us (with Kristen Schaal, Fred Armisen, Brett Gelman, Jon Daly, and Mike Lawrence, plus Bangs' rare comedy footage), Friday, April 22, 8 pm, Bagdad Theater (3702 SE Hawthorne), $25