Joel McHale on Cancellation: Netflix Is ‘King of the World Right Now’

By Nate Nickolai

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – Joel McHale spoke about the recent cancellation of his Netflix talk show during a guest appearance on the “Jim Norton and Sam Roberts” show on SiriusXM.

The reason Netflix pulled the plug?
“I don’t think they liked my sweaters,” McHale joked.
“Obviously Netflix has trained their audience to binge watch, and we actually tried that, as well. But so far people aren’t watching Netflix that way.”

The cancellation came just months into the run of
“The Show with Joel McHale’s
,” following only 19 episodes. On the talk show, the former “The Soup” host featured celebrity guests and discussed comical moments from television, internet videos and the entertainment world at large.

Now that the show is canceled, McHale, said he no longer has to watch some of the nonsense television that he normally covered such as the “Real Housewives” television series. Instead, he can spend time getting back into his Dostoyevsky books, he joked.

However, McHale said he is grateful for the opportunity that Netflix gave him.

“They are the king of the world right now, so believe me, I was very happy about the opportunity,” he said. “I’m a desperate workaholic … I don’t ever want to have to get a real job.”

Netflix recently canceled other talk shows, including Michelle Wolf’s “The Break with Michelle Wolf” after just one season and Chelsea Handler’s “Chelsea” after its second season.