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In the series’ first episode, he helps a fledgling Internet couple by turning their blundering first date into a saucy introduction, and in later episodes, he accomplishes more minor tasks such as identifying odors and lighting candles.

Creator Alix Lambert’s idea for the series has been germinating for the better part of three decades — influenced by a friend’s roommate who was dubbed “Ambiance Man.” Every time the roommate would pass through the living room, Lambert said, “Ambiance Man” would light a candle or spruce up the room. Thus, a hero was born.

“There has been this resurgence of the superhero in general,” she told Mashable. “But it’s always like this save-the-world, huge thing, and 

An intimate crowd gathered at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Thursday night for the world premiere of series, which debuted to the masses on Friday on MOCAtv, the museum’s digital media extension that has amassed more than 5 million views and 150,000 subscribers.

MOCA showcased the first four episodes of Lambert’s project, which features Armisen and Jack Black in a part sketch comedy, part artistic commentary series, at the event as well as sets by Armisen’s SNL British punk persona Ian Rubbish and video artist Dynasty Handbag.

The tongue-in-cheek statement spread a subversive pall over the evening, which was rife with unconventional, eccentric and oblique art.

Ambiance Man is part of MOCA’s inaugural Art + Comedy season, which draws upon and references the art historical tradition of comedic performances by contemporary artists. This year’s programming is highlighted by a film digging into the ephemera of Andy Kaufman and his legacy, a celebration of video performer Alex Bag and new films by artists Kate Berlant, Martin Kersels, David Robbins and Dynasty Handbag (Jibz Cameron), a performance artist whose work is increasingly showing up in mainstream comedy.

In addition to Armisen, the cast includes Black, Peter Macon, Atsuko Okatsuka and Jibz Cameron playing Unidentifiable Odor, Cooke Alistaire, Feng-She and Buzz Kill.

Cameron, who plays alongside Black as part of a tag-team of nefarious villains, represents one of the show’s and the series’ most unique assets: a hybrid performance artist-comedian.

“When I’m working on my own work it’s just a giant mess and I’m in charge of everything,” Cameron said. “But the performative part of it was sort of similar in that a lot of times I had a loose narrative and improvised a lot of what I was doing. And so on set … we knew we had to get from Point A to Point B, but we could kind of do whatever we wanted to get there.”

As part of the night’s festivities, Cameron debuted a Dynasty Handbag video piece, titled “Remote Penetration,” which blended graphics, music, lewd and slapstick elements into a concoction of off-kilter humor. Cameron also gave a live set that included a sendup of the Christmas song “Santa Baby,” as well as others that critiqued feminism, masculinity and sexuality, among other themes.

Reeves noted Cameron as an example of art and comedy bleeding into one another: She is a performance artist, but she’s transitioned gradually into comedy because of her humor.

“We always wanted to do comedy programming, but there are certainly artists who work in a comedic fashion in the art world and there’s art that has comedic properties,” Reeves added. “We’re just following that vein and we’re interested in working with artists who are very consciously comedic but wouldn’t call themselves comedians.”

Reeves said that the programming is not meant to be empirical, but MOCAtv is viewing the programming more as experimental resources, which will range from miniature pseudo-documentaries to video art pieces to short series like Ambiance Man.

“We’re blurring a lot of lines. It’s all blurred lines,” she said. “And who really cares about those definitions anyway? It’s really just an investigation of the comedic effect.”

In the upcoming weeks, MOCAtv will continue to roll out similar digital content from its Art + Comedy slate on its YouTube channel, and Ambiance Man will air its next two episodes, as well as additional tangential content (such as the above AmBeyoncé clip), starting on Dec. 27.

Meanwhile, Lambert said that the show is implementing an interactive “experiment” to galvanize potential fans. Fake Twitter accounts have been created for the show’s main characters to complement the web series and to potentially stretch out the series’ lifespan.

Reeves and Lambert said they are also looking to capitalize on YouTube’s popularity, as a means to promote their work, the artists involved and the museum. But the motivation is less mercenary than investigative and enriching.

“It’s not that it’s important to have a YouTube channel, per se,” Reeves said. “It’s important that the institution has a very interested attitude toward digital communication, communication generally. … 

Both Reeves and Lambert said that they don’t really care about the numbers Ambiance Man will produce — those are more of an interesting byproduct. The reason, according to Reeves, is because some of the content is important in an art historical way, so it’s less of a viral phenomenon and more of a resource for academia in the future.

Most telling of all, though, was Armisen, who on his way back out into the rainy streets of Los Angeles, said: “Anything having to do with MOCA is a good thing. … The Los Angeles art scene is one of my favorite scenes, but the idea of importance is irrelevant. It’s entertaining; all it has to be is entertaining.”