Joel McHale Says Kardashians Doomed 'The Soup' on E!

Joel McHale told Variety that the famous family complained when he made fun of them on his former comedic talk show, which was canceled in 2015.

"Way back when, Kris [Jenner] would complain about our jokes, and Ted [Harbert] would literally go, 'Hey man, Kris called, can you just lay off of her for a week?'" McHale, who's back with a similar show on Netflix, said. "It was like our softball went into [their] yard and they were like, 'Just don't throw it over the fence.'"

McHale said "The Soup" was restricted from airing certain clips and comments about the famous family, but when Ted Harbert -- the former president of E! -- left the network, "things changed" drastically.

"The next administration, the president said to my face, 'Don't make fun of the Kardashians. We don't want you to make fun of the Kardashians anymore,'" McHale explained. "So I was like, oh this show is doomed because that's why the show worked, because we would make fun of ourselves. It's like when Letterman made fun of GE in the '80s. You have to bite the hand that feeds you."

The comedian added, "The network really did not like when the Kardashians first came out and then we just said Kim Kardashian was only famous for having a big ass and a sex tape."

McHale's new Netflix series, "The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale," premiered Sunday night, and he's excited for the creative freedoms the streaming service encourages and promotes. When asked if his new show will cover "Keeping Up With the Kardashians," McHale said it will be a "week-to-week thing."

"If the clips are good and engaging, absolutely, we will cover them," he said. "Even on 'The Soup,' if we didn't have a good Kardashian clip, we wouldn't just do it. So I don't know. It could be a lot and it could be very little. There is more reality programming on right now than there was television in 2012. It's not a thing where I'm like, 'Finally, I get to say what I want to say about the Kardashians!'"

"I'm also a tiny little pilot fish on a huge whale shark that is the Kardashian empire," he added. "I don't think they've thought about me much."

"The Joel McHale Show with Joel McHale" airs every Sunday on Netflix.