Andy Cohen’s ‘Watch What Happens Live’ Celebrates 15 Years of Partying in the Gutter

By Emma Chance | TV | July 2, 2024 |

By Emma Chance | TV | July 2, 2024 |

Think of your favorite late-night show. Up until recently, it had to include a male host—usually a former stand-up comedian—a desk for the host to sit behind while his guests make themselves comfortable in an armchair next to him, a live band, and a live audience. The formula is largely the same: the host emerges from behind a velvet curtain, delivers a tight five of jokes about current events in society and culture, then parks himself at his post, where he’ll run through a rehearsed conversation with a celebrity guest about something funny that happened to them recently before they promote whatever movie or book or album or whatever they’re there to promote.

Andy Cohen’s Watch What Happens Live on Bravo is not that. What started as a series targeted at Real Housewives viewers has turned into late night’s campy cousin, and this week they celebrated 15 years. They’ve got the male host in Cohen, though he’s a former reality TV producer instead of a stand-up (and it shows when he fumbles a line read at least once per broadcast); they have the live audience, albeit two-ish rows of people instead of a full studio; there’s no live band, but there is a full bar; and the celebrity guests include reality stars, musicians, actors, celebrities, and sometimes the odd politician.

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The goings-on of the Bravoverse is a common topic of conversation—half the time, an actor like Jon Hamm or Julia Roberts are equally as conversant on the subject of Bravo’s slate of reality shows as the people who star on them—but it’s also a lot of pop culture commentary, usually in the form of games like, “Do Gay Guys Give a Damn?” or something made for the guest, like “What Can’t Neil Patrick Harris Do?” It’s lowbrow on purpose, always pushing the boundaries of salacious late-night conversation, like when Shaq took off his shoe to demonstrate the size of his penis, or when Lindsay Lohan confirmed that her “sex list” published by a tabloid was real. Sometimes it’s an Andy Cohen vanity project, like when he announced to a collection of his favorite Housewives that he was having a child via surrogate. It also has its self-aware moments, like when Gloria Steinem denounced the concept of Housewives entirely and Cohen basically shrugged.

The show started as an email newsletter from Cohen to his coworkers, then turned into him doing recaps of Bravo shows on YouTube and a blog, eventually morphing into the PeeWee’s Playhouse-esque, liquor-drenched comedy of errors that it is today. There were times, in those early days, when Cohen felt like he was losing control of the room, and his producer told him, “This is amazing—we’re trending number one worldwide on Twitter.” This taught Cohen a valuable lesson that he still uses as an affirmation: “Always lean into whatever is happening, even if it appears a little nasty or especially if it appears a little messy.” (New York Times)

Nasty and messy it is. The greatest irony, however, is that despite the content of the show—despite the often dirty props found throughout the Clubhouse set, including the former breast implant of a Housewife that frequently gets passed around—it’s still network television, and they still can’t swear. So, depending on the caliber of guests, you’re bound to hear a bunch of bleeps during any given episode. A recent example is when Adam Lambert was promoting his new album, “CVNTY,” spelled with a “V” so it can be posted on social media, and they played a game in which they pitted various pairs of famous women against each other and voted for who was “cuntier,” and it was bleeped every time.

Therein lies the secret sauce that I believe makes WWHL work: they’re in on the joke, and the joke is on them; they can’t swear, so they play a game about swearing. While Fallon and Kimmel et al. specialize in making fun of other people, Cohen and his guests are making fun of themselves. At its worst, it’s a boring reality star defending herself against saying something bitchy to another reality star. And at its best, it’s a couple of gay guys deliberating the cuntiness of Madonna versus Patti Lapone while Jordan Klepper, the (straight) comedian who goes to Trump rallies to troll people, guesses if they care about the latest season of Bridgerton—it ain’t that deep. No one in the Clubhouse takes themselves seriously, be they Countess Luann de Lesseps or Meghan McCain. Watch What Happens Live is the great equalizer: everything and everyone is fair game, and they all go home looking stupid. It can’t lose.