Kimmel’s Remarkable Night Back on ABC: Jokes, Tears, Resolve

An emotional, unrepentant, unreservedly outspoken Jimmy Kimmel returned to ABCs Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night, making the case for standing up for American values and against American bullies.

Kimmel worked in plenty of jokes, but his message was serious and clearly heartfelt: “Our government cannot be allowed to control what we do and do not say on television and… we have to stand up to it.”

He didn’t mince words about FCC chairman Brendan Carr, whom he called “embarrassing” for trying to “coerce” ABC affiliates to “change conduct,” a move he said flatly was “un-American.”

He played clips of Donald Trump mouthing praise for the idea of free speech—and then disparaging Kimmel for having no talent and no ratings.

“Well,” Kimmel responded, “I do tonight.”

Thanks to the massive attention brought to the show, and his cause, he was almost surely right about that. And he took a shot at Trump for how his effort to bury him and his show had backfired:

“He might have to release the Epstein files to distract from this now.”

Kimmel also said, clearly from down deep: “I’m happy to be here tonight with you.” The obvious implication: it was no sure thing.

No surprise, that comment—and the overall effort to express such weighty sentiments—brought the host to tears several times, especially when he commented on the speech by Erika Kirk, the widow of the slain Charlie Kirk, whom Kimmel said “touched me deeply” with her call for forgiveness for his killer.

The tragedy of that killing was, of course, at the center of the backlash that led ABC and its parent, Disney, to make the precipitate decision to pull Kimmel off the air, and suspend production for what turned out to be nearly a week.

And while full of praise for Disney’s ultimate support for him and the bedrock American principle of free speech, Kimmel acknowledged he was not pleased in the least at that initial move. “I did not agree with that decision, and I told them that and we had many conversations,” he said. But despite being only a tiny part of a giant corporation, “they welcomed me back and I am grateful for that.”

The interregnum did likely contribute to his coming to the conciliatory statement he did make high up in his monologue, saying it was obviously never his “intention to make light of the murder of a young man” nor to blame any group for the actions of a “deeply disturbed individual.” He said he didn’t blame the people who were upset by his comments—and if the situation were reversed, there was a good chance he’d feel the same way.

But the dominant emotion last night was gratitude—for the millions who supported him, the famous people and the regular folk, his fellow late-night hosts, the fans and even the haters.

In that latter group, Kimmel expressly thanked his old nemesis Sen. Ted Cruz who, while expressing his deep dislike of the host, nevertheless spoke strongly against the idea of government interference in personal expression, “saying we’ll ban you from the airwaves over what you say.”

It wasn’t all oratory. Kimmel seemed aware he was expected to mix the silly with the sacred. The show opened with a montage of people calling his return a story of monumental import, followed by a shot of Kimmel and his sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez watching the news clips dressed as an overweight bear and a banana.

Kimmel’s first words as he walked out to the expected rapturous standing ovation were a true callback to late-night history: “As I was saying before I was interrupted…”

That was what Jack Paar, second host of the Tonight show, said when he returned after his own unexpected disappearance from the air in 1960. The similarity ends there. Paar walked off on his own and the cause was somewhat less grand. He wanted to tell a joke that included the phrase “water closet” and the NBC censors wouldn’t let him.

Last night, Kimmel dropped the f-bomb once himself; then surprise guest Robert De Niro, playing in a sketch the kind of mafioso the real FCC commissioner Brendan Carr seemed to be channeling with his “easy way/hard way” threats about kowtowing to the interests of the Trump Administration, pushed the bleep machine up to 11, in likely his best late-night appearance ever—because he was totally in his Corleone-esque element.

After the first commercial break, in a move undoubtedly designed to signal that Kimmel intended to get back to his usual role, speaking comedy to power, he delivered a standard joke-filled monologue giving no quarter to the man who wants him fired and seems willing to use the government to accomplish that.

Among the Trump jokes were comments about the failed escalator at the United Nations: “Where was that escalator ten years ago when we needed it on the way down?”

And about his haranguing the other countries for “going to hell.”

And his apparently endless denunciations against Tylenol, which were illustrated by Trump saying “don’t take Tylenol” approximately 25 times.

So yeah, it was a funny show too.

Mostly it was a statement show: Kimmel acknowledged the boycott by two large station groups that meant people in places like Washington, D.C., and St. Louis could not see his show in the regular way, so would have to seek it out on YouTube or other sites.

Watching the smooth execution of the show last night, and the emphatic message it delivered in favor of free speech, it was hard to believe those holdout stations won’t be back soon.

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