Full disclosure: I like Jimmy Kimmel. I have ever since he was co-hosting The Man Show with Adam Curolla. The two of them came to Toronto back when I was starting out at The Toronto Sun and shenanigans ensued. It has been a pleasure watching him grow in stature since those dumb early days and hopefully he’d say the same about me.
My takeaway from Kimmel’s masterclass in class during Tuesday night’s return to ABC is how much he met the moment. I don’t think he could have played it any better. It went beyond the prolonged standing ovation that moved him to tears or any other personal gain. Kimmel stood his ground, did not bow to bullying and — let’s give ABC’s Bob Iger some belated credit — looked like a winner.
Nothing could bug Donald Trump more.
Kimmel did it by being 100 per cent himself. Defiant, emotional, unapologetic, funny. He showed genuine gratitude towards his Disney bosses for welcoming him back. They didn’t have to do it, said Kimmel, although, yeah, for financial and legacy reasons, they did. He showed great respect and admiration for the widow of Charlie Kirk and was genuinely humbled by her selflessness.
He also kept right on taking the micky out of Trump and The FCC. His joke about Brendan Carr being the worst Carr Republicans have backed since the Tesla truck — ka boom.
I loved how he used Ted Cruz to illustrate a significant point: Americans [and Canadians] on the Left and Right love free speech. It’s one thing for Stephen Colbert or Conan O’Brien or David Letterman or even Jay Leno to have your back on an issue but Cruz? Tucker Carlson? Joe Rogan? Trump finds himself backed into the wrong side of the Free Speech debate. That is an opening.
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It also warmed my TV critic heart that Jimmy alligned himself with comedy and late night immortals. He opened his show Tuesday with the same “as I was saying before I was interrupted” line imortalized by early Tonight Show pioneer Jack Paar. That line was uttered back in 1960 when a chastized Paar returned from a brief abdication at NBC after not being able to tell a joke about a “water closet” (washroom). The stakes are slightly higher now but the echo was apt.
Earlier on Tuesday, Kimmel posted a photo of himself and another Liberal firebrand, Norman Lear. As Lear aged towards the century mark, he and Jimmy teamed on a series of specials paying homage to the producers culture-changing comedies of the ’70s such as All in the Family and The Jeffersons. Getting to work on a TV show with the Lear had to have been inspiring. [Side note: I met the great showrunner several years ago at a Television Critics Association award presentation. I walked up, shook his hand and told him I grew up watching his shows. Said Lear, “So did I.”]
During Tuesday’s 20 minute plus monologue — shaping up a day later to be the hosts most viewed ever on YouTube — Jimmy invoked more gods of comedy. “One thing I learned from Lenny Bruce, George Carlin and Howard Stern,” he said, “is that a government threat to silence a comedian the president doesn’t like is anti-American,”
Bingo. Followed by, “Let’s stop letting these politicians tell us what they want and tell them what we want.”
Trump doesn’t like to lose, and this battle isn’t over. The FCC can still do things the hard way, although that De Niro sketch after last night’s monologue was a pretty effective pre-emptive strike against further mob boss theatrics from Carr.
I’d write more, and this is not over, but I have to get back to all the radio and Canadian TV requests to weigh in on Kimmel’s triumphant night (plus four appearances on Australia’s Sky Net Sports and News Network). Tuesday night might not be Trump’s Waterloo, but it had to at least leave him reaching for some Tylenol.
