Comedian finds treasure in trash TV

By Kathy Cano-Murillo
Arizona Republic

She is a graduate of Dartmouth, has sported sexy skivvies on the cover of Maxim and is known for delivering a mean punch line.

So why, exactly, would this six-foot goddess want to make a living watching raunchy clips from seedy talk shows?

Because she's comedian Aisha Tyler, the mistress of mayhem for "Talk Soup," the E! Channel's daily dishing of the most outrageous segments from trash TV.

Sure, she's loaded with beauty and brains, but she confesses her undying passion for her job. Each day, she gleefully welcomes no-class clips that celebrate everything from two-timing, cross-dressing husbands to cake-wrestling trailer-park strippers.

"I think of these shows like modern opera," says the 30-year-old. "Like Oedipus. Here's this kid who was abandoned as a child, and he grows up to kill his father and marry his mother and ends up gouging his eyes out. These shows are embodiments of old tragedies. They fill our needs to be voyeurs. People have always been drawn to circus sideshows or gossip; that compulsion to watch is universal."

The success of "Talk Soup" backs her claim. The campy formula, laced with one-liners and skits, was launched in 1991 with Greg Kinnear. He would be the first in a string of hosts to leave for a Hollywood career. When Hal Sparks followed suit in 2000, leaving for a starring role in the Showtime series "Queer as Folk," E! relied on a revolving list of celebrity guests, including Jennifer Love Hewitt and Carnie Wilson, until a permanent replacement was found.

At the time, Tyler was working the comedy circuit. She saw the show's ad in Variety and jumped at the chance for an audition, even though she knew a woman had never filled the permanent role. E! gave her a test run and was won over by her pithy presence and wacky demeanor.

As the show's host throughout the past year, she has dressed up her act by morphing into such flashy characters as Bootsy Tyler, Foxy Chocolate and Crouching Tigress (see pictures on her Web site, aishatyler.com).

On the stand-up circuit, Tyler's routine includes the usual hits on current events, but she also dives into a deep, dark place that she calls her "torturous childhood."

"I was raised a vegetarian," she says, laughing. "When I was a kid, I totally would always try to sneak meat at my friend's house. Now it's like, 'Bring on the meat.' "