There's this grainy Zapruder film of the world's best living comic, Louis C.K., appearing on The View, and he's getting completely manhandled. Without telling him beforehand, the show had clipped up his then-new show on HBO, Lucky Louie, the ladies tuned down to their brusque baritones, and The View went on the offensive.
You feel bad for the guy, really. All he did was create a show about murder and how great drinking mercury is for the health of our children, and he got into this big pile of trouble.
Oh, wait. His show was about how difficult marriage can be. The outrage!
The show got canceled. Last fall, C.K.'s self-directed show Louie debuted on FX and Hulu, quickly becoming one of the most critically acclaimed shows on television.
So imagine Ricky Gervais' lack of surprise when he stopped by The View today and was presented with his own jokes from the Golden Globes. They were, of course, delivered to him with the icy glares of an angry vice principal.
Here's the play-by-play of the clip above:
Joy Behar: "Referring to Sex and the City 2, you said, 'I was sure that the Golden Globe would go to the team that airbrushed that poster."
Audience: (Begins laughing.)
Joy Behar: "Little sexist."
Audience: (Stoned silence, followed by the sound of millions of housewives tsking off in the distance.)
But watch him masterfully deflect. Then watch them squirm.
His performance validates the need to have a biographical survival guide present whenever comedians go behind enemy lines and face the rapid-fire, hard-hitting questions posed by Behar and her ilk.
Here's an excerpt from our pamphlet's preface.
1) Have a tape recorder handy that plays louder, happy-sounding music to blare over the montage that bashes your entire livelihood.
I love The View. I watched a whole episode of it once when I had the flu and had accidentally spilled hot glue all over my remote the day before. It was darling.
Best of all, they use music and language in their promos to dictate all of my emotions (mostly sadness), which is entirely necessary when you're incapable of feeling feelings in a time of sickness. This makes it wonderfully easy for them to predetermine your emotions about an upcoming guest.
It also makes it very easy for you to game the show.
If you're positive that the ladies are going to skip over a montage about how much they hate who you are for a mere description, you're in luck.
In a situation like the one below, simply read ahead of Whoopi Goldberg on her teleprompter jaunt. When she comes to, "Parents are obviously worried," simply bring a megaphone--which you have appropriately concealed in your chest of props, being a comedian on The View--and scream, "ISN'T THAT AWESOME, GUYS? RIGHT?"
No one will ever know.
2) Pull a Sarah Silverman and just talk about puppies in shelters.
Works like a charm.
3) Be as incredibly charming, warm, and politely funny as Kato Kaelin.
He's into charity now!
4) Get really chummy with Joy Behar. She's on your side.
It may not look like it from that Ricky Gervais clip, but Joy Behar is sometimes your best line of defense.
That time I was all fluey, coddling Motrin like Elisabeth Hasselbeck does with her rifle and Kenny Chesney CD every night, Joy came off as the cool aunt. She at least understood why people were making inappropriate remarks, being a comedian herself. She's able to explain jokes to her nervous friends calm enough to put down their muskets for a few seconds.
5) Don't go on the show.
Leave Whoopi to making fun of women who've done too much plastic surgery. She's really funny that way.
Ben Collins is an Assistant Editor at Hulu. You can email him here or reach him on Twitter @globesoundtrack.