Perhaps you’ve heard: There is overwhelming evidence that Donald Trump is a time traveler, revealed by mind-blowing details like he may have been in central London in the 1300’s doing what he’s always done: naming things after himself.
There’s a Trump Alley, just steps from, unbelievably, a place called Grocers Hall. (So that’s why he just remembered that ancient word.) And if that’s not enough, there’s also a Trumpington Village Hall. And London also has not one but two churches with hundreds of years old gargoyles that look exactly like DT.
By the way, when Trump was indicted, he told authorities that he weighed 215 pounds. Of course, pounds are British money and that amount back in the 14th century would be 33401 pounds now; and 33401 just happens to be the zip code for West Palm Beach, Fl, where he just happened to hold his victory party in 2024.
Coincidence? Or delightful nonsense?
If you vote for the latter, congratulations, you’ve passed the first test, because that’s precisely what was intended when Jimmy Kimmel and his staff created their new web series called “The Rabbit Hole.”
Its six episodes are now available on YouTube, and could see Kimmel join the ranks of Seth Meyers’ “Corrections” and The Daily Show‘s “Desi Lydic Foxspains” among the Emmy nominees for Outstanding Short Form Comedy, Drama or Variety Series.
To recognize the thorough satire being perpetrated by “The Rabbit Hole,” you probably don’t have to have been exposed to gobsmacking tales like this online, presented by ardent and often breathless conspiracy theorists armed with similar “proof” that JFK is still alive and living in the form of Donald J. Trump.
But if you have been exposed, you likely get how complete the mock version is, down to the hand-held mini mic Kimmel leans into as she shares his chilling tales.
The series is the brainchild (there’s always some mastermind behind engrossing conspiracy concoctions) of Jesse Joyce, who’s been a writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live! for eight years.
“I just have a mind that’s able to do conspiracy nonsense and just go down these rabbit holes,” he says.
Holes like examining how boat waves are the real threat, not jet contrails; why fights always take place in Waffle House restaurants (and never IHOPs); and why the 5G conspiracy can be traced to Five Guys hamburger joints—even though there’s six guys who own that chain, and thus to the band Toto, which had six members in its original form.
The spaghetti-ball tangled weave of evidence Joyce puts together to draw connections and conclusions in each case are all real, honest facts. “It’s just the way they’re strung together that’s really spurious,” he explains.
Joyce has been getting in the weeds with internet conspiracy wizards for years and offering pieces like this up for the nightly Kimmel monologue. But he said they would take up too much of a monologue—making a short-form web video a much better vehicle.
Each six-minute clip is equal parts funny and amazing in terms of its research, which includes ridiculous but true connections like PAN being the bank code for Panama, whose one-time dictator, Manual Noriega, was sentenced to prison on March 4, which happens to be National Pancake Day
“Bone-chilling,” Kimmel pronounces, ominously.
The series took Joyce many hours to research the deep state of potential mind-blowing links in each six-minute episode. “There’s a lot of dead ends,” Joyce says.
He desperately wanted some number from the Patent Office to connect to something Trumpian. “You know, like Donald Trump’s prison number to like the singing Billy Bass,” the wall ornament. “Or the patent for Truck Nuts. Like, boy, would that be like absolutely perfect.”
But many times, the fishing expedition came up instead with “a screw that goes onto the back of a washing machine.”
He admits to having one thing in common with “real conspiracy dipshits.” When it works, when some arcane details somehow match the loony theory he’s pursuing, “it really gives you a jolt.” He adds, “I think I celebrate in the same way that they do when they find nonsensical data that proves to them the earth is flat.”
Often the data Joyce has found—like his bizarro-world compatriots in the real rabbit holes—does not quite fit, but that’s funny too, when Kimmel casually says something matches though it’s the wrong day or the wrong person or the numbers have to be reversed.
“You take that sort of exact conspiracy attitude and just kind of twist a little bit and it’s hilarious,” Joyce says. “I think that’s a real funny performance thing that Jimmy does to just blow past anything that technically makes the whole thing fall apart.”
Joyce points out there isn’t anything especially new about conspiracy theories. A raft of them surrounded the Lincoln assassination, for example, but they’ve gotten old and people are past them (mostly).
“Now we have the Internet,” Joyce says. “The main difference is we hear them now. If you happened to be in the grain store when that guy was talking back then, you’d be subjected to their conspiracy. But other than that, you could just live your life without them. Now they’re allowed to show up in my feed.”
Joyce is highly pleased with how the series came out, especially because people who debunk conspiracies for a living have told him he nailed it. And because so far “the goofballs on the Internet have not pointed out any flaws with the logic.”
Kimmel’s production company has plans to expand the series to Tik Tok and Instagram. The choice to roll it out to YouTube first was made because of the big following the Kimmel show has built there, 20 million.
Will there be more episodes in the future?
“I would love to,” Joyce says. “It just depends on everybody else on the show’s bandwidth. Cause it really does take up a lot of air.”
All six episodes of “The Rabbit Hole with Jimmy Kimmel” can be viewed on Kimmel’s YouTube Channel.
