US comedian David Koechner is on his way to Australia for a comedy tour. Picture: Supplied

The US actor and comedian, best known as the enthusiastic but completely deranged sportscaster Champ Kind in the Anchorman films, doesn’t miss a beat when asked what audiences should expect when he brings his stand-up show to Australia for the very first time in July.

“I like to describe my show as a 40-foot flat-bed going down the road and it has a big circus tent on it and it’s on fire and I am in the middle with a bullhorn screaming like a preacher,” he says. “I say, if you like church, it’s better than church — and if you don’t like church, it’s still better than church.”

Koechner’s long and varied career — he has more than 60 film credits as well as TV appearances in the US versions of The Office and Kath and Kim as well as voice work in American Dad and The Regular Show — began on the stage more than 20 years ago. He honed his improvisation skills with the revered Chicago comedy troupe, The Second City, which also gave rise to the likes of Steve Carell, Tina Fey and Mike Myers.

Many of the characters he still performs on stage — and can be seen on his YouTube Channel — had their genesis in improv sessions. There’s Gerald “T-Bones” Timmons, inspired by a real-life itinerant worker who drifted through his small home town in Missouri.

“I actually found Gerald doing long-form improv one night,” he says. “I don’t know why but you just kind of access a part of yourself that you didn’t know was there and it kind of comes alive.” And as for the morbidly obese, effeminate Roy, he says: “We all know someone like him that is always complaining about everything — if you gave that guy a free sandwich he’d go ‘oh great, rye bread?’”

David Koechner as Champ Kind, Paul Rudd as Brian Fantana, Will Ferrell as Ron Burgundy and Steve Carell as Brick Tamland in Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues.

But Koechner is self-aware enough to know that the bulk of his audience have come to see Champ and hear his signature “Whammy!” catchcry — and he’s more than happy to oblige.

“I take care of my audience,” he says. “More people know Champ Kind than know David Koechner. So I know that they are all in their seats going ‘say it, guy, you better say it — you better give me my Whammy’. I know where my bread has been buttered — and you will get jelly and Vegemite too.”

And despite his appalling behaviour with the Channel 4 news team in sleeper hit Anchorman and its even more successful 2013 sequel, Koechner clearly has a soft spot for the borderline alcoholic homophobe with latent gay tendencies.

“I think he is a pretty complex guy — he has a lot going on,” says Koechner with a laugh. “He is so conflicted and has a lot of pain and problems and I think that’s what might be a touchstone for people. You know someone like him and you know how much pain he is going through — and he pretends it doesn’t happen or he is in denial about it all happening.”

Australia bound comedian David Koechner, with wife Eve Koechner and two of his five children Charlie and Leigh. Picture: GettySource:Getty Images

He says he’s open to doing a third movie, although creators Adam McKay and Will Ferrell have said it’s unlikely, but says that the world of current affairs has become so absurd as to make it almost impossible to satirise.

“How do you outdo what’s going on?,” he ponders. “It’s kind of eaten its tail hasn’t it? With the 24 hour news cycle what is there to talk about? What’s relevant? It’s chatter all the time. It’s non-stop dissecting of something that might not even be worth talking about but they have to talk about something. I think it has made the government less effective. It makes most opinions less impactful because everyone has ten opinions about your opinion. So it’s hard to illuminate anything.”

One thing you won’t hear from Koechner though is Donald Trump jokes. For many comedians, a US election year is a goldmine but despite being having studied political science in college, Koechner steers well clear.

“Politics here is so divisive now,” he says. “I am not a political comic because if you do that you are just a niche comic. It’s such a stupid divide and it’s so uninformed or misinformed that it’s hard to get a good consensus. I leave that stuff alone.”

SEE: DAVID KOECHNER, Comedy Theatre, July 15, Ticketmaster.

SEE: DAVID KOECHNER, Thebarton Theatre, July 17, Ticketmaster.

SEE: DAVID KOECHNER, Regal Theatre, July 19, Ticketek

SEE: DAVID KOECHNER, The Tivoli, July 22, Ticketmaster

SEE: DAVID KOECHNER, Enmore Theatre, July 23, Ticketek