Joel McHale

As the sharp-tongued host of E!’s “The Soup,” Joel McHale skewers the usual celebrity targets (Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton), placing an ostensible focus on trash television. Ironically, McHale, who headlines an 8 p.m. performance at the Riverside Theater tonight, has become the very sort of television personality he often lashes, raking up a slew of appearances on shows like “Iron Chef America,” “Last Comic Standing” and the swiftly canceled “Thank God You’re Here.” He’s even become a staple of MSNBC’s “Countdown with Keith Olbermann,” where he frequently drags the staid political commentator down into pop-culture mud with him. He’s one of the few E! personalities with a sense of awareness about the channel. In his live act, he regularly concedes, “I work for the Ryan Seacrest network.”