Joel McHale stirs 'The Soup'
The host of E!'s snarky clip show initially saw the job as a career springboard à la Greg Kinnear, but in the meantime, he's having all the laughs.
Joel McHale hosts "The Soup" on E! Entertainment Television. Not "Talk Soup," the E! clip show that poked fun at talk shows in the '90s. That show that's been making you crack up on Friday nights for four years? That's "The Soup," people. Are you listening, KTLA?
In the Nov. 14 episode, McHale showed a KTLA Morning News segment in which weather anchor Jessica Holmes and a correspondent called the show "Talk Soup" three times as they presented T-shirts and panties with McHale's picture on them. At the end, the reporter (jokingly) asked her favorite host to phone her.
Always a gentleman, McHale responded this way on the air: "I tried calling you, but 555-Nutbag Dye-Job gets a busy signal. Notice I didn't say 'Talk Nutbag Dye-Job.' It's 'The Soup,' not 'Talk Soup.' "
Then as McHale was listing Greg Kinnear and the other "Talk Soup" hosts, -- the show's most popular character -- appeared in his striped bikini top and added "and Hal Sparks," dropping his jeans to reveal boxers with Sparks' picture on them. Mankini (producer Dominic DeLeo) skulked away, muttering, "I'm sorry, Dad." McHale laughed so hard he couldn't get the words out to introduce the next clip.
When he's being serious, which is not often, McHale, 37, doesn't really mind if people refer to his show as "Talk Soup." The comedic clips show jump-started Kinnear's acting career, which is what prompted McHale to audition for the gig in 2004. The strategy seems smart now. McHale is on a national stand-up tour and will voice Elliot the mule-deer in "Open Season 2" (Ashton Kutcher did it the first time around) in January, and he plays a key role as an FBI agent in "The Informant" with Matt Damon next year.
But the way McHale sees it, even if the original show had been a dead end for Kinnear, having people call his show "Talk Soup" is better than "What the ? Awards," which is what the reprise was called for its first five episodes.
"People were like, 'What?' How bad of a show is it when people have to go 'What?' when you say the title," McHale said while getting his hair styled and makeup applied before a taping. "It was a terrible travesty. Thank God, when Ted Harbert became the new president of E!, he changed it to 'The Soup' to give it the name recognition and legacy."
