Joel McHale is the host of The Soup, a television clips show on E, which is way wittier than we have any right to expect — it’s a television clips show on E. Bolstered by a green screen and a prop gun, McHale consistently lays down some of the funniest minutes on television. The clips do most of the heavy lifting — reduced to five-second clips, TV just works — but McHale pushes it over with inspired barbs trained on himself, his job, and his network, just as often as on the fourth hour of Today, Spencer Pratt’s flesh-colored beard, Oprah Winfrey’s vajayjay, Ryan Seacrest’s height, Gary Busey’s endocrine system, Maury’s chicken tetrazzini, and David Caruso’s sunglasses, which the actor eases on at the beginning of CSI before Roger Daltrey takes over — “eeeeYAAAAAAaaaaay.” As the host since 2004, McHale’s star has risen. He now hopscotches around the country doing standup, and this fall he’ll be appearing in NBC’s upcoming show, Community, with Chevy Chase and John Oliver, in which he does full-bore, starring-role acting, subject to the same mockery he dishes out on The Soup. Expect him to be relentless.
Sat., June 13, 8 p.m., 2009
