It started with a Super Bowl, an open bar, and a show title that wouldn’t remain entirely accurate for long.
Jimmy Kimmel Live! premiered on Sunday, Jan. 26, 2003, following ABC’s broadcast of Super Bowl XXXVII. Tonight, Jimmy Kimmel will take the stage for episode No. 4,000.
In between: thousands of Trump jokes, billions of YouTube views, dozens of Anthony Anderson appearances, and one very aggrieved Matt Damon.
Here are 4,000 episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! by the numbers:
3 — Jimmy Kimmel Live!‘s rank among late-night shows by length of a single, continuous run under one name and host. Only The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson (6,714) and Late Show with David Letterman (4,262) precede him.
167 — Days it would take to watch every produced JKL episode from start to finish.
15 billion — Total views on the show’s YouTube channel since 2006.
1 — Nights the show’s open bar lasted before ABC shut it down after someone vomited the night of the premiere; the next night, Kimmel served the audience milk and cookies instead.
3 — Original writers still on staff 4,000 episodes later: Kimmel, Jon Bines, and Tony Barbieri.
69 — Times Anthony Anderson has appeared on the show: 28 as a guest host, 10 as a co-host, and 31 as a regular couch guest.
3,468 — Episodes of Jimmy Kimmel Live! since Kimmel began apologizing to Matt Damon for “running out of time.”
14 — Stitches David Lee Roth needed after splitting his nose open on his mic stand during the first take of “Panama,” moments into Van Halen’s live 2015 JKL performance on a closed-off Hollywood Boulevard.
5 — Kimmel relatives who have worked on Jimmy Kimmel Live!: Uncle Frank, Cousin Sal, Cousin Micki, his son Kevin, and his brother Jonathan. (Kimmel’s parents and Aunt Chippy have figured prominently on the show.)
10 — Years Jimmy Kimmel Live! aired at 12:05 a.m., after Nightline, before ABC promoted it to 11:35 p.m. in 2013 to take on Leno and Letterman directly. Kimmel’s production company, 12:05 AM Productions, carries the old timeslot in its name.
4 — Times Kimmel has hosted the Oscars (2017, 2018, 2023, and 2024), tying Whoopi Goldberg and Jack Lemmon.
18 — Musical performances Pharrell Williams has been part of at Jimmy Kimmel Live!, more than any other artist—spanning solo sets, N.E.R.D. and team-ups with Robin Thicke, Nelly, Clipse and Slim Thug.
10 — Years Kimmel ran his “I Told My Kids I Ate All Their Halloween Candy” challenge, from 2011 to 2019, and once more in 2022—his last to date.
35 — Episodes Jimmy Kimmel Live! has produced from Kimmel’s birthplace of Brooklyn, spread across seven weeklong trips to the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 2012, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2022, and 2025.
3 — Jobs Guillermo Rodriguez was juggling to make ends meet, one of them as a parking-lot security guard at JKL, before Kimmel first put him on the air in 2003.
22 — Years since Jimmy Kimmel Live! stopped living up to its name and went from live to tape. Late-night lore has it ABC forced the change after censors failed to bleep a profane run from Punisher star Thomas Jane in 2004.
50 — “Mean Tweets” installments before Kimmel quietly retired the bit. The last installment aired in Oct. 2022, two weeks before Elon Musk completed his acquisition of the social media platform.
3 — Times Donald Trump himself appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, all of them before he was elected president.
1,668 — Jokes about Donald Trump told on JKL in 2025.
30 — Complaints the FCC received about Kimmel’s September 15, 2025 monologue in the days after it aired.
1,566 — Complaints sent to the FCC following Kimmel’s suspension two days later; fewer than 5% primarily criticized Kimmel—most were aimed at the FCC.
23% — Share of people watching TV at 11:35 p.m. who were tuned to Kimmel’s Sept. 23, 2025, post-suspension return, the largest audience share for any late-night talk show since May 1992, when Johnny Carson was closing out his 30-year run.
6 — Show-record Emmy nominations JKL landed in 2026, its biggest haul ever.
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