Will the Real Bruce Baum Please Stand Up!

Look, up on the stage . . . it’s Babyman! No, it’s the Bungee Dentist! Uh, maybe the Macho Duck?

Actually, when comedian Bruce Baum is the one on stage, any one of those characters--plus others he’s made famous through stand-up and television performances--is liable to be up there with him.

Local fans will get a chance to see the Thousand Oaks resident, and all his make-believe friends, when Baum performs Friday and Saturday night at “The Comedy Club” at Hornblowers at Ventura Harbor Village.

Baum, who has been featured on the television shows “America’s Funniest People,” “Comic Strip Live” and “Sunday Comics,” describes his stand-up routine as “a 195-pound circus.”

“My stuff is probably classified as escapist humor,” he said. “I try to do broad stuff and make people forget things and laugh for an hour. I do some topical stuff, but I’m not going to make people zero in on society’s problems.”

Among the subjects Baum is liable to touch upon at his Ventura shows: Somalia, post office workers and the status of American politics.

“Last night . . . I don’t know what happened to my TV,” he said, providing a window into his particular brand of humor. “But I got C-SPAN and the Home Shopping Network on the same channel. . . . I bought a congressman.”

Show times on Friday and Saturday are 8 and 10 p.m. Admission is $8. Hornblowers is at 1559 Spinnaker Drive. For information, call 658-2202.