Looking back, it’s hard to imagine Bill Maher’s life working out much different than it has.

“My father was a newsman,” says Maher — the jester, inquisitor and political rogue at the center of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher.” “He was on radio. I grew up with it. In my family, we talked politics all the time.”

Maher brings his unflinching humor and sense of social justice to the Pikes Peak Center stage on Saturday.

A native-New Yorker, Maher began his career as a stand-up comedian in 1979. In three short years, he began making regular appearances on “Tonight Show” (still with Johnny Carson) and “The Late Show with David Letterman,” both career-making platforms for comedians on their way up.

He was focused on his stand up, the occasional TV appearance (“Max Headroom” and “Murder, She Wrote) and movie role (“Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death”), when, in 1993, Comedy Central hired Maher to host “Political Incorrect.”

Four years later, the often controversial show jumped networks, landing at ABC, where it remained until his comment about 9-11 terrorists (“We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That’s cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building? Say what you want about it. Not cowardly.”) created a furor, caused advertisers to pull sponsorships and resulted in the show’s cancellation in 2002.

He wasn’t idle long. In 2003, Maher and HBO created “Real Time.” Like “Politically Incorrect,” he leads a small panel in conversations about topical — sometimes tinderbox — issues of the day. Guests, who walk both sides of the political line, have included John Edwards, Kirk Douglas, Arianna Huffington and Rachel Maddow.

Here the 23-time Emmy nominee talks about the role of entertainment in the news, off-limits topics and how he keeps it real.

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The Gazette: You exist in an interesting strata of entertainment. It’s humor. It’s commentary. It’s politics.

Bill Maher: (Laughs.) It certainly is a hybrid. That’s what makes it challenging and also, sometimes, over the years, it’s been hard for people to grasp. It’s easier if you do something simple that’s just one thing. I think it’s also attractive to people who watch it. Somehow it veers between those things.I try to get it to something amusing before it goes long. (Laughs.) After all, it’s entertainment. (The audience) wants to be entertained, but they are just as interested in politics and world events.The Gazette: So do you think that’s where news is going? What you do?Maher: We may already be there. (Laughs.) Even the nightly news shows. I watch all three broadcasts every night. Not every minute of it. What they’re covering and leading with. This is kind of Middle America: They’re interested in news to watch but they’re not news junkies. They just want a half hour. (Laughs.) It’s funny. Those shows have always complained that they were only a half hour. “How can we cover the news in only a half an hour?” But if you watch it, only the first segment is news. They try to get at everything very quickly and after that it’s the one-legged skier. You get that every time and it’s really more about emotion than news.

Gazette: What do you think that says about us?Maher: I think people have been gotten used to being pandered to. We’re an entertainment society and there are an awful lot of entertainment choices out there. When I was a kid, there were only a few channels. No YouTube. No Angry Birds on your phone. People are just bombarded by so much information. Now news has to compete with that. The other things was news didn’t used to need to make a profit. In the old days, (pioneering TV executive) William Paley didn’t want it to make a profit. “The Beverly Hillbillies” was the profit and that supported Walter Cronkite so Walter Cronkite didn’t have to worry about profit. Now the news has to be about profit. What it’s mostly about now is eyeballs.Gazette: If 25 years ago someone had told you that you would be political comic and that TV would be your bully pulpit, would you have believed it?Maher: I certainly didn’t think the whole thing would last 20 years. (Laughs.) That alone blows my mind. But, you know, I guess I wanted to do it. I wanted it to stay on. It’s just so hard to project that far back, (to) 1993. I don’t even remember what I was thinking back then. I think I was thrilled to have a TV show. (Laughs.) I feel vindicated that there was a room for a show like that because there were certainly lots of people who told me that people in this country are not interested politics and that you can’t blend entertainment with politics. And you certainly couldn’t have an opinion. That was the time. You can’t have opinion about a political issue. It was all played out of the Johnny Carson playbook. You don’t have an opinion because you’ll alienate half the audience and not survive.Gazette: I don’t want to cast as saintly, but it does seems like “Politically Incorrect” and  “Real Time with Bill Maher” represent more than just a job. Do you see any duty involved here? To prod America with the things you think are important, but aren’t being dealt with?Maher: (Laughs.) On a good day, I hope there’s some of that in it. I don’t know if being an entertainer you wind up affecting a hell of a lot. I know when Bush was reelected everyone came out. Puff Daddy had a campaign, “Vote or die.” And it didn’t seem to matter in terms of the outcome.

The way it changes is religion. I couldn’t even count the number of people who have come up to me, emailed me, twittered me and said … what you’re thinking about religion has clarified my thinking, made me think and pushed me over the edge. That is the one area I think minds have been changed. Politicians? I don’t know. I tend to think politicians are born with a chip in their brain and everything is seen through it and so they marshal evidence to support their attitudes.I’m not sure that I turn a lot of heads regarding politics.Gazette: I wondered about this. You’ve railed about the stunting nature of religion for years now. Has the reaction to that changed over time?Maher: How do you mean? Changed how? Whose reaction? Networks?

Gazette: Yes, networks. And regular people.Maher: You would think it would be much more of issue with the actual networks. HBO, as usual, has been pretty hands off. Even when I was on ABC, I was surprised how little flack I got about that. They got much more upset about marijuana. Maybe it was the era. This was the ’90s and into the turn of the century. We were on until 2002. On ABC, drugs — including marijuana — was just verboten. We were allowed to sidestep the issue but we were not allowed to suggest it in any way. It couldn’t be funny. It had to be discussion from the prohibition side. We wanted to do a sketch called “Harry the Pothead.” You’re probably high when you … We lost and couldn’t do “Harry the Pothead.”

The religious material was so much more subversive. You look back and (the drug issue) was so trivial. Since then jokes are everywhere about pot. No one has to pretend.It was a pre 9-11 and we didn’t have a lot of big issues. I think 9-11 put certain things in perspective. Oh, like, we can’t fight every war.

Gazette: So, I have to ask: Have you played Colorado Springs before? Maher: Colorado Springs? I know I’ve played Denver and Boulder a lot. I hear it’s a pretty conservative place, right?

Gazette: We certainly have a reputation for it.Maher: I always loved going to conservative cities because there are always lot of liberal people who live there, but don’t come out of the woodwork unless there’s something that warrants it. They’re more enthusiastic because ‘you came to our town.’ They suspect I have every reason to pass them over. They appreciate that I didn’t do that and I appreciate that they’ve come out. I really have a great time.Gazette: Do you shape the material, though, for a city’s political alignment?Maher: Not the whole act. One of the reasons I travel the country is to see the country and know what’s going on in the country. Otherwise, I’d feel like a phony sitting here in my ivory tower. So, when I hit the ground I talk to people in airports, drivers and even people at the theater. I really do ask people what’s going on here; what’s the local local. Gazette: Talk to me about the celebs that appear on your show. Ultimately, celebrities are just celebrities. They don’t have an particular authority.Maher: They don’t and that’s why way they’re rather rare on my show. On “Politically Incorrect,” in the old show, they were the heart of it. It was the charm of the show, really. We didn’t ask anyone to know anything really. You might know something and you might not know something and therein was train wreck. (Laugh.) I’m looking at the booking. (Sound of pages ruffled.)Gazette: I think Mark Ruffalo was on last week.Maher: Right. He wasn’t on the panel. He was mid show. That’s the spot for celebrity. They usually have an issue. They’re not on the panel, though. There was John Waters a couple weeks ago. He’s sort of a celebrity. It can happen but it’s not the rule for the panel. We do like to sprinkle it in because it is entertainment, but the bar so much higher now. … You don’t want someone to look like a kid at the adult table and they usually do. But there are some celebrities — Ben Affleck and Alex Baldwin — they’re political junkies. This is what live for. … I have people used to be friends, but aren’t now because I won’t use them on the show. Really.