Talk Soup

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Talk Soup
Talk Soup logo.png
Genre Comedy
Presented by Greg Kinnear
John Henson
Hal Sparks
Aisha Tyler
Country of origin USA
Language(s) English
No. of seasons 11
Production
Producer(s) David Bernstein
Mark Tye Turner
Gregg Cannizzaro
Ben Cheng
Heather Stewart
Tom Greenhut
Stan Evans
Running time 22 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel E!
Original run January 7, 1991 – May 17, 2002
Chronology
Followed by The Soup
External links
Website
For the "Weird Al" Yankovic song, see Talk Soup (song).

Talk Soup is a television show produced for cable network E! that debuted on January 7, 1991, and aired until August 2002. Talk Soup aired selected clips of the previous day's daily talk shows—ranging from daytime entries like The Jerry Springer Show and to celebrity interview shows like The Tonight Show—surrounded by humorous commentary delivered by the host. Although Talk Soup poked fun at the talk shows, it also advertised the topics and guests of upcoming broadcasts of them.

Some of the humor is derived from the reactions to the jokes by various stagehands, who either chuckle softly or groan depending on the severity of the joke. The show used a computerized backdrop of moving spoons, with the same animations of the spoons playing on one side of the screen after being shown on the opposite side in a repeating fashion, behind the show's host. One episode was recorded in front of a live studio audience. A similar version, The Soup, now airs weekly on E!.

The show frequently poked fun at actors Randolph Mantooth and Mario Van Peebles. Also featured was a womanizing Argentine sock puppet named Señor Sock that had bought several Thighmasters because he was madly in love with Suzanne Somers.

Contents

[edit] Hosts and awards

[edit] Pop culture references

"Weird Al" Yankovic recorded a song entitled "Talk Soup" for his album Alapalooza. The lyrics describe a man who is desperate to appear on some of the talk shows whose clips appeared in Talk Soup. The song ends with a sample of the E! sound clip played at the end of the television show's end credits. Al on the origin of the song:

Well, to put it bluntly, [E!] kind of jerked me around. The producers of the show approached me, asking me to do a new theme song for the show. I wrote the lyrics (which they approved) and then recorded the song (which they said they "loved"). And then they never used it. Go figure.[1]

[edit] The Soup

In 2004, E! leveraged the Talk Soup brand by renaming and reformatting The What The? Awards to create the show known today as The Soup with actor Joel McHale as host and co-writer, which continues to air today.

One remnant from Talk Soup that got carried over to The Soup is the segment Chat Stew. Chat Stew shows clips from various talk shows and funny comments. The segment is introduced with a CGI crock pot filled with talk show logos and host heads, while a woman (current announcer Kelly Andrews) voices about the "stew" being "so meaty!"

On an episode of The Soup in January 2009, John Henson, a former host of Talk Soup, appeared as a guest star to promote his current show, Wipeout. Aisha Tyler has also appeared on The Soup, wearing a cow girls outfit claiming she wanted to "see the old studios."

The Soup has been mistakenly referred to as Talk Soup by Jean Bice, Mickey Rourke, and many others in the media.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Midnight Star "Ask Al" Q&As for September, 1995

[edit] External links

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