5. & 6. Chelsea Lately and The Soup-- I watched Talk Soup with Aisha Tyler but I stopped at some point for some reason. And because E! has become a network for jackass reality shows and insipid entertainment reporting, I‘ve stayed away from it to the point where I don’t pay any attention to anything that may not be moronic. But I stumbled onto The Soup last June and fell in love with it, and I lucked upon Chelsea Lately not long after.
Reality TV has gone from decent early seasons of The Real World, The Osbournes, Survivor and Amazing Race to pure shit like The Cougar and Keeping up With the Kardassians. Shows used to start out well and then go downhill, but now nearly all start out as crap and stay there.
With all that being said, I am the absolute right person to watch The Soup and Chelsea Lately. Even though they’re on an otherwise useless network, they somehow are able to make fun of the crap on the rest of the network—or what the rest of the network reports on.
On The Soup, we get funny clips made all the more funny by host Joel McHale. McHale (and his writing staff) come up with brilliant lines—some getting very pointed—to describe the stupidity we are about to see (or just saw). Sometimes the show moves into the surreal, but McHale holds it all together very well. He’s also pretty fearless; if the joke involves him dressing up in a ridiculous costume or calling out a celebrity for stupid behavior, he’ll do it. The show itself has become a bit of a continuing story; clips or lines said in one episode may rear their heads again later to continue another clip or joke. Regular viewers will see a sort of progression in a few jokes.
Chelsea Lately is a bit less structured around reality shows and more toward the people we’re being told are “hot” now, whether they’re actors, musicians, or any other idiot the entertainment news is focusing on. Being a late night show, it can get a little raw—and that’s perfect for the absolute stupidity the show comments on every night. Chelsea Handler has an honesty about her that is refreshing in the “entertainment news” business. If she thinks someone or something is stupid, she says it. No ass-kissing there. And it helps that she is very funny.
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