That's My Boy!

[Trigger warning.]

So, Joel McHale, comedian and host of The Soup, was one of Conan O'Brien's first guests after taking over The Tonight Show, and the segment was one of the most disturbing things I've seen in late night television for awhile (which is really saying something). The video is here, if you are so inclined.

The first half of the interview is just general bullshit chat, and then O'Brien asks McHale about his two sons, at which point McHale launches into a story about his four-year-old hitting on a bikini-clad woman at a wedding reception. The two men chuckle admiringly about how much "game" the little kid has, and it only gets worse from there.

McHale: Then we had this friend over—her name's Kim—she was the most popular girl in high school and she would date nobody. My son was way into her. She was taking a bath in our guest room, and he heard the water, and, much like Superman changing in seconds in a phone booth, he opened the bathroom door, took his clothes off, jumped in the bath [audience begins to laugh uncomfortably as McHale mimes breast-grabbing], and began playing with her boobs. [audience laughs and gasps] And—I'm not joking—


[cut to O'Brien looking unnerved and Gwyneth Paltrow laughing]

McHale: —he scored—and then he goes, he goes, "Open your legs; I want to be closer to you." [audience laughs and gasps; McHale looks proud; O'Brien looks stricken; Paltrow laughs] He scored in fifteen seconds! An entire high school couldn't do what he pulled off in seconds. [audience howls]

O'Brien: You've got to talk to him! This is going to be a problem! [audience laughs] When he gets older—

McHale: No, he's got a book deal!

O'Brien: When he's nineteen and he's jumping into bathtubs, this is gonna be a huge problem!

McHale: I have been encouraging him, so, this is— [O'Brien laughs; Paltrow laughs; audience laughs] But yeah, he's, uh, he's the greatest, so I mean—until he gets arrested for doing that.

[McHale then talks about his 14-month-old son, who "doesn't do anything" yet; O'Brien jokes about McHale having high expectations]

McHale [as if to baby]: Get out there and harass older women! Come on, like your brother!

O'Brien: Yeah, fondle someone's boobies! Come on!

[McHale mimes fondling breasts roughly; audience howls]

There's so much wrong with this, I hardly know where to begin. The casual hilarity of sexual assault, the implied "just desserts" for the high school ice queen, the invasion of her privacy (twice), the invasion of the son's privacy, the inappropriate behavior of a curious child recast as sexual aggression, the fatherly pride of a sexually aggressive son, the collusion of the show host and audience in rescuing this vile anecdote by pretending it's harmless and funny, the deeming of this content as appropriate for a national audience…

I'll leave you to parse the rest in comments.

Maude save us.