Today, a talk show clip of a woman being abandoned by her twin or “proud to be ab***h” would go viral before you finish that sentence. Decades ago, we had Speak Soup. Debuting on January 7, 1991, the irreverent four-day-a-week E! show launched the host’s career hard Greg Kinnearwho, he pointed out The New York Timeshe seemed “constantly bewildered by strange things and subjects at hand, never resorting to aggression or pettiness.” John Henson succeeded him, connecting more comedy skits, followed by Hal Sparks i Aisha Tylerwho remembers we“Infuriating as it may be, Speak Soup He also had an Emmy!”
Who was involved
Kinnear had a couple of hosting gigs under his belt before he blew up Speak Soup… then he decided to act. Henson, a New York club comedian, thought, “If they ever hire anybody,” it could be great. “All I knew was auditioning,” he says we. “(The producers) told me that at one point they had interviewed maybe 3,000 people over 18 months in five cities.” Actor Sparks came next, but left after less than a year. “Huge fan” Tyler shut it down after a guest-host appearance sent fans into a frenzy. Still, he recalls, “Network executives told me to my face that they thought young men wouldn’t watch me as a host. Fortunately, they were wrong.”
Why do we remember it?
Speak Soup brought the fun i the shocker! The Clips: Alien Assaults, Hug Tips, Gerald Rivera against the KKK: He stood on his own. Interns scanned seven to nine hours of television a day, Henson says of his early days. “Jerry Springer was the Babe Ruth of talk show clips for us, because he was very reliable.” But the comedy bits became more and more important and defining. And absurd, he says: “We used to do this very serious segment called Profiles in Cablewhere would we, like, a Ken Burns documentary about different staff members.” Says Tyler, “We went from nodding to wild clips to having a different personality and point of view.” The costumes were a given, and Tyler’s Foxy Chocolat character (think: Pam GrierFoxy Brown) attracted fans like Quentin Tarantinowho asked for the VHS sketches. “I have conspired!” Tyler says.
Key details
from Roseanne Barr a William Shatner a Catherine O’Haracelebrities were happy to be soup ingredients The big hit? Dustin Hoffmanthat he watched and even sent his own clip! Naturally, the team conspired to get the actor in person, staging a fake hunger strike for a few weeks. “We actually got a scale model of the purple chair I sat in that was bigger so it looked like I was shrinking,” says Henson. It worked! Hoffman called and agreed to come.
The Consequences
Speak Soup ended abruptly in 2002, but a revamped version was dubbed The Soup was waiting in the wings. “We had actually shot two pilots that would cast a wider net through popular culture, pulling material from reality shows and the Internet in addition to talk shows,” Tyler explains. But the project was not carried out until 2004, when it was hosted by Joel McHale and full of Kardashian clips.
A new perspective
“Speak Soup it was definitely of its time. What seemed transgressive then would seem strange to people now,” offers Tyler. “TikTok is just an endless episode of Speak Soup.” Still, she and Henson list some of the shows that influenced them: Tosh.0, ridiculous, Watch What Happens liveeven The daily show.
where are they now
Kinnear, 62, recently appeared on Apple TV smoke and, in April, co-stars in Apple’s Margo has money problems. Henson, 58, has been hosting Food Network’s “super funny.” Halloween Baking Championship since 2017. And Tyler, 55, has a line of organic ready-to-drink cocktails (losophe.com), as well as a role in Paramount+’s Criminal Minds: Evolution.