Most New Yorkers aren’t fazed by a stranger shouting at them on the street.
And it’s a good thing, because that’s the basic premise of “Funny or Die’s Billy on the Street,” which has comedian Billy Eichner run through the streets of New York, quizzing unsuspecting passersby on their knowledge of pop culture in a perpetually irritated persona.
The game show returns for its third season Wednesday at 11 p.m. on Fuse with A-list celebrity guests, including Lena Dunham, Neil Patrick Harris, Lindsay Lohan, Joel McHale, Seth Meyers, Amy Poehler, Paul Rudd, Olivia Wilde, Rachel Dratch, Sean Hayes and Nick Offerman.
“These people don’t come on the show to promote anything,” Eichner tells The Post. “Usually, they come because they know it’s a bizarre, crazy experience and they’re fans and they want this weird experience of running around the street with me and interacting with real people who aren’t other actors.”
In the season premiere, Wilde approaches other women and asks them to tell her she’s pretty. In the second episode, “Girls” creator Dunham competes against a pedestrian in a trivia challenge. The loser has to milk a cow.
“You don’t say yes unless you’re up for something crazy,” the Queens-bred host says. “They know what they’re getting into.”
In approaching Season 3, Eichner — who was nominated for a Daytime Emmy in 2013 — sought to do some new things on the show while keeping the elements he knows viewers like best.
Games like “For a Dollar” and “Quizzed in the Face” are back, though they’ve been spiced up with new lifelines and rules. There are also new games that are a bit edgier, like Episode 2’s “Steve Harvey or Harvey Milk,” where the guest is asked to identify if a quote was said by the comedian/talk show host or the late, gay-rights activist.
“[There are] games which … go beyond the silly, absurd things, and I get to insert a stronger point of view about certain people or ideas,” Eichner says.
The prizes have also been changed up as well. In previews, winners were awarded such mundane household items as a roll of paper towels or a cat scratch post. This year, pop culture rules with inspired handmade creations like a wreath made of Netflix envelopes or an “Orange Is the New Black” baby mobile.
“It’s a nice new touch, a little sight gag,” Eichner says.
This season was shot over many months, a scattered production schedule necessitated not just by the guests’ busy calenders but Eichner getting cast in a 10-episode arc on the NBC comedy “Parks and Recreation.”
The role is a return to Eichner’s acting roots — as a child he did commercials then studied theater at Northwestern University, only stumbling into comedy after moving back to New York after graduation.
And the comedic sensibility he’s honed in his man-on-the-street videos has clearly informed his acting. Though Eichner doesn’t yet know if he’ll be back on “Parks and Rec” next season, he wants to continue to show different sides of himself on that show or one of the other projects he has in development.
“‘Parks and Rec’ is really a great opportunity,” he says, “because it’s getting me back to where I wanted to be in the first place but inspired by the comic persona that I created.”