Let's just get this out of the way first: Aisha Tyler is gorgeous. I know, I know, a person's worth is not determined by looks, and this particular person is much more than a pretty face. But when someone is this luminously beautiful, I just can't not mention it. Look at her! She's stunning!
OK, now that I've got that off my chest, I want to talk about what else Aisha Tyler is. I've been a fan of hers since her stint on Talk Soup, I enjoyed her recurring role on Friends, and I love that she did voice work for Halo: Reach. Tyler is funny. She's cool. And she's geeky. And all of that shows in her new podcast, Girl on Guy.
Launched only a few weeks ago, *Girl on Guy *has already racked up a string of episodes featuring such pop culture notables as Zachary Levi (star of the TV series Chuck), H. Jon Benjamin (of *Archer *and Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist, among others), and comedian Paul F. Tompkins (who himself has a popular podcast, The Pod F. Tompkast).
Normally, I'm not a big fan of celebrity interview shows, but this is different. For one thing, the guests are interesting, creative, smart people, not the reality show "personality"-of-the-moment types you see on some chat shows. What's more, Tyler keeps the vibe informal and improvisationally funny, gives her subjects room to talk, and frequently touches on movies, comic books, video games, gadgets, and other geek-friendly topics. And in the "self-inflicted wounds" segment of each podcast, she asks her guests to share an (often hilarious) embarrassing story from their past. (See Jon Benjamin's episode for the seminal, and hard to top, version of this segment.) I also particularly love the humorous "apologia" Tyler adds to the end of each podcast, in which she offers up a* mea culpa *to everyone she's insulted during the course of the show.
It's a long podcast, often hitting near the 90-minute mark, and it's decidedly NSFW. (Just hitting the URL on my work computer would make me nervous.) But if you don't mind strong language and an occasional touch of raunch, there's plenty here that's funny, compelling, and cool.
