James Corden had Keegan-Michael Key on Monday’s episode of “The Late Late Show,” and he roped to “Key and Peel” and “Schmigadoon!” star into one of his more fun recurring gags, “Improvised TED Talks.” The topic was “The life-changing power of vacuuming in the nude,” and since we can’t top that here, we’ll just get right to it.
So the gag, for those who don’t know, is Corden has one of his celebrity guests give a totally unrehearsed, unresearched TED Talk on a topic they don’t know about in advance. Comedy very generally ensues, especially on Monday’s episode since Key is, you know, something of a well regarded comedy person.
“You know, ladies and gentlemen, I find that, when I’m at home and I’m, uh, doing the house work, that my wife becomes very happy,” Key said as he kicked off his awkward lecture. “I have also found that when I have no clothing on in my home, my wife also is happy. So I’ve decided to combine those two things together and use them as a force multiplier. See, it’s not one plus one equals 2. It’s one plus one equals more than 2.”
Next, for some reason a Tom Hanks photo appeared in slide presentation, prompting Key to joke that when he discovers something scientific, he likes to discuss it with Tom Hanks. The jokes came pretty fast from there and honestly, we’d ruin it by trying to describe it all.
Next, Corden had his band leader, Reggie Watts step up to bat. His topic: “Ham: Y’all want some?”
“Ham: Y’all want some,” Watts began. “Why y’all want some? Y’all be asking, y’all be doing, and you be saying, ‘I want some.’ But why?”
“Check it in,” Watts said before snapping his fingers. At this point an image of Santa Claus appeared. “Because if y’all can’t get down with… in any situation, I’m talking about dressed as a witch, dressed as a robot, dressed as someone who’s dressed up in something else, dressed up as a Santa Claus, then y’all ain’t know what ham about. Mmm.”
Sidebar: Watts’ improvisation reminded us of the sleazy preacher played by Arsenio Hall in “Coming to America,” which we mean as a compliment.
Things when from there with a lot more fun jokes. Again, we won’t ruin the jokes by writing them all down, but you can watch the whole monologue above now.
