Joel McHale (Margot Schulman)

By DCist contributor Peter Tabakis

Actor-comedian Joel McHale was in D.C. on Tuesday to inaugurate the District of Comedy Festival at the Kennedy Center. The four-day event, which concludes on Saturday, brings together household names like Judd Apatow and Jay Pharoah as well as up-and-coming comics.

McHale is best known for his work on The Soup, which recently ended its 12-year run on the E! network, and the critically beloved sitcom Community. He spoke with the DCist about hosting the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, leaving The Soup behind, joining The X-Files (but not the next Avengers movie), and bringing more comedy to Washington in our time of need.

DCist: You’re kicking off the first annual District of Comedy Festival here at the Kennedy Center. What’s there to laugh about as we face the existential horror of the 2016 presidential election?

Joel McHale: Wow. Well, that’s exactly why we’re here. That’s why Capital One had to give $5 million to get people to laugh out here.

DCist: Seems a little low.

McHale: Oh really? How much did you give? We’re still up to zero, right?

DCist: [laughs] Zero.

McHale: It’s obviously a crazy time right now. So it is great that Capital One is paying this much money for a comedy festival here at the freaking Kennedy Center. And it should be a festival instead of just one show, to hammer home comedy in this great city of yours.

DCist: Do you almost hope Trump wins in the fall for the material alone?

McHale: Well…some comedian said it: [Trump’s] done so much already, you run out of things to talk about in a weird way.

DCist: He’s almost too easy a target.

McHale: Where do you go? The absurdity is pretty amazing. That guy, in a radio interview, got asked about the difference between some terrorist groups in the Middle East. And Trump just goes, “Look, I don’t know the answer to that, but in one month I’ll know the answer, and I’ll know it better than you!” And I was like, why was that never an option for me in high school?

DCist: That’s all you need.

McHale: Yeah, “I don’t know chemistry, I’ll be back in a month.”

DCist: On the other hand, what about a second Clinton presidency? Are you worried about the return of hacky, Jay Leno-style cigar and Big Mac jokes?

McHale: No, I’m not worried about that at all. I think there will be, obviously, rich comedy on that side as well. It’s funny. I’m not really a political comic, as evidenced by my 12 years of fart jokes on E!. 

DCist: By the way, I’m a big fan.

McHale: God bless. You know, Whitney Houston had her own reality show and that was the biggest deal for us [on The Soup]. And when “Tyra” was on. But there’s always going to be comedy on both sides. I think Hillary’s delivery can be a little robotic sometimes.

DCist: That’s your angle.

McHale: That probably is.

DCist: You’re not completely apolitical. You hosted the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in 2014. Who did you piss off?

McHale: I thought I would piss off Chris Christie, but he couldn’t have been happier. We took a photo afterwards. And then he contacted me a week later and asked if I would tape something for the…it was, like, the “New Jersey Correspondents’ Dinner”? And I once again destroyed the man. And he was like, “Thanks, great, I love it!”

DCist: You know, he may be our next VP or Attorney General.

McHale: He might be! I also made fun of [Robert] DeNiro, and I’ve now done four events since, doing the exact same thing.

DCist: So you’re ingratiating yourself with insults?

McHale: Yeah. I made a drone strike joke that I don’t think the President liked very much. But what are you going to do?

DCist: Speaking of which, what was it like meeting the Obamas?

McHale: Oh, it was amazing. My son, though, had just projectile vomited all over the room. And if you look at any of the photos, we had turned his head away so he wouldn’t vomit on the President. It really raised the stakes.

DCist: So he didn’t hit Obama? 

McHale: He seemed to have gotten it all out earlier. And then cut to the very nice Eric Stonestreet and Andrew Luck helping out, trying to clean up vomit. So it was the perfect time, right before one of the biggest gigs of my life.

DCist: We mentioned The Talk earlier.

McHale:The Talk?

DCist: [laughs] Yes, the CBS show. No — sorry, I meant The Soup.

McHale: No, no, no — it’s a very similar show! Me and Julie Chen look a lot alike. As you remember, The Soup was a group of women discussing daily fluff stories and having guests on

DCist: Do you have bad-pop-culture PTSD? Are you still keeping up with the Kardashians?

McHale: No! [laughs] I had to keep up with the Kardashians. I think all of the world does.

DCist: Unfortunately.

McHale: It’s weird, I don’t think about it that much. You know, when you stop doing something and you kinda go, “Oh yeah, I used to do that thing.” It was a great time, and I did it with all my friends. And now it’s been six months.

DCist: It’s evaporated.

McHale: Yeah. I was ready to move on and so were they.  

DCist: You worked with [Captain America: Civil War directors] the Russo brothers on Community, and now they’ve moved on to big pictures. 

McHale: Like what? I know they produced Animal Practice on NBC.

DCist: And Arrested Development! Will you perhaps be donning a cape for Avengers: Infinity War?

McHale: I will be Dyna Girl.

DCist: Dyna Girl?

McHale: That was a superhero from The Krofft Supershow.

DCist: I was thinking [Marvel superhero] Adam Warlock.

McHale: No, I’m joking. That was a TV show from the ‘70s. [laughs] But they haven’t called yet. They did call Danny [Pudi] and Jim [Rash], so they’ve got the rest of the cast to get through. They’ll probably call me to be some ticket taker at an actual theater where they’re playing one of the Avengers movies. I’ll be, like, Captain America’s fluffer or something.

DCist: If only! So, in The X-Files reboot you played a conspiracy theorist who ends up going on a date with Agent Scully. Did you base your character on anyone in particular?

McHale: No!

DCist: Really?

McHale: Kinda. I didn’t do an impression of anyone. There are a number of radio-show hosts. People [were] like, “Are you [doing] Glenn Beck?” But Glenn Beck doesn’t think these things — he’s not as out there as this guy was. But believe me, I was just hoping to get my lines right because I was such a massive fan of the show, and of David Duchovny, and Gillian Anderson, and Chris Carter. I was like, “Why are you casting me? You don’t need to do this. Is this a bet?” So I was thrilled. I don’t know why it hasn’t come back. It got like 50 million viewers the first night. Fox, what are you doing!

DCist: Well, it just aired this year.

McHale: Well, you’d think they would have gotten it going by now.

DCist: So you don’t have any word about what’s happening?

McHale: No, I have no idea. I’m doing some fan fiction episodes in my garage. I asked Gillian to be in them, and she turned me down for some reason. I just saw her in A Streetcar Named Desire at St. Ann’s Warehouse in New York, and it was spellbinding.

DCist: I bet she killed it.

McHale: Oh my gosh, it was good.

DCist: The Great Indoors on CBS is your next project. You’re battling millennials?

McHale: I do like how they’re billing it as, “It’s [Joel McHale] versus millennials!” It’s three generations, which happens often in offices in real life—the young people, the people in their 40s, and the people like Stephen Fry who are a little bit older. And it’s about those relationships. But yes, there’s a lot of millennial stuff, and I think that’s how [CBS is] pushing it. But my character’s been out in the woods for 20 years, so he doesn’t know any of that stuff.

DCist: Like a Jon Krakauer type.

McHale: Yeah, like Jon Krakauer or Bear Grylls. So it should be the funniest show on television!

DCist: Which group is more hated: politicians or millennials?

McHale: Politicians. I think Satan worshipers are higher than politicians. Wouldn’t you agree?

DCist: I’d go with politicians. By a slight margin.

McHale: I just like how the politicians wear the exact same outfit every day.

DCist: Blue suit, red tie.

McHale: Blue suit, white shirt, red tie, and a pin. And if they didn’t wear that, I don’t know what would happen. They’d be thrown into the Potomac or something. Imagine if someone wore a cream-colored suit? Or a tan suit!

DCist: Aaron Schock, a former congressman from Illinois, tried to spice it up a little bit.

McHale: One time I think Obama forgot his pin and people were like, “He’s not an American!”

DCist: Cue the Fox News “breaking news” alert.

McHale: Yeah…I’m not wearing a pin tonight. That’s a problem.

DCist: Can you borrow one?

McHale: [looks around the room] Anybody got any flag pins?

The District of Comedy Festival concludes at the Kennedy Center on 6/25. Shows on Friday and Saturday include Jane Lynch, Second City, Judd Apatow, and Reggie Watch.