Paul Goebel, The King of TV
By Ben Kharakh
Paul "The King of TV" Goebel , star of Comedy Central's Beat the Geeks and winner of TV Land's Ultimate Fan Search, talks with Celebrity Skin about the best places to see cleavage on TV, America's unease with sex on TV, and reveals the secret behind Comedy Central's Secret Stash.
Which TV shows are a goldmine of women who have appeared nude on film?
Melrose Place was a good show for that because it had tons and tons of hot ladies who would eventually show up nude, like Alyssa Milano and Lisa Rinna. These days, the chicks from reality shows do spreads, like the girls from The Real World or Big Brother. You'll find pictures of chicks from Big Brother sometimes even from before the show. Survivor too. Jerry, Jenna, and Heidi did their spreads in Playboy.
How about professional wrestling? I stopped watching wrestling when I was in high school and I was never a fan of female wrestling. But, yeah, when the WWE became all about sex it was assumed it was going to happen. Chyna, Sable, Trish Stratus, and girls like that come out as wrestlers but all anybody cares about is that their tops come off. Then, when they do their spreads in Playboy, which they eventually do, everybody's happy. It's almost like the wrestling is secondary to the sex.
Do you think that, in the future, America will be more accepting of entertainers appearing nude in various mediums? There's a lot of people in America that are already fine with that. Just like there's sci-fi and Star Trek conventions, there are now Playboy conventions. We're not even talking about hardcore porn stars, just women who pose nude. People go to these conventions and get signed centerfolds, eight by tens, and autographs. We had this guy on Beat the Geeks, John Steverding, who was the Playboy geek. He was a weird guy, but he was harmless. He schooled me on what it's like to be a Playboy collector.
Is it violence or sex that American TV is more opposed to? It should be violence, but the truth is it's sex. People in America are more concerned with seeing sex on TV because A, they have their own hang ups about sex and if they see other people having sex on TV it reminds them of their problems. And B, people are uncomfortable talking to their kids about sex, so they don't want it on TV because their kids will ask questions. When I was watching Heroes and the quarterback forced himself on a cheerleader it was uncomfortable for me to have to answer my daughter when she asked, "Why did he do that?" I now had to explain date rape to my eight-year-old daughter. Eventually, she'd have to learn about that, but eight is a little early, I think. At the same time, it was an act of violence and she knew why he was being violent and that's easy to explain.
Nobody wants to be violent, but we all have a violent side that we get pushed to for different reasons and by different measures. So, people are okay with seeing violence on TV because they can push it away. There are people that go their whole lives without being violent, but there are very few people who go their whole lives without engaging in some sort of sexual activity. It's a much more personal thing. Some people don't want to see it because their deal with sex is, "I don't want to see other people's sex lives; I'm only concerned with my own." We all get a kick out of watching things explode and seeing car crashes because we don't often make things explode and we're not often in car accidents.
In Europe, however, nudity is a common thing on television. Yeah, in England they're not so uptight about it, and especially in Germany and countries like that. They use nudity and sexually suggestive content in their advertisements, which I think can be really funny. There's this one ad, which I think is for condoms, where a naked gymnast run, jumps, flips on the pommel horse, and lands on this dude and mounts him. It was a cool ad and it wasn't graphic. You'll never see that in America, but what a lot of people don't know is that it's only network TV that has to adhere to those FCC regulations. Cable TV can get away with anything. When Comedy Central makes a big deal of their Secret Stash, they're not breaking any rules. The FCC regulates only things that you can get for free, which is three or four TV channels and anything you get on terrestrial radio. Cable TV you have to pay for so the FCC can't regulate it. But you don't want it to be like New York Public Access where you have a whole naked talk show and it's a bunch of people you don't want to see naked sitting around and talking for an hour.
What's the best channel to watch if you want to see cleavage? MTV has the best cleavage, especially during Spring Break.
What are some treasure chests of scantily clad women on TV? Las Vegas, Fear Factor, and almost anything on Telemundo.
What are some channels that people might be surprised to learn feature women in various stages of undress? Fox Reality, Adult Swim on Cartoon Network, and The Game Show Network. A lot of the old Price is Right, Match Game shows, stuff like that had women without bras, in tube tops, and short shorts
In terms of the grade of programming, is cleavage a sign of poor or high quality television? Sadly, the more boobs they show the worse the television is. Hee Haw is the best example of that rule.
Day time TV used to be a haven for ladies taking off their clothes because of shows like Jerry Springer, Ricky Lake, and Jenny Jones. Is that still the case? It is, but these days the ladies are either nasty or dudes.
Is E the network with the highest concentration of hot ladies? I think so. Not only do they do specials like The Twenty Five Hottest Ladies, but so many of their shows are just based around hot ladies. Girls Next Door, Taradise, and Wild On. All those shows are hot ladies going around talking to other hot ladies. It's funny because E is supposed to be telling you about movies and giving you entertainment news, but now it's just the network to turn to if you want to see hot chicks in bikinis. Seeing Brooke Burke walk around in a bikini talking to other hot chicks in bikinis, holy fuck, that is good TV.