The show showed a clip from a show about a boxing trainer who took his boxers to see a sports psychologist. She then proceeds to tell them to imagine they are peeling an orange, feeling the juice squirting from it, biting down on to it and imagining swallowing that juice. Joel then says "Okay fine, forget the orange. Imagine it's a kumquat!".
Anything said on Gold Rush Alaska. Joel doesn't even have to say anything; your dirty mind does the work.
They also showed a clip of an infomercial for a product called the "Pocket Hose", which is a hose that grows and then shrinks to fit back in your pocket, and even kids can use it. ("Daddy lets me watch while his hose gets bigger and shrinks back down into his pocket. I can even help him!")
Alternate Character Interpretation: If this show is mocking anything you watch for something besides Guilty Pleasures, do not watch the segment. Perhaps the crowning example is how before the actual split, one might've ended up utterly unable to see Jon & Kate Plus Eight as anything besides the tale of a harried man and his shrewish wife. Reports about their actual offscreen relationship made the mockery too true to be funny; one episode after that news broke started with Joel going "Jon & Kate Plus Eight...is just kind of sad now." and moving to the next topic. This did not stop them from mocking Jon and Kate themselves later.
Awesome Music: When The Bachelor aired a season subtitled "The Wings of Love", Joel introduced segments about it by playing Jeffrey Osborne's "On The Wings of Love" ("It's too sincere!"). In the awards episode, Joel actually brought on Osborne, who shilled a chicken wing joint called "Wings of Love" to the tune of the song.
Continuity Lock-Out: Largely averted but you'll probably have to do a bit of Archive Binging if you want to get all the running gags. Good luck figuring out why Joel repeatedly plays a clip of a woman shouting "CHICKEN TETRAZZINI" without digging through some old clips.
One glaring one was a morning news show talking about pregnancy and the anchor, using a bad choice of phrasing, jokingly starting saying "Abort! Abort!" when the discussion went south. Bad enough, but the abortion jokes following the clip from Joel compounded it.
The many jokes on the personal life of Anna Nicole Smith, considering her untimely death.
The constant slams on Whitney Houston (including the infamous "Kiss my ass!" clip) as a drug-addled mess. Joel openly noted how much it hurt when Houston died of a drug overdose (leading to that famous clip being retired).
The show openly acknowledged how they had once had Jared Fogle as a guest and treated as a cool guy long before his arrest for molestation.
Ever since Kim Kardashian announced her separation from Kris Humphries after only 72 days of marriage, there have been several segments using clips that are this in Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Most notably one moment where Kris says to Kim (paraphrased): "It's going to take a lot to get rid of me." Added to that is that Joel actually joked that the marriage would last for 75 days; he missed by three days!
When the first Twilight film came out, the series predicted it would overcome the popularity of Harry Potter films. While the former series does have a following, it hasn't done much of anything to overtake the popularity (or the money) of the latter, and most references made about Twilight in popular culture tend to be very critical of it.
When the show did a sketch parodying The Walking Dead, they made a joke about whether Hugh Hefner was a zombie ("We're not sure yet."). After Hefner's death, the joke can come off as this.
When news of Kim Kardashian's sex tape broke in early 2007, Joel cracked "I smell E's fall season!" Cut to eight months later...
The mocking of the meaningful glances in Triunfo del amor is a lot funnier when you go back and watch the "shipper videos" from the Community episode "Paradigms of Human Memory".
One clip included an interview that an E! reporter was having on the red carpet with Ricky Gervais, who was then known in the States primarily as the star of the British version of The Office (UK). In the interview, the woman asked him how it felt to be less famous than his American equivalent. Nowadays, Gervais is very well-known to American audiences and his fame and popularity is just as large as (if not actually eclipsing) Carell's. Whoops.
Ho Yay: Seth Green and Joel, every time the former shows up.
I Am Not Shazam: The show hasn't been Talk Soup since Joel's been hosting. Forget that, and you will show up on it. Yes, you. It was played up once it was announced the show was ending and Joel played various clips from news sources who all made the same mistake.
I Knew It!: Played for laughs: Joel joked that Kim Kardashian's marriage would last for only seventy-five days. It lasted seventy-two. "I won the office pool!"
Misaimed Fandom: The long-since-abandoned official YouTube channel of Gina D's Kids Club uploaded one of their appearances in the "What the Kids are Watching". Also doubles as Insult Backfire.
To mourn the passing of Telenovela and "Clips Magnificos" significant-glance-provider Triunfo del amor, William Levy, a star of the show, appeared on the show to mock E! and Joel, using Lucy Lawless as a translator.note It should be noted that William Levy does speak english, albeit with an accent. He then leaves with Lucy.
The July 4, 2012 Soup had Joel finally just out-and-out lose it when riffing a clip from Toddlers & Tiaras, one of his favorite shows to mock. After watching a mother force her daughter to practice a routine by whispering into her ear about them being on national television, Joel proceeded to walk right up to the camera and whisper:
Do you know who Cronos is? He was the Greek god (Titan) who ate his children, and he was a better parent than you! I hope you fall into a big pile of elephant shit with your mouth open, and if I see you walking and talking near one, I'm gonna push you in! (audience in the studio applauds)
Special Effects Failure: Mocked where appropriate, such as Syfy's original movies and a boat scene from Ringer. The gunshot sound effects used when Joel shoots Matt are hardly ever synced to their movements.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The Dancing Maxi Pad was a funny and adorable character who could have been as memorable as Mankini. Unfortunately, after just a few occasions of using her as a central joke, she was relegated to the background as a quick, barely-seen gag.
A particular "What the Kids Are Watching" segment involved a segment from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse in which the gang finds a "Triangle Bush" in the park, pushes the "Mickey Marker" button on it, and causes fireworks to shoot out of it. As Joel said, "Disneyland is truly the happiest place on Earth!"
Another one had a scene from Liberty's Kids about the British Admiral Richard Howe, nicknamed "Black Dick". The other sailors say about him "Give us Black Dick and we fear nothing".
