Posted in: CBS, Comedy Central, NBC, Opinion, TV, TV | Tagged: jimmy kimmel, opinion

Jimmy Kimmel: Colbert, Stewart & Meyers Respond to Late-Night Return

Late-night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Seth Meyers responded to the news that Jimmy Kimmel would be returning on Tuesday night.

Six days after being suspended by Disney-owned network for comments he made during his opening monologue last week regarding supporters of the late conservative podcaster and adviser Charlie Kirk, ABC announced earlier today that late-night host Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be returning on Tuesday night. Shortly after, Sinclair announced that it was still in discussions with ABC and that the show would still be preempted by news programming, while Nexstar hasn't released a statement at the time of this writing. That wasn't the case with late-night hosts Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart, and Seth Meyers, who followed up last week's show of solidarity by congratulating Kimmel on his return and celebrating the decision to bring the show back. Here's a look at what they had to say:

"The Late Show with Stephen Colbert": In a clip from tonight's show that was released on social media, Colbert shares the news of Kimmel's return with his studio audience. "Just a few hours before we taped this broadcast, we got word that our long national late-nightmare is over because Disney announced that 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' will return to air," the late-night host said. "This is wonderful news for my dear friend Jimmy and his staff. I'm so happy for them. Plus, now that Jimmy's not being canceled, I get to enjoy [my Emmy]," Colbert joked. "Once more, I am the only martyr in late-night. Wait, unless, CBS, you want to announce anything?"

"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart": After kicking things off with a knife-twist over Trump's unsubstantiated claim that Tylenol use during pregnancy can cause autism in children, Stewart shifted the focus to the breaking news: "Young Jimmy Kimmel is coming back to television! I'll tell you, Jimmy Kimmel is flying high like Advil today. Acetaminophen is like boom, Advil's like, 'What's up, motherfuckers? You got a headache, where are you going to turn?'" From there, Stewart also joked about the sincerity of some of those who campaigned to bring Kimmel back. "The campaign that you all launched, pretending that you were going to cancel Hulu while secretly racing through four seasons of 'Only Murders in the Building,' really worked," Stewart added. "Congratulations!"

Dialing up the sarcasm, Stewart continued by joking that the decision to remove Kimmel "had nothing to do with the Trump administration and their explicit FCC threat that they could remove the show the easy way or the hard way." To make his point, Stewart cut to a FOX "News" clip of a correspondent running with the same sentiment. "I mean, gee willickers," Stewart continued. "All my days. I mean, I don't know why people would think that. We just randomly remove one show a week!" That was followed by a clip of a FOX "News" correspondent noting, "If Donald Trump wanted to take everyone off the air who had criticisms for him, there would basically only be a handful of individuals left on television." To that, Stewart added, "That is funny, but it also may be a cause for self-reflection? 'Hey, if everybody on TV is criticizing me, except for, like, four people, and one of them is my daughter-in-law, am I the drama?'"

"Late Night with Seth Meyers": Kicking off his "A Closer Look" segment, Meyers focused on Trump looking to have Attorney General Pam Bondi go after his political enemies before shifting the focus to the networks with a fun jab at his own. "Donald Trump is publicly calling on his attorney general to prosecute his political enemies and said TV networks that criticize him should lose their broadcast license. But that's not us, right? We're good? What… we're on a network?. But I don't even wear a suit. This is a network? I thought we only aired on those gas station TVs," Meyers joked.

From there, Meyers reminded viewers (and Trump) that late-night has a long tradition of making jokes at the POTUS's expense – regardless of party. "We make jokes about politicians and people in the news, including Joe Biden. It was just harder with Joe Biden, because he didn't say much," Rogen shared, offering a reason why late-night may seem to be focusing more on Trump than others. "You [to Trump], on the other hand, talk all the time. You never stop talking. You didn't stop talking when he was president. You've talked more than all the other Presidents combined ever. People say Johnny Carson didn't make this many jokes about politics, but he would have if every time he spoke, Ronald Reagan did 15 minutes on how toilets don't flush well anymore," he said. Meyers would end the segment by announcing to the audience that Kimmel would return on Tuesday night, adding that it was the result of a "massive national backlash to Trump's crackdown on free speech, even among conservatives."

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