“Sooooo Meaty.” – Head Over Feels Visits The Soup

Posted by Kim

It’s no secret that here at Head Over Feels our love for Joel McHale knows no bounds.  So once we learned that Joel was in New York for the summer and would be taping The Soup here, we knew that we had to go.  The lovely Jaime secured tickets for me, Sage and Michelle (the last time the 4 of us encountered Joel we gave him a trophy that he STILL HAS. No big deal.) and we all arranged to take half days (or in my case a full day) off of work and meet up at Chelsea Studios (where Rachel Ray and Wendy Williams film their shows!).

Observations from the taping…

– This is why you ALWAYS get to things early: We were told by the audience coordinator to be at the studio by 12:30, so naturally we decided to meet around noon to ensure that we would be first in line.  Jaime and Michelle got to the studio a little bit before noon and got to see the man himself arriving for the taping…AND he recognized their faces.  YEP.  I, on the other hand, made the world’s WORST decision and stopped for an iced coffee on my way to the studio.  Though I am telling myself I never would have made it there on time in the first place, and had I NOT stopped for the iced coffee, I would have missed Joel by mere seconds, not by several minutes.  Yep.  That’s what I am going with.

– It’s a very casual atmosphere at The Soup but we all opted to wear pretty summer outfits anyway.  Cause let’s be honest, we were dressing for our pictures with Joel afterwards…

– Naturally, we were the first ones into the holding room and we WOULD have been in the front row of the taping, had the first two rows not been reserved for a whole lot of Advertising Executives.  We had to settle for the third row.  Wah wah.

– Mankini is pretty hot in person, y’all.

– While we were waiting for the taping to start various producers chatted with the audience and they played an audio montage of Soup favorite Greg Kelly.  When they said they were going to do so, I promptly shouted “Science!!”, which elicited quite a laugh from the producers.  I have a problem keeping my mouth shut in these situations, as the very next night at the screening of The Way Way Back I reacted so audibly when the moderator said they would be screening The Sandlot that weekend that he said “Well I guess we’ll see YOU there.” #sorrynotsorry

– There was a girl whose ONLY JOB was artfully mussing Joel’s hair and straightening his tie (which was distressingly unskinny).  Needless to say we all hated her.  And at one point he called her a “sexy lab tech” which made our hatred/insane jealousy even stronger.

– Also Joel looked all dapper from the waist up in his suit jacket, button down and tie which made the fact that he was wearing neon yellow sneakers and jeans all the more amusing.

– During our taping Joel had so much energy he bordered on an overgrown (adorable) hyper-active child.  He could barely stand still.  He had to be told several times to go to his mark and whenever he would mess up he would do a little dance and drop a litany of curse words.  Not that he wasn’t professional…cause the man EMBODIES professionalism and gave every take every bit he had.

– We had a FANTASTIC episode.  Listen closely to this segment and you DEFINITELY hear us cackling, as we were sitting directly under the mic…

(Tragically they DID edit out the entire audience GASPING in astonishment at the “blacker than that board” comment.)

– Joel got the GIGGLES during this clip and when the segment went to commercial break was STILL laughing about it and asking where they got all those clips.

– At one point they decided to add a new clip to the show, so they took a brief break to write some jokes.  Joel was crouched over a table directly in our line of vision and we…ahem…took a little time to enjoy the view.

– It was also amusing to hear Joel actually dropping all the f-bombs and various curse words that they later bleep out for the broadcast.  Also, I would never believe some of this clips were real (especially that Lifetime movie one) if I hadn’t seen them with my very own eyes.

– During breaks between segments Joel chatted with the audience about everything from shooting his movie in the Bronx to going to a shooting range to the wretched heat wave that had engulfed New York City for the week.  We also had a policeman in the audience who had been in a freak bike accident who Joel took great delight in (gently) making fun of.

– After the show itself was filmed, Joel had to still film several promos and webisodes, which was fun to watch AND we got to see some of the more delightful clips again.

– Joel always sticks around to take pictures after the show, but he scared the bejeezus out of the audience by saying “YOU BETTER FUCKING HAVE YOUR CAMERAS READY.”  These of course were empty threats as he was completely patient when Michelle’s camera phone wasn’t ready and was acting up when it was her turn to get her picture taken.

– As soon as the taping was done, we shoved Jaime forward to be first in line for a snuggle.  Cause she is the youngest and cutest and smallest.

– As he did with Jaime and Michelle, Joel now recognizes both me and Sage, which is nothing short of delightful.  It’s only a matter of time before we are all going out for margaritas right??  (And the picture Sage and I got with him is totally being converted to black and white and going up on my wall.)  Oh, also he commented on our dresses (“Lovely summer dresses!” were the exact words).  So looking cute, as it always does, pays off.

– As we were leaving Joel said, “Come Back again!!” …which totally gives us license to go to one more taping before he leaves NYC…right?

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