Letting Margaret Cho Be Margaret Cho on "The Cho Show"

Following in the pitter-patting little sarcastic gay-loving footsteps of D-Lister Kathy Griffin, Margaret Cho comes to cable tonight with VH1's "The Cho Show." It's a semi-realistic, semi-fakey semi-scripted look at her life on- and off-camera as a member of the Hollywood community who's not yet so self-important that she doesn't see the opportunity for biting humor at the expense of herself and everyone else.

Most people who'll read this are familiar with the Cho story, that of a sexually open-minded young Korean-American comedian wrestling with her ethnic identity who got sucked into the maw of the sitcom machine at ABC and spit out with a whole new set of issues. Since then she's been wreaking comic havoc and accumulating new fans and tattoos while working on those issues. Now she returns to TV with a new sidekick - her assistant Selene Luna - and trailed as ever by her loving if slightly perplexed parents. They all turned up at the TCA press tour a few weeks ago to talk about it.

Question: Margaret, take us back. How bad was it working under network sitcom rules and –

Cho: Oh, it was unbelievable. And I remember attending the TCA 15 years ago and how hard it was for us, how hard it was to represent a show that I had to work on, that I had so many problems with. And in this show, I’m so proud and so excited. At that time, we brought the first Asian-American family on television.
It was like a really very ground-breaking thing, a very difficult thing, and, you know, I’m very proud now to
bring the second Asian-American family to television. I’m actually #1 and #2. So that’s an achievement.
It was very difficult, and one of the things that I remembered was after I did my first screen test, one
executive freaked out and said, please never, ever, ever show your stomach in public ever again. Never. So
that’s why I’m like naked in the show all the time, as you’ll see.

But it’s a very — it’s very different. It’s very different. Television has changed a lot, and also it’s wonderful to be working with VH1, who have been incredible in really allowing us to be ourselves, which is a major problem in television when you work with an artist and you try to create a show. You make a show
about them, they often do the wrong thing and you try to create them and make them into something else. But VH1 actually allowed us to be ourselves, which is really a miracle, and that’s why this show is so exciting.

Question: Margaret, what would you say to anyone who’s going to compare this show to Kathy Griffin’s show?

Cho: I think it’s great. I mean, I love Kathy Griffin’s show. She’s a very, very good friend of mine. I actually was just in it and — but she’s very different from me in that she’s white. (Laughter.) So that is the main difference. And then, um, you know — then, you could sort of maybe compare things along the way, but I think that this show is very unique. We have, for the first time, really, truly this Asian-American family and also my wonderful assistant Selene. So I think it’s kind of like a cross between Madonna’s “Truth or Dare” and “Joy Luck Club” and “Little People, Big World.” (Laughter.)

Question: Are you going to put your parents in embarrassing situations?

Cho: You know what? They’ve been through it. They’re used to it. They deserve it. They learn to love it.
(To her parents) Do you agree?
MR. Cho: Yeah, I think so. (Laughter.) First of all, her comedy is so outrageously, uh, vulgar. Our family never used the terminology. But I come to understand that she had compelling reason and need to express that strong word to express her true feelings. ... We participated as parental duty to help you – (Laughter.)
Cho: Yeah.
Mr. Cho: — to tell you the truth And we were not sure what kind of role we were going to play, and the producers do not tell us what’s going to happen. They did not tell us, you know, what was going to happen, you see, so that we were really uncertain of what we were going to do. But during the process of making it, one thing was that we wanted to help you in any way we can. And consequently, you know, we feel that we contributed to the show. In other words, we gave viewers, your customers some values.
Cho: Right. Because Koreans like to work together. Whether it’s a liquor store or reality show, it doesn’t matter. (Laughter)

Question: Margaret, why do you think more and more celebrities are choosing to do reality shows?

Cho: Well, I chose it because, for what we are doing, it is the absolute right thing. For what we are doing, this is the right kind of show. ... What we’ve done is we’ve taken the genre and really reinvented. I feel like what we’ve done is really reinvented the sitcom, because it is like sitcom in we sort of explore the situations in a sitcom format, but it’s with real people. So it’s not like any other reality show that’s out there that I’ve seen. It’s really unique. So I’m not sure the decisions people are making, their personal decisions
as to why they would do shows or what they want. But for us, this was the right thing to do to tell our
story the way we wanted to tell it.

Question: Margaret, you mentioned several times about how groundbreaking this is for an Asian family to be seen on television. What is it that makes an Asian family different than families of other (ethnicities) –

Cho: Our skin is kind of yellow and then our eyes are smaller, so we just look different. We kind of blend in with everybody. I’m just kidding. No. It’s really — it’s just different. I mean, we are talking about this family that we just don’t see. You know, I don’t see any Asian-American families out there on television. I would like to see one, and I plan to watch it and to see us. It’s very different. It is a different kind of thing. It’s a different cultural thing. I mean, my parents are so great because they really totally accept everything in my
life. They accept the fact that I’m — you know, I am as outrageous as I am. They accept so much.

Mr. Cho: Let me tell you my side of the story. (Laughter.) I’m different from the other Americans because we selected to live in this country rather than the old country. So in this sense, we are a little different.
And my desire was to have all children to prosper and thrive in this country. In other words, doing their
own thing their own way, and she did that exactly. She’s doing her own thing. And we wanted to show all
the other — the not native Americans to show there is a way of succeeding in this society, doing their own
thing their own way. In that sense, we are really happy to have her show — showing how she did her own
thing in this country.

Cho: And it’s a wonderful story for them. My parents immigrated to the United States in 1964 with $25 and this dream. They wanted to live in America, and they wanted to raise a family, and they did it. And — and now we get to see their journey and all their advice that they give me. Somebody who goes on stage and talks about cock for two hours, so that’s like — you know, they have given me all of this opportunity, and I’m wasting it. So that’s what the show is. It’s so exciting and so funny and so great, and so that’s what’s so wonderful. So that’s why we are very, very different from any other family.