Nine years ago, Jimmy Kimmel devoted part of his monologue to honoring his Jimmy Kimmel Live! musical director Cleto Escobedo III, who turned 50 that day.
Kimmel and Escobedo, who died early Tuesday at age 59, had known each other since they were children growing up across the street from one another in Las Vegas.
The segment, which aired on August 24, 2016, was equal parts heartfelt tribute and roast. “I met Cleto in January of 1977 when my family moved from Brooklyn to Las Vegas,” Kimmel recalled. “The first time we met, I was riding a bike wearing boxing gloves and my mother’s sunglasses. Cleto saw me and assumed I was mentally challenged. But we began a lifetime of friendship.”
As Escobedo and his father Cleto Escobedo Jr. (who played alongside his son in Cleto and the Cletones) laughed along, Kimmel shared a string of mischievous childhood stories, painting a picture of the younger Escobedo as both prankster and partner in crime.
There was the time Cleto glued the steering column on Kimmel’s homemade go-kart, sending it straight into traffic, and another when he used a BB gun to take potshots at Kimmel across the lawn. “Sometimes he’d steal his dad’s shotgun and we’d go out back and shoot kites out of the sky,” Kimmel said. “That’s Cleto—very advanced.”
The host’s stories turned more outrageous as he recounted their teenage escapades. “My parents went out of town. Cleto brought his girlfriend over to my house to make love in my parents’ bed,” Kimmel laughed, adding that his mother later found the evidence. Escobedo, Kimmel said, once convinced his younger brother to fear a monster called ‘the Penis Man,’ who would ‘sneak into your bedroom and chop off your penis if you didn’t listen to Cleto.’”
He also remembered Escobedo mooning strangers from the family station wagon. “His little brown ass would be pressed up against the window right above a bumper sticker that said, ‘The family that prays together stays together,’” Kimmel said, shaking his head.
After a montage of old photos—Kimmel with his clarinet, Cleto with his saxophone—the host closed the tribute with affection: “Those are the stories I can mention on television. There are about 200 others I can’t. Happy birthday, Cleto. I can’t wait for your kids to turn 12 and find out their father is a secret maniac.”
Eight years later, the moment stands as a reminder of Kimmel and Escobedo’s singular, lifelong bond—one forged in music, mischief, and friendship that endured from childhood garages to late-night television.
Watch Kimmel’s 2016 tribute to Escobedo at the top of this post.
