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The Soup is an E! Entertainment Television series. This is a revamped version of Talk Soup that focuses on recaps of various pop culture and reality show moments of the week with host and co-writer Joel McHale providing sarcastic and biting commentary on the various clips.

Format

The program was originally The What The? Awards prior to the name change, but was quickly reformatted, renamed and refocused after low ratings and unflattering comparisons to VH1's competing Best Week Ever.

The shows have some similarities, but The Soup has managed to create its own unique niche with the one-host format and use of skits to skewer pop culture, along with the ability of the show to make fun of shows on its own network such as The Girls Next Door, Gastineau Girls and Taradise, while promoting them at the same time.

Setting

There is no audience, as the clips are introduced by McHale on a blue screen set with a 'plasma screen' and 'window' overlooking Hollywood, but the crew will often laugh loudly at the clips and McHale's comments and cheer whenever a favorite segment/clip is shown. Also joining Joel occasionally is a chihuahua named Lou, used in skits and to add a cute touch to the show, and to also make fun of Paris Hilton's lazy petkeeping habits. As another connection to the show's past, former Talk Soup stage manager and comic foil Tom McNamara also works on The Soup in the same two roles.

Regular Features

  • A satirical look at Hollywood and celebrity news from the past week starts out the show, with commentary by McHale and jokes involving the subjects of the news. McHale ends the segment by yelling out "You're in "The Soup" now!"

  • Affectionate mentions of Seattle by McHale (including a "Go Seahawks!" shout-out during their Super Bowl run), as Seattle is his hometown, and where he started out his comedy career as a cast member on KING-TV's local comedy show, Almost Live!.

  • Tom Cruise has been poked fun at regularly since the summer of 2005 with Cruise Watch looking at some of his antics on talk shows and interviews. The introduction shows Cruise on various shows, ending with him at the 2005 BET Awards show calling out "Much love!"

  • After the first commercial break, a female voice will announce, "And now...Danzitions." A clip of Tony Danza's monologue will play, often poking fun at how Danza awkwardly manages to go from a joke to a serious subject in the same breath.

  • When news comes of a new celebrity couple, McHale will pull out the Celebrity Hook-Up Name Generator which will mash the two star's names to form a new one, often quite silly. (For example, Lost stars Dominic Monaghan and Evangeline Lilly's name was "Dolly Llama" and Michael Bolton and Nicolette Sheridan were given the name of "Bol-Shid".)

  • Chicks, Man focuses on female celebrity news, with the segment's logo being a a photo of baby chicks, followed by a man saying "Chicks, Man!" in a laid-back voice. A recent off-shoot is "Oprah, Girlfriend," which looks at Oprah Winfrey with the same voice announcing the title.

  • At the mid-point, the show will feature Reality Show Clip Time!, where clips from various reality shows are played with McHale adding comedic comments. At one point in the above, a clip will usually run from Iron Chef America where the secret ingredient is shown, the crew cheering at the way it's announced in a loud manner.

  • Tales from Home Shopping, a segment where something non-sensical from QVC or HSN is shown and commented on by McHale, mostly involving Suzanne Somers' various statements on HSN.

  • Most Disturbing Video of the Week, which is what The Soup staff consider to be the oddest clip that's been shown on television for the past week.

  • What the Kids are Watching, showcases disturbing clips from children's shows, particulary 4Kids TV's Bratz series based on the doll line. The sequence introducing the segment with a screaming claymation child was called even more disturbing by McHale than the Chat Stew intro. A puppet named Hypno Harry was also introduced in this segment, where the controversial new DVD-only spin-off of Sesame Street, Sesame Beginnings was mocked for targeting merchandise to preschool children. Hypno Harry tried to hypnotize children into buying nothing but Sesame Street products, then said not to watch Bratz because "they are whores." Later, he tried to convince McHale and the audience that Taradise was an Emmy-worthy program and to "watch The Daily 10, it's informative!", and in a subsequent episode was Denise Richards' divorce attorney, trying to hyponotize the public into not believing Charlie Sheen. McHale in both cases has slapped Hypno Harry to get him off the set, resulting in his wig and/or glasses flying off.

  • The Clip of the Week, which is what the Soup staff consider to be the best, or worst depending on the viewer's opinion, clip that's been shown on TV that past week. A video with Lou being 'neutered' by Joel in full surgical gear introduces the segment.

  • Fake polls are flashed after the end of commercial breaks, with sensical answers to start out with and a satirical majority or minority factoid at the end of the segment.

  • During the commercial breaks, fake commercials are shown, such as the track listing from Kevin Federline's upcoming rap album, featuring phony track titles such as Pope John Pao and Ppp Ppp Ppp.

Regular Gags

  • One regular gag is the Kong Monkeys, which are usually dressed in costumes from recent movies, more recently they include Brokeback Mountain and Memoirs of a Geisha. These films were called Brokeback Kong and Memoirs of a Geisha Kong, in a "cross-promotion" with King Kong. When Brokeback Mountain lost the Academy Award for Best Picture to Crash, McHale announced an official end to all "Brokeback" jokes and retired the monkey via gunshot.

  • A fictional product called Hamwinkies, which consists of a Twinkie stuffed with a slice of smoked ham, covered with chocolate, and then deep fried, has made appearances on the show as of late. The box art for the product is modified from the Twinkies packaging, with the name Mostess replacing Hostess, and a contented cartoon pig resting atop of a chocolate-covered Hamwinkie. An 'ad' for the product (which had the highest production values in the show's history, according to Joel) noted that this unique treat was "Britney-approved!", and Joel has eaten Hamwinkies on camera several times.

  • "Kiss my ass!" Clip - Among the many clips that have been shown, one has become a regular gag: A clip from Being Bobby Brown. The events leading up to the clip involve Bobby Brown accusing George W. Bush of being a terrorist, with Whitney Houston strongly opposing him. Bobby Brown states that "I've been to prison, and that's American!", which leads to the clip, which shows Whitney's reply of "Kiss my ass!" The clip popped up in nearly every episode for the rest of 2005, always to a loud ovation, with McHale at one point calling it "the 'Hey Jude' of clips." On the special year-end Clipdown '05, it was named the number one clip of 2005.

  • The show frequently discusses Sci-Fi Channel's original movies with McHale mocking the cheap special effects and bad acting involved.

  • At one point in the 2005 season, clips and re-enactments of scenes from popular Mexican telenovela La madrastra were featured weekly. In 2006, this was re-introduced with Peregrina taking the place of La Madrasta, mainly because the latter had finished its run. With Peregrina's recent demise, The Soup has shifted its gaze to what McHale calls "the most evil practical-joke show in the world": Infarto.

  • A running gag where a clip of Sesame Street's Elmo on Access Hollywood or Martha is dubbed over with the Muppet reacting to something in an unexpected way; for example the Martha clip was modified in reaction to Kanye West's controversial comment about George W. Bush to be Elmo saying "George Bush doesn't care about Muppets!" This treatment was also given to Kermit the Frog when he guest-hosted Home Edition, where the dubbed Muppet insinuated that Ty Pennington was eaten by Miss Piggy, that he was eyeing up a high school's female basketball team sexually (saying he gets older but their age stays the same), and was about to commit contractor fraud by moving money in the show's construction budget elsewhere so he could "clear a cool States dollar|$" target="_blank" >*50,000."

  • Another running gag is from a two-second clip of Katie Holmes saying "Sure!" in a close-up (used to mock her indoctrination into Scientology with the monotonic sound of her voice), with McHale asking her questions that make no sense in contrast to the original interview, or are contrary to her relationship with Tom Cruise. For example in answer to the allegations Cruise bought a sonogram machine to monitor his unborn child, McHale 'asks' if she doesn't mind the child being exposed to radiation. The answer to every question asked is always "Sure!"

  • Before the first commercial break, Entertainment Tonight's birthday segment, along with the trivia segment of various shows which end with 'the answer after the break', is parodied with some nonsense question like "What famous musician auditioned for 'Wife Swap' three times before learning what the show is really about?", that mocks a current celebrity, usually Paris Hilton, and an odd silhouette to disguse the celebrity's identity. The question is never answered after the break. On one occasion, an answer to the previous week's question was shown, which read: "9 shots of tequila, a kinkajou, and you thought she was Mary-Kate Olsen." It has also parodied ET's birthday segment, only instead of a real celebrity, it's usually an obscure extra from a forgettable movie. For example: "Celebrating a birthday today, 'Girl On Bus' from 'Police Academy 4' is 37."

  • During the latter half of 2005, the show would poke a lot of fun at Tony Danza and his poor talk show skills. However, in March 2006, when it was announced Danza's show was going off the air, a suddenly contrite McHale (who admitted they needed something to make fun of) began the Save Danza from Cancellation Fund, where clips of Danza from the E! archives were put up on eBay.

External links

E! network shows | 2000s TV shows in the United States | Infotainment | Satirical television programmes

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "The Soup".

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