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What does it take to host a late-night talk show? The title of Handler’s Times profile (“I’m Chelsea Handler. And You’re Not.”) is a play on Chevy Chase’s famous “Weekend Update” introduction, but the comparison with “Saturday Night Live” is misleading. A talk show’s standard news-rehashing monologue and various sketches certainly call for traditional comedic chops, but the celebrity interview, a talk show staple?...
...Chelsea Lately,” Handler is often overtly mean, devoting most of each episode to mocking celebrities, and she also doesn’t do a very good job of concealing her contempt for the people who actually appear on her show. It’s not that her C-list guests don’t deserve it, nor that it isn’t funny. But it represents the limitations of Handler’s draw—someone like Jennifer Aniston wouldn’t deign to waste an evening in an uncomfortable couch in front...
...talk show host is asked to fulfill the difficult function of flavor enhancer: he (or she) must make even the most dreadfully boring of guests look good, keeping the interview funny without taking over the spotlight. What brings the job to a complexity far beyond that of daytime interviewers is that the result is expected to be consistently hilarious, not just mildly amusing to a few hundred thousand viewers who haven’t had their coffee yet. This balancing act requires no less than a profound bond with the audience: the host must be eminently likeable...
Most talk show hosts cut their teeth on years of stand-up, so that’s the arena from which a lady-successor will most likely emerge. But as it is, when comedy clubs often adhere to an unspoken “one woman comic a night” rule, the successful comedienne is necessarily a perfect storm: attractive (but not too attractive!) with a masculine (but not too masculine!) sense of humor...
...hyper-vulgarity, Janeane Garofalo’s liberal dissent, or Kathy Griffin’s tabloid trash-talk. These are comics I personally respect and admire, but I don’t think that their brands of comedy have the broad appeal needed to anchor a mainstream network talk show...