Jimmy Kimmel: A modern day Icarus. Flying too close to the sun of network late night with wings made of lame jokes and awkward interviews. That’s if he could get his lard ass off the ground.
After the debacle that was David Letterman vs. Ted Koppel, ABC still came out under, with no comical late-night contender. A few months and a Kimmel contract later, the network still doesn’t.
Kimmel is too unaided and too ordinary for that time of the night. We’ve been dealing with his kind the entire day; loud, obnoxious, arrogant asses, whose humor seems to be the funniest to himself.
Kimmel, without the training wheels of a cohort, and viewers, without the sense of self only the light of day can bring, have less chance of being happy together than “Marry Me America” newlyweds.
The guy had a good, respectable thing going for him as Ben Stein’s one-liner-slingin’, category-reading co-host on Comedy Central’s “Win Ben Stein’s Money.” Not since Ken Ober and Colin Quinn on “Remote Control” has there been a comical quiz-show duo that made inconsequential programming even more pointless, but with witty humor and rawness that makes you proud to own basic cable.
And no one really expected Kimmel to stay at what was basically a dead-end job. But his performance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live” is unnecessary, unworthy and unholy awful. “Ben Stein’s Money” and his subsequent “Man Show,” however chauvinistic you deem it to be, placed Kimmel in a tolerable light — a light he shared with someone else.
It’s the flying solo crap that’s the end of him. Sure, he’s got that rotating host, and with the track record of a veritable who’s-who of “I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Here Season 2” (Kathy Griffin, Adam Carolla and Don King), it’s not so much a rotating pattern as it is a downward spiral. But in the end it is just Jimmy. And that, ironically, is not enough.
On Comedy Central, Kimmel had near free-range and tore through it like a rabid, yet charismatic, hog. Network gigs may come with more money, but they also have more censors, an environment Kimmel can’t seem to function in. His comic bits are stale, and he is more irritating than ever before.
No one said talk shows were easy. Just ask Chevy Chase, Caroline Rhea and Vanessa Huxtable (yeah she had one for like, a second). It’s a fine line to walk — between comedian, interviewer, moderator, entertainer — and when juxtaposed with such late-night genius as Conan O’Brien (whose own beginnings may have been just as meager, but his star still shown brighter and was full of more potential), it is clear that Kimmel is barely crawling along.
Not that his guest list is any help. Recently, Jeff Goldblum appeared to promote — well, he spoke mostly about Kimmel’s other endeavor, “Crank Yankers.” And Kimmel let him — Tack-Eee.
The same episode saw model Molly Sims badmouthing, of all things, Derek Jeter and Judaism. Class-Eee.
Ultimately, though, it’s Kimmel who’s to blame. Like third grade show-and-tell, it’s not what your classmates bring in; it’s how well they present it. In other words, showmanship, which Kimmel, like good cholesterol, is sorely lacking.
He may be seen as the every-man’s man late-night host. But we don’t want or need that. Every man is at home in his underwear in bed at that hour. And as delightful as that image is, that is where Kimmel belongs.
