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Chat stew with Joel McHale
The Soup star dishes on Tyra, Kinnear’s shoes and the serious side of pop critique
By Melissa Campbell
Joel McHale @ The Riverside Theater October 17, 8 p.m.
Joel McHale is a funny man. I don't think he is capable of not being funny. McHale has been putting up his comedic microscope up to celebrities and pop culture since 2004, when he became the host of "The Soup," providing viewers with a weekly dose of the most absurd, pathetic, and of course strange.
Off-set, McHale is a husband and a father of two. Oh, and he also has a touring stand-up show that will be stopping at Milwaukee's Riverside Theater on Oct. 17. The comedian sat down with the UWM Post via telephone to talk about himself, "The Soup" and of course his stand-up show.
UWM Post: I'm going to start with a subject that is very dear to your heart: Tyra Banks. What's really your beef with Tyra?
Joel McHale: Have you seen her shows? Her crazy in the bath videos that she just did last two weeks ago, printing the weight on the arms of every woman in the audience. Or asking people in the audience where's the craziest place they had sex, and then she will reveal her craziest place, and then say she was just kidding. And then the number of wigs. I mean, you name it.
Post: So is it that she's crazy or that she's crazy and she hates the fact that you talk about her?
JM: No I don't think she's crazy. I think she's very reasonable. She's got two very successful shows on the air. She just maybe thinks about herself once in awhile. Just slightly too much.
Post: Aside from Tyra, are most celebrities okay with what you say about them?
JM: I don't know, I don't really go out. I have two kids. No one's tried to swing at me yet though. Maybe its coming--probably from David Hasselhoff.
Post: Why's that?
JM: Because we make a lot of fun of him. A lot of fun. His drunk cheeseburger video that we all really like. And his incredible judging skills on ‘America's Got...’ something.
Post: You've humiliated yourself for ‘The Soup’ on numerous occasions.
JM: Yes, I work for E!, that's humiliating in itself.
Post: I'm thinking of the Rainbow Brite video.
JM: You think that's humiliating? How dare you. That's some of my finest work. And I sent that off to the top directors in America.
Post: Is that how you got the role on ‘The Informant?’
JM: Yes. (Steven) Soderbergh saw my incredible work as a cross-dressing cartoon character and said, 'That's the man that I want in my movie.'
Post: Is there any skit that you would just say, 'That's too low?' or is there no bar?
JM: I say no mostly every day. Mostly to my children and my wife. Yeah, there's all sorts of stuff that I've said no to. You know, it’s what I think I can pull off for comedy's sake, or I just don't like it. I'm trying to think of an example... oh I know one sketch that I said 'No we can't do that because it's way too offensive.' You know those Direct TV commercials where they remake parts of the movie?
Post: Yeah.
JM: And the most recent one right now is Poltergeist one... Well one guy on our staff, or I think it might have been a woman, wrote one. No it was a guy. He wrote a parody sketch of that but the rape scene from the Accused with Jodie Foster on the pinball machine. I'm like, 'Are you guys insane?'
Post: Would you have been Jodie Foster?
JM: Oh I don't know. It didn't get to the point where we were shooting it. I'm like, ‘This show is on in the mornings sometimes, so that is way too much. So stop it, go back to your desks, and come up with something we can actually put on the air.’
Post: I was hoping you could talk about this quote I found that's supposedly from you. I hope it is. 'I've always made fun of television shows and how ridiculous some celebrity behavior is, but I never thought my job would be commenting on it. There's a side of me that's happy I get to say these things out loud. But other times I feel like a whore.'
JM: Uh maybe I said it. I don’t remember. Is that what it sounded like when you read it? I don’t know. I don’t feel like a whore that mu—Oh! The only time I feel like a whore is when I’m selling my body.
The first part is definitely true. I never thought I would have a job doing this, and that someone would pay me for it. I think if I feel like relenting to the horrible gossip train that is continues some stupid celebrity story then I feel whorish. But I don’t think we do that; I think we comment on the coverage. IF there’s some breaking story about Britney Spears, then we’ll show clips from ‘The Insider,’ ‘ET,’ ‘Inside Edition,’ or whatever it is and we show what they’re saying about it, and then make fun of them. That doesn’t necessarily let us off the hook for following the gossip train, but it makes me feel better.
Post: Going back into the history of ‘The Soup.’ Greg Kinnear was the host of ‘Talk Soup’ before and won an Emmy in 1995. How big were those shoes to fill and are you still wearing them?
JM: HE is a pretty small man and is feet are narrow. I am tall, and lanky, and large. And so I had to cut the ends out and my feet hang over the edge. That makes sense?
Post: Crystal clear.
JM: For all the money Greg Kinnear has he should mail me some. I love some of his shoes. And I’d sell them on eBay so…
Post: I know the Soup has a pretty decent sized staff to digest all that pop culture each week. Do you watch anything, or is it just the staff?
JM: I used to watch WAY more than I do now. When we began the staff was five or six people, so we were killing ourselves to catch up on all the television we were missing. And thankfully they’ve been able to add a total of 12 plus two TiVo’s. And we got 14 TiVo’s going so we’re able to keep up with everything.
Now I have the luxury of just watching what I want to watch, and usually that becomes what my wife wants to watch. And so we see a lot of ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ ‘Project Runway,’ and ‘America’s Next Top Model.’
I like ‘The Ultimate Fighter,’ it’s truly the most brutal talent contest on the air. You get a bunch of cage fighters living in the same house and to stay on the show, you have to fight. You hear on American Idol, ‘You’re a little bitchy.’ On this show its like, ‘I’m trying to avoid getting my nose ripped off my face.’ That is an honest living man.
Post: Which did you prefer, being on ‘Will & Grace’ or ‘Guiding Light?’
JM: Oh... I’m going to go with ‘Will & Grace.’
Post: Why’s that?
JM: Why do you think? I’m sure a lot of people, you know, they love their one line. I had one line on ‘Guiding Light,’ and its haunted me ever since.
Post: What was it?
JM: Don’t remember. I think it was literally, ‘Hey, he’s over there.’ The reason I was on there was because eight years ago when I graduated from acting school, we went and did a showcase in New York. And the casting director of ‘Guiding Light’ was like, ‘Hey, man you’re funny. I mean you’re no good for soap operas, but you’re funny. If you come into town let me know.’ And so I come into town and I be like, ‘Hey I’m in town.’ And he was like, ‘You can come do one line.’ And they would pay me like 500 bucks, and that would be my spending money for New York. It was great.
Post: Okay, so you’re show’s called ‘The Soup.’ What’s your favorite kind of soup?
JM: Oh boy. Wow. Umm, I’m going to go with broccoli. Just a puree of broccoli with a little bit of water, and salt. Oh it’s great.
Post: No cheese?
JM: No cheese. Cheese? What are guys, from Milwaukee? No, you know I like a good French onion. I like all sorts of soup. I even like cheese soup. But I don’t eat a lot of soup because I’m in Southern California, and you don’t need to be warmed up too much.
Post: Well maybe you’ll eat some when you come here, because it’s a little chilly.
JM: I’ve heard there’s a really good Irish bar around the corner from the theater. I’ll have to check that out.
Post: Let’s talk about the show a little bit. What can people expect? I’ve read in interviews you say it’s some personal stuff, but you do bring in the pop culture.
JM: Yeah. I do a lot of pop culture stuff. I do a behind-the-scenes look at ‘The Soup.’ That’s a lot of it. .And a lot of it’s family stuff. And a lot of it is short jokes about Ryan Seacrest.
Post: You know I was looking at that. You’re what, eight inches taller than him?
JM: Seventeen inches taller.
Post: Seventeen?
JM: I think it might be twenty now. Over the course of this phone call he has actually gotten shorter. Incredible.
Post: A more serious question. You’re commenting on pop culture, so are you a mirror to it, are you just perpetuating it, are you stabbing it?
JM: Are you saying I’m a perpetuating, reflecting knife?
Post: I don’t know. What are you?
JM: I don’t know. I’m a Scorpio. What do you think?
Post: On the one hand you are commenting on it, but you are also, to something that might disappear, you are resurfacing it… I don’t know.
JM: Well hopefully we are satirizing and making fun of it. And pointing out to people why it’s so absurd.
Post: Do you feel like it has any serious impact? Or is it just comedy?
JM: I don’t know if it has a serious impact. I think it depends on the person on the person watching. It could. I don’t think a lot of people end up weeping after our show. Hopefully. Unless they’re just bored to tears.
Post: Unless they’re Tyra?
JM: Hey Tyra is entertaining. She is a genius.
Hopefully we take those things in pop culture that people have accepted and we say ‘You don’t need to accept those.’ They can be made fun of.
We see ‘The Soup’ as a long Conan O’Brien or Jimmy Kimmel monologue. And it’s not a news report. It’s a series of like 45 jokes. I’m not kidding. If you go through our show, its just joke, joke, joke, joke, joke, joke.
Post: Do you have any last pithy comments? Do you want to humiliate me some more?
JM: Do I have any last pithy comments? Uh, yes, I do have a last pithy comment.
‘Do I have any last pithy comments? Maybe?’
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