Logo TV has announced the Nov. 7 premiere of The Straight Out Report, which will provide a new take on pop-culture talk shows by pairing a gay and straight man as co-hosts. Intended to mirror aspects of The Daily Show and The Soup, Report hosts will riff on the day’s news and pop confections. Stephen Guarino, a sketch comic and actor, will supply the gay point of view. Stand-up comic Mike E. Winfield will be keeping it straight, so don’t get any funny ideas.
A study in contrasts, The Straight Out Report will also feature racial diversity; Winfield is black and Guarino is white. (This aspect may be less groundbreaking as Weekend Update already beat them to the punch, pairing African-American Michael Che with Android-American Colin Jost.)
From Men’s Health to the Kardashians and beyond, the hosts intend to humorously skewer pop-culture’s invasiveness to poke fun at our superficial differences, while also underscoring our similarities. After all, who hasn’t lingered to ogle magazine cover shots of impossibly chiseled movie actors, or stared vacantly at a full episode of Pawn Stars before angrily demanding to know “what the hell am I watching, exactly?”
At the end of the day, the important thing for Americans to appreciate isn’t that we’re gay or straight, black or white, but that deep down inside, we’re all men.