E! Entertainment/"Chelsea Lately"
"I'm so much smarter than that show was, and I wanted to be on a show that was smarter than I was," Handler told Re/code's Kara Swisher and Peter Kafka during the Code/Media conference this week.
Handler compared her experience at E! to being in junior high, with "people running around, throwing food, making jokes about celebrities that are stupid."
"I don't want to have to read the New York Post, or pick up a Star magazine to read about Bruce Jenner - I don't care," Handler added. "I don't care, and I can say that, and I'm allowed to be honest about it."
In August, Handler bid a star-studded farewell to the E! network after signing a reported $10 million deal with Netflix to star in four "docu-comedy" specials in 2015 and a talk show in 2016.
Alexandra Wyman/Invision for Netflix/AP Images
But Handler is taking her time to develop her new talk show.
"We don't have a clear idea of what my talk show will be like in 2016," Handler said, "but I know what I don't want to do and what I do want to do. I don't want it to be just my audience that was at E!. I want to grow up."
Handler said she would like the show to include a "healthy mix of everything going on in the world," mentioning Syria and ISIS as potential subjects, "mixed with interesting stuff in our country."
She says the tagline could be: "The well-roundedness of '60 Minutes' but faster, quicker, cooler." She also compared it to "The Daily Show" in its focus on current events.
"I want correspondents going out in the field, getting information," Handler added. "And I don't necessarily need it to be the same thing. It could be three nights a week. We have a lot of conversations about it."
Hey Chelsea, we hear Jon Stewart is looking for a replacement.