Chelsea Lately Livens Up Late-Night TV

Sure, she's dating the boss, but that doesn't mean Chelsea Handler doesn't have talent. With two best-selling books and her wildly popular E! network late night show Chelsea Lately, Chelsea Handler continually wins fans with her acerbic wit and fearless jabs at the ridiculous in the celebrity entertainment world.

Chelsea Handler is just flat out funny, not just "funny for a girl," but it bears noting that she's the first woman to have a late night show since Joan Rivers--who did it back in 1986¹. It's also important to note that Chelsea Handler's Chelsea Lately nabs more coveted 18-35 viewers than Leno, Letterman¹, Jimmy Kimmel, Craig Ferguson or Carson Daly². Seems it's ladies night every night on the E! channel.

The very existence of Chelsea Lately is a sarcastic joke in and of itself. Airing on the E! channel every week night at 11/10c, Chelsea Handler and her roundtable of comedic guests rip on the very celebrities and gossip that E! so diligently reports on. Like sister show The Soup, Chelsea Lately also feels free to ridicule the various reality stars that have shows of their own on the E! Channel.

What makes Chelsea Handler so lovable to Chelsea Lately viewers is that she calculatingly targets the hypocrites and freaky attention-whore celebrities that are most deserving of criticism. She's also not afraid to say exactly what she thinks (and exactly what we're thinking):

"In a statement to the Associated Press earlier in the year, Jamie Lynn [Spears] said she didn't have a boyfriend. She said, 'I'm keeping my options open.' And by options, she meant legs."

Chelsea Handler plays at being the drunk, blond party girl who only knows what she watches on E!, but her rapid fire wit and pointed barbs let you know there's a brain under that fine blond mane. She's also adept at mixing the insults with the absurd:

"According to Life & Style, Lance Armstrong was seen canoodling with fitness model Kim Strother, and the night before, he was with Ashley Olsen. He's going from bar to bar picking up women-how does he get them home? Does he put them on the handlebars, or does he have a banana seat?"

And Chelsea Handler's not afraid to go to dark places, and I don't just mean her preference for black men:

"Rumer Willis was having a great time at the opening of a club when her twin walked in, also known as her dad, Bruce Willis. How embarrassing for her, she's out with her friends and they're like, 'Umm, Rumer, I think your dad put something in my drink.'"

Along with dishing on celebrity news and Hollywood insanity with her Chelsea Lately roundtable guests, Chelsea Handler also conducts a celebrity interview every night. Guests range from D-list celebs, including reality stars from her own network, up to B-list musicians and TV stars. I'd love to see Chelsea Lately tackle some of the A-listers, but their agents probably want to keep them far away from Chelsea Handler's pull-no-punches style.

One famous Chelsea Handler interview was with rapper T.I., who'd been recently convicted of gun possession charges. Chelsea asked him right out how he felt about going to the Big House, and to explain to her why she herself might need a car full of semi-automatic weapons. T.I. tried to play it tough for awhile, but once Chelsea got into blunt discussions of his sex life and her own interest in dating black men, he couldn't hide his amused but slightly flustered surprise at her non-PC comments.

While funny and attention-getting, Chelsea Handler's interview tactics also succeed in showing us more of the real person underneath the celebrity facade. Interviewee's responses as they try to backpedal or save themselves from scary questions will often say a lot more about them than those cleverly rehearsed anecdotes on other talk fests ever could. Chelsea Handler also makes it a point not to give anyone more than they can handle. She gives the Chelsea Lately guests time to speak, and while she may be slyly teasing her less intelligent guests, she never goes so far as to induce tears or outrage. It's a fine balance to achieve, and it's fun to watch Chelsea Handler try.

Like any partially improvisational show, not all elements of Chelsea Lately work all of the time. Sometimes the Chelsea Lately roundtable guests are ill-prepared with lame jokes, or quieter guests get overshadowed by boisterous ones. Chelsea Handler's absurdist sketches and man-on-the-street stunts can often be more painful than funny, but the shtick on other late night shows isn't always all that funny, either.

Part of Chelsea Handler's rep is that she loves little people, especially her sidekick Chuy, whom she lovingly refers to as her "little nugget". When I first began watching Chelsea Lately, I wasn't sure she was exactly empowering little people with her insulting treatment of Chuy and the bizarre sketches she often made him take part in. Then I realized that she was practicing the most liberal form of equality. After all, all late night host's sidekicks and staff are ridiculed and forced to participate in humiliating stunts. The fact that Chuy got the job on Chelsea Lately, and gets treated the same as everyone else, is a huge jump for little people in the entertainment industry.

Chuy also gets his zingers in at Chelsea's expense, too, and every night when they step out to greet the audience and sign autographs, Chuy gets to affectionately pat Chelsea Handler's behind. It's a necessary element of Chelsea Handler's show that she's willing to poke fun at herself, at her drinking, promiscuity, and queenly placement on a second-rate trashy network. Chelsea Handler leaves viciously ridiculed celebrity carnage in her wake, but she can take the hits as well as she dishes them out.

Watch Chelsea Handler every weeknight on Chelsea Lately, airing at 11/10c on E! Check your local listings for encore and repeat airings.

Resources

¹ Karpel, Ari. "Too Hot to Handler." Entertainment Weekly (EW.com), July 18 (July 11), 2008.

² "Chelsea Handler Inks New Deal at Comcast." Hollywood Reporter, March 23, 2009.

Thank you for the great Chelsea Handler and Chelsea Lately quotes from the Chelsea Handler fansite.

Visit the official Chelsea Lately pages at E!online, and at IMDB.