How Tall Is Seth Green, on a Scale of Joel McHales?

Thank god for Joel McHale and Netflix. Ever since E! cancelled The Soup in 2015, we’ve had to blindly guess what was happening in the world of forgotten shows. But thanks to The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale, we can now revel in the highlights of bad TV on a weekly basis. However, McHale’s latest talk show has replaced one pop culture mystery with another. Exactly how tall is Joel McHale, and why do all of his guests look tiny?

This has been a question that’s haunted The Joel McHale Show since its first episode, but it became more pressing after Seth Green stopped by this past Sunday. Green, named the resident bully of The Joel McHale Show, spent most of his time on set crouching behind a fence. Even when he finally stood up, it became clear that Green is a significantly shorter man than McHale. But just how short are we talking?

McHale is a pretty tall man by any standard. According to the CDC’s Anthropometric Reference Data for Children and Adults in the United States, the average height for a non-Hispanic white man between the ages of 40 and 59 years old is 69.9 inches, which translates to between 5 feet 9 inches and 5 feet 10 inches. In comparison, McHale is 76 inches tall, or 6 foot four.

Conversely, Green is a full foot shorter than McHale. The actor, comedian, and Robot Chicken creator is 64 inches, or 5 foot 4 inches, tall. So that would mean that Green is about 84.21 percent of Joel McHale’s height, which is why delightful images like this can be found on Getty:

However, it’s not just that this one guest star is shorter than the average man. Over the past five weeks, four out of McHale’s seven guests have been under McHale’s impressive 6 foot height, and three have been under 5 feet 5 inches. The Joel McHale Show started its shorter-guest-with-a-super-tall-host trend early with the appearances of Kevin Hart and Jason Priestley in Episode 1. Hart is 5 foot four inches and stands at roughly 84.21 percent of McHale’s height. At 5 foot 8 inches, Priestley is a little taller, but he’s still only 89.47 percent of McHale’s height.

Kristen Bell was by far McHale’s shortest guest to date. Standing at 5 foot 1 inch, Bell is only 80.26 percent of the talk show host’s height, which is partially why their segment was so fun together.

The only guest who comes close to McHale’s height has been Billy Eichner. The comedian and Donnadorable conspiracy theorist stands at 6 feet 3 inches, meaning that he’s about 98.68 percent of McHale’s height:

Does any of this matter in the least? No, not really. However, it is sort of funny to see. There’s an assumption of equality when it comes to talk shows that’s typically mirrored by how these shows are framed. Audiences trust that the people a host chooses to interview are worth paying attention to, and conversely, they have to also trust the interviewer is professional enough to fairly interview them. That dynamic is traditionally reflected by comfy chairs and couches intended to visually position hosts and their guests on the same level, forcing people to pay more attention to the interview itself. However, The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale has never been intended as a traditional talk show, and McHale is a tall dude.

The resulting height disparity of the show makes the Netflix series even funnier. There’s always been a slapdash charm to The Soup, and The Joel McHale Show echoes that half-hearted randomness beautifully. McHale has already insulted his writers, guests, and Netflix on his new show many times, and he’s likely going to keep doing it. Of course this show — which is basically just a comedian talking in front of green screen — would shrug off the unequal height between its host and guests. Why waste time figuring out visual nonsense when there are Love & Hip Hop clips to dissect?

---

UPDATE April 2, 2018: The mystery around Joel McHale’s height continues. Gabriel Iglesias, the comedian best known for calling himself “Fluffy” recently appeared in The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale episode “Thank You, Lasagna.” Here’s how he looks next to our super tall host:

According to Google, Iglesias stands at 5 foot 10 inches, or 70 inches altogether compared to McHale’s 6 feet 4 inches. By the laws of math that would mean that Iglesias is 92.11 percent of McHale’s height. Thank you all for your time.

Stream The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale on Netflix