'Crime Scene Kitchen': Joel McHale Talks His Experience on the Fox Cooking Series (Exclusive)

The Season 2 finale of Crime Scene Kitchen was just last month on Fox. The series mixes mystery and cooking as bakers are given clues as to what they have to bake. With Joel McHale as host, Curtis Stone and Yolanda Gampp serve as judges. Although a third season has yet to be announced, it would be highly surprising if this series doesn't come back. It's just one of the many mysteries that surround the show.

PopCulture had a chance to speak to McHale about his time on Crime Scene Kitchen after he answered what he would do for a Klondike. He also opened up about what else he would want to do in his career. He's done quite a lot and remains busy, as he is also preparing for the second season of his other Fox series, Animal Control. Keep reading to see what Joel McHale had to say about Crime Scene Kitchen, which is currently streaming on Hulu.

PopCulture: Crime Scene Kitchen is not like other cooking shows since there's also a mystery element to it. Is there anything about the concept that drew you to the series?

Joel McHale: I thought it was pretty unique because you have to be baking. That's what the last two years have been: baking. There's a couple of culinary schools you can go to for baking, but there's no real certification. I don't know if you know this, but making cakes and stuff, if you screw up one part… It's like putting together an airplane. If you get one part wrong, you're like, "Yeah, this thing is not going to get off the ground." You can tell immediately. So you get that. The degree of difficulty is high to begin with. Then you don't even know what you're supposed to be making other than these clues that you find. I mean, I marvel at the producers because they have to come up with these ideas, and then they have chefs or bakers on the site who are like, "Can you figure it out?"

Having Curtis Stone and Yolanda Gampp as the judges, who really know their stuff because they will try to figure it out, too. Sometimes, it's a meeting, they know exactly, and they know it quicker than the bakers. Other times, they're like, "I don't know what it could be." Because it's called Crime Scene Kitchen, and I'm always like, "Well, as you know, just step over the dead body and see what they baked." They're really cool. But it's really fun, and when that thing gets revealed, I don't know what it is, and they have it in the prompter ready for me to read, but I don't know. And then everyone asks me, they're like, "Do you eat all that stuff?"

And I was like, "That's all I do." I tell the contestants to stop interrupting me while I'm eating. It's really fun. And again, Curtis and Yolanda, they are… I mean, you probably know people like this. They've got these computer brains. People who know the names of every single player in the NFL or know how to take apart a car and put it back together. That's how they are about food. It's rare to see a brain like that. Stephen Fry is the closest I've ever met to a guy who was like, "Oh, you just know it all. You know everything." He could tell you the scientific breakdown of a rhododendron. And you'd be like, "How do you know that? Why do you know that?"

Curtis Stone can tell you the history of French cooking. He'll be like, "Oh. Well, that little piece of cherry that they put on that cake was invented by the chef who worked on this count." And I'd be like, "What?" And then Yolanda, she took fondant to the next level. And her Instagram is pretty incredible. And she was basically doing that show, Is it Cake? before Is it Cake? It's really remarkable what she's done. And her cakes are so tasty, that's what's maddening. A lot of the bakers, they don't know what they're making or they get it right, but they screw up something. But it's been really fun, and I'm really hoping for a third season.

Have you learned anything from either of them or have they given you advice on baking?

Yeah. They're like, "No, really. Don't bake." The advice they really got is, "First of all, follow the recipe." That seems like such a no-brainer. The bakers should be familiar with most of it, but I cook a lot. I don't cook a lot of desserts because I'm intimidated by it. I will end up eating all of it. So when I first had a princess cake, which I was like, "This is not something I would ever like." And then a good princess cake, I was like, 'This is so good."

Then you realize French kings and Spanish kings and British kings, they wanted all these desserts to look like pieces of art, and then you eat them. So that's the other thing that people forget. Like, "Oh, the cake has to cool down before you can construct it and all that stuff." So the advice I got was, "Hey, guys. I'll take you to a steak dinner," because I've done a lot of research on that. Yeah, I annoy them with how many jokes I tell in a row, which is a lot. It's great.

Going into the second season, did you have a new approach for anything since you knew what to expect after Season 1? 

Well, we knew the game was good, and a lot of the bakers told us, "When we watched it on television, we knew exactly what it was." Being there is a totally different experience. We opened it up a little bit to savory food as well. So if we get a Season 3, I think it'll be even wider open as to what was baked or cooked. In Season 2, we knew our jobs better, and we're like, "Oh, I'm a little more relaxed, and I can tell more jokes, and we got a rhythm of how this show goes." So if a third season comes, then that's really great. And I think it'll be even more relaxed and more fun if that's possible. But I love doing it, and I really love learning about these desserts, like an opera cake.

I would never have bought an opera cake. And, of course, Curtis knew the history of the opera cake. I was like, "Yeah, this guy made them for freaking operas." And I was like, "Yeah, of course." And the difference between, I think you would agree, bad gin is really bad, and good gin is really good, and bad gin is not worth it. It's the same thing because you can make a freaking German chocolate cake that is so bad, and it is not worth the calories. But if you make a good one, watch out. It's one of the best things on the planet.

You've done acting, producing, writing, you've hosted shows, and you've also been a judge on a few of them, too. Is there anything else that you'd want to do in your career?

I love working, and I love acting, and I love performing. I love hosting. I love standup. I love all that stuff. I still, to this day, can't believe that my job is to do these things. I can't believe it. And I just remember thinking when I was doing plays in high school and then in college, I was like, "When the real job police come to take me away, that'll be OK because I got to do all this. I got to perform." And then the fact that I still got to do it and still am doing it is just... I can't believe my good fortune. I think making movies and making TV is the best business. It's hard. It's a lot of hours, but boy, is it fun. It's the perfect combination of commerce and art. And I love that brackish waters of that stuff.

Believe me, before I was on TV, people thought I was nuts. All my friends were like, "You got to get a law degree, dude, and you got to work for a startup." I was like, "I don't think I could do that." I would be bad at that. And I'm so thankful. My wife, we met before I was ever on TV, and I think everyone thought she was crazy for getting together with an actor. All of a sudden, I got on TV, and everyone was like, "Isn't he great?" And I'm like, "Well, I'm on TV now, see?" But I just think I want to do quality projects and fun projects, and that's what I want to do. I mean, people are like, "Are you going to direct?" And I was like, "Maybe, but that takes a lot of concentration."

I would probably write a movie before I would direct one, but who knows? Maybe. You never know. I like watching. But if you're on set and everyone's like, "Oh, everyone's just sitting around and waiting." I was like, "Look at the director." They are the ones driving this supercar, flying down a highway because they're the ones knowing that we have to get this shot before the sun goes down and stuff. That's happened so many times where we're onto the gun. But they were like, "We lose this space in five minutes, and we have three shots left." I'm like, "Let's go." And I love that. I love that stuff. It's really tiring. You do 18-hour days, but you did something. It's great.