Call Chelsea Peretti is a new podcast on the block, wherein people from the internet are invited to call the wonderful comedian Chelsea Peretti. Utilising a simple premise of a kind of pre-recorded call in show, Chelsea takes full advantage of this license to be creative, irreverent and silly as far as she wants it to go on a given Monday. Sometimes she’ll vehemently question the validity of soup, and other times query the purposes of life. Gloriously erratic and joyously fun and affectionate, Call Chelsea Peretti is a real podcasting highlight and a worthwhile addition to anyone’s podcast catalogue.
That’s not Chelsea Peretti!
‘Call Chelsea Peretti’ has this perfectly measured and wanton erraticism coursing through it’s veins, bringing with it this wonderful energy of chaos and liveness, provided a very specific kind of fizz not only by being off the cuff, but also through the host working with unknown quantities. Unlike most other podcasts, the people Chelsea interacts with are not friends or peers, they are a random assortment of people who like her. Even more niche than a radio show, because of it’s lack of a live broadcast, it is specifically limited to people who are avid fans of either Miss Peretti or podcasts as a whole. These fans are obviously hugely enthusiastic about Chelsea, though many rein this in very well, and are often quite surprised that they get to speak to the lady herself. But they remain unpredictable, as people odd enough to phone into a podcast are going to be slightly strange folk, and just how well she handles such a potentially awkward show is testament to both her comedy and personality.
That’s Chelsea Peretti!
Chelsea displays a distinct drive towards comedic repartee and constant enjoyment of her craft, most specifically through the addition of her own very personal scattiness to the brew. The classically semi-rubbish sound effects and fabulously ramshackle songs are spread with elegant scattergun ease, but their madness is tempered by their general aptness. The tremendous loudness and enthusiastic over-length of these drops only adds another zing to the show, avoiding bad morning radio territory, providing this unexpected pop to the show that probably surprises the listeners even more than the callers. Allied with this, her questions range far and wide from call to call as she happily bounces from the likes of ‘racoons as pets?’ and ‘have you ever been attacked by a bear?’ all the way to ‘how do you give your life purpose?’ This leaping about helpfully puts at least some of the story-spinning onus on the callers, garnering Chelsea license to act as a humorous, interesting and unusual colour commentator with a genuine pleasure, whilst emphasising this spirit of erraticism. CP’s energy is kept up too thanks to this, as she has made mention of her dislike of being trapped in a topic and she thusly defiantly avoids this. Able to set and reset her own agenda at will, she runs the show with an impressive and congratulatory vigour.
I love this. Also I ran out of relevant pictures.
Utterly charming as a show, Call Chelsea Peretti is a loving embrace of a podcast whose comfort and friendliness comes actually quite unexpected. And this almost entirely stems from the silly billy joy of Chelsea Peretti. From her appearances on other podcasts you might expect a slightly cooler and more deliberately opaque presence. But she works very naturally as a host, the show crafted being a much more charming and affecionate affair than I initially was predicting. Much as i knew that her talking to random people from the internet, variously sparring with, chiding and poking at them would be hilarious entertainment, as it has turned out to be, there is also a lot of heart and lot of love that really makes this kind of rib tickling work perfectly. Chelsea’s caller chastising has this strange innocence about it, so coy and silly it often is, this silliness redoubled by the inevitable sound effects. This level of charm and innocence could be down to the show’s audience being people already on Team Chelsea, but it can’t but also be a comment on her skills of patter and jokery. Since through these she manages to turn what would seem like not only simplistic and awkward concept, not to mention one with inherent riskiness, into an easily accessible, vivacious and brilliant podcast.