Anyone who knows me knows which part of Sunday night is my favourite. No, it's not Mad Men, though it does rank pretty high. No, it's not The Simpsons - what are you, high? That hasn't been funny for nearly a decade.

No, my favourite part of Sunday night is the half hour when E! Canada airs The Soup, the show that makes fun of pop culture so well that I realize how much of a fraud I am. Normally, this would make me despondent and likely to drink bleach to end my misery, but goshdarn it, The Soup host Joel McHale is so charming, hilarious and, let's face it, quite the fox that my momentary sadness is immediately turned into amusement, elation and a little bit of arousal. Add in the fact that he's well above six feet tall and makes Ryan Seacrest look even more elfin whenever they're on screen together? Take me, Joel!

Now, yes, McHale is pretty dapper, but that's not why I love him. He is a master of comic timing, which helps, but is not the real reason why I love him. McHale has earned my love because 1) he knows how low down on the E! ladder he and his show are and he doesn't mind mocking himself, 2) he gets wonderfully angry at incredibly stupid people, and 3) despite his job description, sometimes even he is amazed at how ridiculous it is.

Case in point:

How can you not want to nuzzle the crotch of a man as eloquent as this? (And yes, the video says it airs Fridays, but that's for the States - in Canada, it's on Sundays.)

Another reason to love The Soup and McHale is that he and the writers love, love, love to come up with ways to sneak dirty jokes past the sensors. Sure, any writer could change a few words and put something like "I hit him in his winkle area!" on the air, but it takes real skill and charisma to put something really filthy without setting off the censors' profanity alert.

My favourite example from the last few weeks was when they showed a clip from an interview with the woman who claimed to have had an affair with Alex Rodriguez. The clip in question featured the woman explaining that when she was sleeping with the Yankee, people gave her the nickname "Yankee Skank."

Joel's reply? "Yeah, and when she lived in Chicago, they called her 'Cub Dumpster.'"

I can't even put into words how jealous I am that they came up with that line and I didn't.

While McHale is also an actor and has appeared in Spider-Man 2 and on Pushing Daisies, I am torn between whether I want him to get as famous as he deserves or if I want him to remain a bit of a secret so I can feel as though he belongs to me. (That's not creepy, right? Not at all.) If he gets famous, then I'll have to turn into those annoying "I loved Joel McHale before he got popular" DBs, and I hate those people! Maybe I should just claim him now so there's no question later. I call dibs on Joel McHale! 

Yes, I am aware he is married and has children. This is of little interest to me.

As a closer to this post, let's take a look at another Soup clip where even Joel can't believe how surreal television can be. Swoon!