Chris Franjola is a familiar face to anyone who has watched E!’s "Chelsea Lately" (Monday-Friday @ 11pm) as he has been on the roundtable panel in dozens and dozens of episodes and has been a writer on the series for hundreds more. As we discuss in the video above, "Chelsea Lately" is a very fast paced show: after her short opening monologue, Chelsea Handler goes to a roundtable of 3 comedian panelists and between the 4 of them, they split up 10-14 minutes in a discussion whose sole purpose is to elicit as many jokes possible during that period of time. In a best-case scenario, each person at the table gets 3 minutes of time.
Franjola himself is a comedic force to be reckoned with, with over 20 years of standup experience to his credit, he relishes his time on the show, and the new spinoff "After Lately" which just aired its third episode this last Sunday at 11pm on E! I expressed some frustration in dealing with some readers who have criticized "After Lately" for being scripted - which is the entire point of the show, it’s a mockumentary-style sitcom about what happens behind the scenes of "Chelsea Lately." Franjola did tell us, however, that the events in "After Lately" have happened in some form or another in the offices of the show and were used as the basis for bits in the episodes. I guess that when you have that many comedians packed into a space, funny things are bound to happen. If anything, Franjola is completely appreciative of being able to work so closely with his friends, "who are all incredibly talented, working comedians," on these two very successful shows.
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