What Happened to Chelsea Handler's Vodka?
The name of Chelsea Handler's book is Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea. The name of the sitcom spin-off, in which Handler stars for NBC, is "Are You There, Chelsea?"
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But the comedian insists the show's title wasn't changed for what The Washington Post's TV columnist Lisa de Moraes obviously thinks is the reason: that NBC didn't actually want the name of a type of liquor in the title of its show about a wise-cracking, hard-drinking lead character.
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And Handler herself, de Moraes noted this weekend, isn't exactly keeping her story straight about the name change.
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On a press call late last year, it was the network's squeamishness that was to blame:
In December, on an NBC-arranged phone conference call with reporters, bloggers, and such, Handler was asked about the change and explained, “you can’t put ‘vodka’ in the title for network purposes, so I thought ‘Are You There, Chelsea?’ was a funny play on the fact that I’m not playing myself.”
Fast forward a month, and spin had set in. The real reason for the name change, Handler now insists, is deference to the diverse tastes of potential viewers: "Not everybody likes vodka, unbeknownst to me,” is the star's newest explanation.
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De Moraes ensures that readers note her own skepticism of this explanation.
“So it had nothing to do with NBC not wanting to maybe promote drinking a bit too much in the title of the show? Because it was originally announced as the full [book] title...last spring,” the reporter persevered.
At which point Handler said that ‘Are you There, Chelsea?’ is a play on ‘What am I thinking?’ and added, “This is not cable – it’s [broadcast] network. We wanted to have a broader appeal and make people feel like they could be interested in watching the show, whether or not they have as big of a drinking problem as I do.”
So, squeamishness, then. As explained in the first place.
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Just watch what you say about Serbia, please.
