Kathy Griffin or Chelsea Handler: Which Funny Lady Is Better Suited For Network TV?

By Emily Hall Posted Mar 17th 2011 04:00PM

Audiences love potty-mouthed comedienne Kathy Griffin, 50, who has jumped from D-list to A-list in the last few years. She made her name as a stand-up comic in club appearances and on her clever, Emmy-winning Bravo TV reality show, 'My Life on the D List.' Now the funny lady is packing the house -- she recently had to add two shows -- in New York with her hilarious new Broadway show 'Kathy Griffin Wants a Tony.'

Then there's Chelsea Handler, 36, who, in addition to hosting E!'s nightly 'Chelsea Lately,' has a new second E! show ('After Lately'), a sitcom in-the works for NBC based on her life and her own new book imprint label, for which she has a three-book deal, with one tome planned to be written through the eyes of her dog Chunk.

Both funny ladies trash celebrities, poke holes in popular culture and talk about who they want to schtup. Even though each excels on stage with in-your-face humor, have great timing and can roll their eyes like nobody's business, their styles are different, and as their respective empires continue to expand, it seems like only a matter of time before one of them makes a play for a big-time late-night network chat fest. But which funny lady is better suited for a network gig?

"By the end of the show I was convinced that Ms. Griffin was suffering from a mild but highly profitable form of attention deficit disorder, and I was beginning to think it was contagious," wrote New York Times critic Charles Isherwood. "But her highly unsystematic approach to stand-up is what gives this show its feeling of spontaneity and intimacy."

The outrageous redhead moves from topic to topic at rapid-fire pace and is getting great reviews while joking about a range of issues and people, from Charlie Sheen and Sarah Palin to Oprah Winfrey and Elisabeth Hasselbeck. Griffin seems to walk on stage with an outline of what she thinks her audience might want to hear, and feeds off their reactions, catering the show to the room while scratching at her notepad when a joke doesn't quite land and asking her audience to remind her of stories she meant to tell when she goes off topic.

Conversely, Handler is at her best when she has all her ducks in a row and has proven herself an adept interviewer. Handler's first book, 2005's 'My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands,' helped put her on the map. "I didn't think I was going to be able to do this," she wrote about picking up a guy in a bar to help her recover from a boyfriend dumping her. "I ordered a double. He smiled at me in a way I'm assuming he thought was debonair and said, 'You know, you don't have to drink to make yourself more fun to be around.' I wanted to tell him I was drinking so that he was more fun to be around."

Griffin is better at political jokes, but Handler is inching in that direction and wants to do more of it in the coming election year. While Griffin can talk for two hours without stopping and seems very comfortable doing so, Handler likes to shock in short clips, including calling Angelia Jolie a "f**king c**t" and discussing "some of the best sex I can barely remember."

Griffin, with her decades of experience, may be less self-conscious, but Handler is hot, and she knows it and uses it to her advantage even when she is interviewing stars, which can backfire with the wrong guest. (She needs to know the guest is the star, even if it's only for eight minutes.) Both have devout followers -- Handler has millions of young female fans, while Griffin perches like a pasha before herds of fawning gay men who can't get enough of her bawdy and irreverent humor.

The celery-thin Griffin is bursting with energy and is in demand, but outside of her celebrated stand-up and compelling reality TV presence, she hasn't proven herself a multi-medium superstar in quite the same way Handler, a one woman entertainment conglomerate with her diverse menu of projects, has. So it's really a draw. Handler doesn't (yet) have the think-on-her-toes delivery that has served Griffin so well and which the best late night personalities (Letterman, Carson) have proven is a requirement of the genre, but Griffin needs to show she can stay on task the way mega-pro Handler does.

Tags: chelsea handler, kathy griffin

Comments

(95)

Thursday 17 March

By JoeyO'H

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Kathy! Hands down!

By bigD

i loved Chelsea until she fired Guy Branim. Now her monologues are not nearly as funny and the round table sorely misses him. Plus Kathy doesn't seem as mean spirited or like she has such a big ego.

By stu

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Neither!
Y did Chelsea fire Guy?

By E-NUF

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"POTTY MOUTH" MY ARZZ. Her mouth is a full blown dump.
Her face turns my stomach and her mouth makes me vomit.
I can't get to the remote fast enough when her face shows
up on an ad. Her audience is garbage just like her.

By ftuna2u2

Is it just me or does Kathy Griffin look just like Iggy Pop?

By Larry

Kathy isn't funny, she is ugly though.

By pugz

the one bright-spot in all of that is that she won't always be funny, but she will ALWAYS be ugly. even with ALL the re-sculpting, slicing, and dicing she has had done.

By derob

GEE...THAT'S LIKE CHOOSING BETWEEN A PUDDLE AND A FAUCET DRIP.

By Robin

HaHa thats a good one.

By kay

Couldn't have put it better myself!

By kit

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they are both bitc*y, but Chelsea is less phony and is much prettier!

By gregula

these 2 are the reason never to date jewish women .

By smartmolly