Showtime: Joel McHale, Sunrise Theatre, Fort Pierce

First of all, Joel McHale may well have the greatest job in America.

As the host of “The Soup”, McHale shows clips of a wide variety of TV shows — from talk shows to prime time and even YouTube — and snarks on all of them.

Joel McHale

As I found out on Sunday night, he sometimes doesn’t exactly get away with it. During his very relaxed stand-up set, McHale did allow the audience in on the fact that some folks aren’t too happy with him.

Especially Tyra Banks.

And for good reason — it sure seems McHale tends to save his best stuff for Miss Tyra, the former model and now talk-show and reality-TV host. But then, it’s not like he has a choice… Tyra supplies plenty of ammo with her sometimes odd, many times over-the-top personality. I mean, if you really do have a fear of dolphins, wouldn’t you, gee I dunno, stay as far from dolphins as humanly possible?

Fortunately, McHale’s good nature tends to win a lot of people over (even Kim Kardashian, who almost takes as many shots as Tyra does on the E! show). Even when he skewers someone — and he did Sunday, from Hugh Hefner to Denise Richards — it’s pretty much all in good fun. Gotta make life bearable working for a place that produces — how did opener Chris Hardwick put it? Oh yeah — unwatchable programming.

Chris Hardwick

While E! shows are a gold mine for McHale (and, as it turns out, Hardwick, who works on the same lot as McHale while taping the G4 network’s “Attack of the Show”), he didn’t just stick to that. He also told tales about his family, and how his young son could go from being future genius to future retard and back in the space of seconds.

He was also a very gracious performer, hanging out in front of the theater for photos with fans, including my wife and me. Here he is with her — he’s telling me to “PUSH THE DAMN BUTTON!” I think, as I had a serious “camera fail”:

My wife with Joel! Take the picture, man!

Thank God these photos worked out, as cell pix from inside the theater were pathetically awful:

To see what Joel’s standup is all about (and to get clarification that yes, he does indeed talk about Ryan Seacrest), please to enjoy:

And here’s a bit about his son, Eddie:

Choice concerts: A viral phenomenon

O.A.R., Oct. 4, Centre for the Arts at Mizner Park, Boca Raton

You can have all of the billboards in the world. You can put videos on MTV. You can drive around the suburbs in an old police car with a giant bullhorn attached. You can even release five singles from your first album at the same time.

But nothing beats word of mouth.

That’s how O.A.R. got momentum going at first. Mind you, it’s not like that band in college that everyone knew because of literal word of mouth. The Internet helped. So did good musicianship and songwriting.

The band kept its fans through superb work on stage, and it’s definitely worth your time.

Enjoy one of their earliest songs, “That Was A Crazy Game of Poker”:

Also: Tampa supergroup Dive Bar Stalkers invade Delray’s City Limits on Friday… Apocalyptica is worth a glance because they play “cello metal”, and seeing once-in-a-lifetime things right now is a good idea. Culture Room, Fort Lauderdale, Saturday … Also one of those OIAL things is the great blues vocalist Bobby “Blue” Bland, coming to City Limits on Saturday … Two comedians head to town Sunday: Lewis Black at the Kravis Center in West Palm, and Joel McHale of E!’s “The Soup” to Fort Pierce’s Sunrise Theater.