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| Nicole Sullivan on Talk Soup, August 24, 2000. |
Having made her first appearance on Talk Soup in June 2000,
Nicole Sullivan became part of a series of rotating guest hosts, and
made her third appearance on the show on August 24, 2000. I recently
rescreened the episode, and while none of the clips (or for that matter,
Ms. Sullivan's comments) were outrageously funny, watching the episode
was interesting nonetheless, since it gives us a good picture of what
the world was like in 2000. First of all, my cable provider wasn't
airing E! 24 hours a day back then; as a result, I missed the last
minute or so of this show because Cablevision switched to CSpan 2 just
before it ended. The 2000 presidential campaign was just starting to
heat up, and as a result we get two politically-related clips. Finally,
one of the clips is from the now-defunct Politically Incorrect.
[Viewing this clip reinforced my suspicion that Arianna Huffington
is one dumb broad and that Al Franken isn't funny.]
Nicole Sullivan on Talk Soup, August 24, 2000.
By this point, Talk Soup was covering a wide variety of shows. Along with the typical daytime trash TV (Jerry Springer and its progeny, along with all the judge shows), we have coverage of lighter fare like Donny And Marie, Ainsley Harriot, and even a bit of the nighttime talk shows. Thus we a treated to such gems as a father graphically describing an incestuous union with his daughter (from The Jerry Springer Show - Ms. Sullivan responds by singing "Froggy Went A-Courtin'" in an attempt to dispel the disturbing images which undoubtedly must have formed in the minds of everyone who listened to the dirty old man's ramblings), a woman accusing her soon-to-be-ex-husband in divorce court of forcing a quid pro quo of sex for cash before he would give her money to buy food and diapers (an accusation that undoubtedly was given a sympathetic airing given the current state of divorce law and the fact that the judge was a woman), and a clip from Conan O'Brien in which the head of Calista Flockhart is superimposed onto the body of a dinosaur to create a "Calistasaurus" (this inspired a mildly funny bulimia joke).
As I mentioned earlier, this edition of Talk Soup represents, more than anything else, a snapshot of a moment in time. Nothing exemplifies this more than a clip from Politically Incorrect in which Al Franken and Arianna Huffington lie in bed together (they're a couple, you see) and they both bemoan the fact that the two major parties both solicit big campaign contributions. I guess Al Franken is supposed to represent Democrats, and Arianna Huffington is supposed to represent Republicans (they might as well have selected members of the Three Stooges; they couldn't have represented the two major parties any worse and they would have been just as funny as Franken and Huffington even though they are dead. I suppose this was before Huffington made the metamorphosis from neocon to trendy liberal (and one that claims that driving an SUV makes one an accessory to terrorism, no less) - or perhaps there is no difference between the two?
Watching these clips reminds me of a scene from the movie Butterflies Are Free, which periodically shows up on AMC. Eileen Heckert, who plays the author of children's novels, gets into an argument with her blind son after they return from a play that featured a lot of violence. "Those things are all part of life." Heckert replies, "So is diarrhea, but I don't classify it as entertainment." Well, kids, this diarrhea is what passed for entertainment in the year 2000.
Unless you're nostalgic for a time when Al Gore was a force in national politics or the sight of Al Franken and/or Arianna Huffington gives you a chubbie, you'll probably won't want to bother securing a copy of this program - that is, unless you're a die-hard Nicole Sullivan fan. This wasn't her finest hour - there's only so much you can do with a handful of mediocre clips - but the show had some good moments.
Video clips (in Windows Media 8.0 format):