Here’s a recent article about Joel which I found funny and entertaining. Enjoy!
–
‘The Soup’ host Joel McHale to dish out stand-up in Detroit
BY JULIE HINDS
FREE PRESS POP CULTURE WRITER
When Joel McHale gets on the phone, he likes to introduce himself this way. “Ryan Seacrest,” he says, pretending to be one of his favorite targets.
And if you tell him that talking to him about “The Soup” is a highlight of your week, he’s likely to reply, “God bless you, and that’s really sad.”
He’s being ironic, of course, which is how he earns his bread and butter.
A master at delivering snarky comments and biting asides, McHale has the essential tools for hosting “The Soup,” the E! cable network’s smart, pithy critique of the week in television.
“The Soup” is one of the funniest shows on TV, and McHale — who’s doing stand-up comedy Saturday night at the Fillmore Detroit — provides a perfectly pitched tone of appalled bemusement.
Each week, “The Soup” reviews the excesses of sleazy reality TV, vacuous daytime talk, bubbly morning news and overheated soap operas.
With a sly grin, McHale leads viewers through regular segments like “Chat Stew,” “Chicks, Man” and “Let’s Take Some E!” (which makes fun of his own channel) as he introduces the clips you need to laugh at before you start weeping at the state of American culture.
Any given episode may include the girls-gone-wild antics of “The Rock of Love Bus,” heated spats from “The View,” the jolly ramblings of Willard Scott on “Today” or numbingly repetitive dialogue from “The Bold and the Beautiful” (where a leading character named Ridge yells “Rick!” ad infinitum).
The list goes on, with McHale delivering the sanity-restoring comedy that makes “The Soup” such an enjoyable wallow through the sort of junk food that clogs your viewing diet.
“I guess we’re more like if you’re a garbageman, we find the gold watch that’s shoved in the garbage,” he says. “We feel like we are doing a service … because, you know, you would be an obese shut-in with a forest of cats if you sat there and watched all the shows we cover — which basically a number of people on the staff have turned into, but that’s fine.”
McHale’s touch is light yet merciless. When reminded that the outrageous Mrs. B. from the new NBC reality show “Momma’s Boys” hails from metro Detroit, he offers fake congratulations. “You must be so proud of your city,” he says. “That’s just great, having a good racist mom on a reality show. My guess is she’s going to become a keynote speaker at a lot of fund-raisers and galas, and that’s so exciting.”
If “The Soup” has any claim to social relevance, it’s as a voice for viewers who wonder why so much awfulness gets on the air without being remarked upon and ridiculed.
“If we can say the thing that you’re thinking at home, and if you’re as outraged or speechless as we are sometimes when we see something, then we are doing our job,” says McHale.
The 37-year-old actor and comedian grew up in the Seattle area and worked in improv comedy and had small roles in television before landing his current job. He grew up loving Bill Cosby’s albums, Monty Python, Steve Martin and Richard Pryor.
A short history of “The Soup” goes something like this: “Talk Soup” began on E! in 1991 with host Greg Kinnear, who went on to a successful acting career. The show had other hosts before ending in 2002.
Then in 2004, McHale debuted in a revamp called “The What the … ? Awards” (which he describes as the worst title in the history of shows). After a few episodes, it was renamed “The Soup” to boost the name recognition and tie in to its legacy. It’s become one of the network’s highest-rated shows.
Nowadays, McHale pretends to be steamed at clips of people misidentifying the show as “Talk Soup.”
In the early days, he used to go home and plow through hours of reality TV footage. Now he has a staff of about 14 (counting interns) to help with finding the clips and writing the scripts. He’s part of the process, but he says “there’s just too much television now” for him to watch it all.
Along with a bevy of clips, “The Soup” also has regular characters like Mankini, the bikini-wearing male played by a childhood friend of McHale. Celebrities and reality stars sometimes drop by for a visit, even those who’ve been tweaked by the show.
“People on reality shows, from what we’ve learned, they will do anything to be on TV,” McHale notes.
McHale says his live comedy at the Fillmore won’t be a rehash of “The Soup,” joking that he doesn’t travel the country with a green screen (his backdrop on the show) and Mankini.
“It’s regular stand-up,” he explains. “I talk a lot about pop culture. And I talk a lot about the behind the scenes of ‘The Soup.’ I talk about who we have upset and a lot about my family and a few other things. It’s not just ‘The Soup.’ It’s definitely not, because I think people would shoot me if they had an hour and a half of ‘The Soup.’ ”
In his spare time, this pundit of silly TV likes to watch — pay attention, kids — quality entertainment. He’s a fan of nuanced dramas like “Mad Men” and “Battlestar Galactica” and top-flight comedy like NBC’s “30 Rock” and HBO’s “Extras” and “Flight of the Conchords.”
McHale completed a role as an FBI agent in the upcoming film “The Informant” starring Matt Damon and directed by Steven Soderbergh. He sees it as one of the coolest things that’s ever happened to him.
“It’s one of those dream come true, prayer-answered moments where you’re like I cannot believe I’m in a movie. I can’t believe I have a real role in it and the people I’m speaking to are not telling me to get coffee for them.”
How long does he see himself staying on “The Soup”? Without putting a time frame on it, McHale says he loves his job. And his fondness for the show is shared even by some of the people he slams, like Spencer Pratt, a star of the MTV series “The Hills.”
McHale has gotten to know Pratt a bit from running into him at events and says the reality star seems OK with being thrown into “The Soup” and made to look like a shallow D-lister.
Says McHale, “We say some pretty awful things about them and he’s like, ‘Bring it on, my mom loves it.’ ”
Article Source – Freep.com
Visit the Joel McHale page at TVGuide.com