BC Tube: 'Soup' that talks back

I'd like to think that if I were older, a bit more funny, and most importantly, a man, I would be Joel McHale. Unsure of who this so-called Joel McHale is? Shame on you, because he happens to be the wittiest man on the tube. He's bitter, he loves television, and he is the host of E! Network's only semi-intelligent show, The Soup. While the residents of the Playboy mansion are scampering around in their skivvies and the Kardashians are doing whatever it is the Kardashians do, McHale can be found … well, making fun of them all. E! struck comedy gold with The Soup's biting pop-culture commentary.

When McHale was brought on as host, the show was revised to fit his odd sense of humor. While the host doesn't hit the comedy mark 100 percent of the time, he's pretty darn close. He chooses clips from popular shows as well as more obscure bytes from infomercials and cable TV. Each half-hour episode culminates in the revealing of the "kick-ass clip of the week" segment. Winners of the prestigious title have varied from Quacker Factory infomercials (you know, the ones with the older woman who wears a bandanna around her) to McHale's favorite scripted reality show, The Hills. This week's selection was from the relatively new horror series on MTV, That's Amore. Female contestants and their families were forced to suck the cream out of a cannoli and spit it back out into a blender, all for the fabulous prize of an hour in Dominico's discoteca upstairs. Why anyone else hasn't picked up on that ridiculousness is beyond me.

McHale is at his best when he calls upon one of his long-running jokes to spark the show. These jokes usually pick on a certain celebrity, like David Caruso and his obsession with sunglasses. The best jokes though pertain to the impending Oprah takeover (in her dreams) and staunch narcissist Tyra Banks. McHale often likes to point out Tyra's uncanny ability to take any show topic and relate it back to her. After Tyra's stalker was caught by police this week, the host joked that "the police later found out that the stalker was Tyra Banks, disguised as a stalker, so she could feel what it was like to stalk Tyra Banks." That's a window into the hilarity of the man. But hey, if you don't believe me, just ask famous Hollywood producer Steven Soderbergh (Ocean's Eleven), who cast McHale alongside Matt Damon for his upcoming movie The Informant. I rest my case.