If you weren’t familiar with the inarguable charms of Greg Kelly—the former White House correspondent, NY1 anchor, son of police commissioner Ray Kelly, and Good Day New York host—you should be. He’s recently been in the news for having run into the law. Before he was a New York Post headline, he was a regular punchline on The Soup, E! Television’s weekly rundown of the most ridiculous things on TV.
Often on The Soup, the clips come from inside the house: Kim Kardashian, Ryan Seacrest, and the rest of the network’s wacky “characters” offer plenty of great material for host and Community star Joel McHale to riff on. But Greg Kelly soon became a regular feature on the show, for what some might consider his brutal, unflinching honesty in the face of some of the news he was forced to talk about (others might consider it an inability to self-censor).
As such, without further ado and in no particular order—and apropos of only the most salient of news pegs—here are some of the greater moments from Mr. Kelly’s repetoir:
5. Greg Kelly On The Difference Between Blacks and Whites. Sometimes, the anchors of Good Day NY have time to fill. They fill it with anecdotes illuminating their personal lives. Here’s one about the way Greg Kelly sees color:
[Related: “You’re being very white! Embrace it! Embrace it.]
4. Greg Kelly On The Need For Perspective. Every duo needs its dynamic. In Mr. Kelly and Good Day NY co-host Rosanna Scotto’s, theirs revolves around her relentless optimism, and his carefully metered need to put things into a less…idealistic…context:
3. Greg Kelly Finds Your Durability Appealing. The old “that’s what she said” trope is simply too tired for such highly-agile comic minds as Mr. Kelly’s, who perfers a higher level of sophistication to his sexual innuendo asides.
2. Greg Kelly Is Okay With Your “Alternative Lifestyle” So Long As You Keep It At Least Three Feet Away. One morning, Greg and Rosanna had the cast of an off-Broadway show come visit them. The show? My Big Gay Italian Wedding. Somebody actually did a forensics-style breakdown of the entire clip. You’ll get the picture fairly quickly:
1. Greg Kelly Wants You To Burn To Death From Hanukkah Fever. If any one clip of Greg Kelly—especially from The Soup—perfectly encapsulates the character we’ve all come to know and love, it’s this one. Good Day NY has brought a band to the set, one ready to take the world (of Jews who are into this sort of thing) by storm, with their “hit” single, “Hanukkah Fever.” As bubbly co-host Rosanna Scotto is summoned to jam on stage with the band, they try to rope Mr. Kelly into the proceedings. His reaction, one which requires few words on his part, is that of a man barely able to control his seething hatred of the moment he’s living in:
Greg Kelly currently stands accused of rape.
fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek
