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“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host Jimmy Kimmel was back cracking wise at the Disney upfronts on Tuesday, and at first it look like he might be doing remotely — his daughter is about to give birth, so it was touch and go whether he’d be able to give his annual monologue in person.
“I’m going to be a grandfather, and once I am a grandfather, I can’t wait to see this thing we’ve been talking about for so many years,” he said in a pre-tape. “What do they call it again? Oh, right, ‘CBS.’ I’m hearing great things from the younger old guys.” (It was one of several old jokes at the Eye network’s expense.)
But after the pre-tape (with special guest Dr. Dre!), in which Kimmel offered selling naming rights for his grandkid (yeah, he knows Seth Meyers did a similar joke on Monday, more on that in a second), he still came out in person at the Javits Center to roast the industry, and in particular, his bosses at Disney.
That started, of course with supreme Disney poobah Bob Iger: “I do this once a year, like a prostate exam, but it’s hard to say no when Bob Iger shows up,” he said.. “Bob Iger has passionately led Disney for 20 years and reluctantly for three. This is Bob’s second upfront appearance in a row. You think he needs to be here? He doesn’t need to be here. He’s got bigger things going on. I mean, look at this.
[Photo of Iger announcing the new Disneyland in Abu Dhabi.]
“Here he is buying a mountain. I’m kidding. The mountain was a gift from Qatar. You think Bob gets a shit about ‘The Rookie’ season 8? Bob doesn’t care if this whole room turns into ‘Avengers:Endgame’ dust. But he showed up. You know why he showed up? Because he’s proud of our audience engagement. As [sales boss] Rita [Ferro] says, we have the most high value audiences in ad supported global streaming at scale. Rita, you know you can ask Chat GPT to do another pass, right?”
Kimmel noted that he normally roasts the networks hard at the upfronts, but this year, the narrative has been much more positive for the Big 4. “This is a weird experience for me, because usually I come out here to distract you from the fact that we’re dying, but somehow network television, like Jesus before us, has risen again,” he said. “Of the four major networks, NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox, only one of us didn’t see viewership go up year to year. Now I’m not going to tell you which one of us it is, because it doesn’t matter so don’t ask. Just be happy for all of us. We don’t need good ratings at ABC, Disney, Hulu, ESPN, FX, Tim FanDuel, KFC, Cash App. We are about one thing and one thing only. IP. Our IP.”
[On screen, in Disney script, the letters read “R.I.P.”]
“We should have redone that, but you get the idea, no one touches our IP, and if we they do, we’ll sue them,” he said.
Kimmel then turned his attention to NBC, and sales chief Mark Marshall — who appeared at the NBCU upfront on Monday in a “Wicked” style Glinda bubble. “Speaking of imminent death, I want to wish a happy birthday to those plucky centenarians at NBC,” Kimmel said. “That wrinkly Peacock is 100 years old, which is amazing. NBC is finally old enough to watch CBS. NBC’s chairman of global advertising Mark Marshall claimed yesterday, his network has amassed the greatest collection of content that has ever been assembled by one media company. I guess Mark has never heard of PornHub.”
[Close-up shot of Marshall, with cheeky grin.]
“Although, based on the expression of his face, I feel like he has,” Kimmel said. “But listen, Mark’s personal masturbation habits are none of your business. And shame on you for even thinking about it.
“At the end of the day, this is all just a dick measuring contest, and NBC still has the biggest one: Dick Wolf, the Michael Jordan of character actors getting murdered in the park. Dick has six shows on NBC and two on CBS, including a new one called ‘CIA.'”
Kimmel had a bit of fun with the somewhat generic logline that has been shared so far about the show: “‘CIA’ has an interesting premise,” he said. “It’s a show about two partners, both in law enforcement. One of them is by the book, but the other and I’m actually glad you’re sitting down, because this is where it gets crazy. The other one doesn’t play by the rules. Plays by his own rules. I know this is why the writers had to go on strike, to stop AI. Or as our Secretary of Education calls it, ‘A-1.'”
He wasn’t done with the Eye network old jokes: “CBS was the most watched that work again for the 17th year in a row, led by their hit comedy ‘Ghosts,’ which is also what most of their viewers will be soon.”
Fox’s new show ‘Memory of a Killer’ wasn’t spared: “This one is about a hit man with Alzheimer’s, which sounds bad, but he’s actually very sad,” he said. “He keeps killing the same guy over and over again, and that is annoying.”
But, he noted, ABC only has one new scripted series announced for fall: “9-1-1: Nashville.” “At least CBS and Fox are making shows. ABC we ordered one new show as a spin off of an old show, which really makes the question, what are we doing here? We risk our lives flying into Newark for this? I mean, if you went to a restaurant, and the waiter said, ‘our special tonight is last year’s fish,’ would you eat it? No, you would not. Our fish is not fresh.
“But you know, we do have Season grandmother-fucking 2 of ‘The Golden Bachelor.’ Say what you will about ABC, we are still the only network where you can see pop-pop get a squeezer in a hot tub. ‘Golden Bachelor,’ Season 34 of ‘Dancing with the Stars’ at ABC. We know what young people want to see, and it’s not us. It’s YouTube.”
Are the kids even watching TV? “Deloitte just did survey, and the survey showed that Gen Z and Millennial viewers were spending more time on social media than watching television,” Kimmel noted. “Yeah, no shit. Think we needed a survey to know that? Fuck you, Deloitte. And you know what? Fuck those ungrateful Gen Z d-bags too. Are you too cool for ‘Match Game’? Well, guess what? When you have kids and you need ‘Moana’ to keep the little bastards quiet for two hours, you’ll come crawling back to Disney like dogs!”
Netflix, you’re on notice: “Disney has 164 million active users per month across our ad supported platforms, more than twice the number of Netflix ads. I don’t have a joke for that. I just wanted you to know we finally beat those motherfuckers up!”
Back to tweaking the Disney Co., he referenced ESPN’s new sports platform. “Now you may be asking, What does this mean for ESPN+, which is on my phone? Will you get rid of that? No, ESPN+ is here to stay. Alright? So will I get more content on ESPN+ than I do on ESPN? No, you will get less content on ESPN+. The plus is now, in many ways, a minus. If you want the plus, you have to pay less more. It’s all part of our plan to confuse you until you hand us the debit card of everyone in your family.”
The new platform was originally going to be called “Flagship,” but it won’t be, Kimmel noted, because “we don’t give things bad and confusing names, just ask ‘FX on Hulu on Disney+.’ So what will this mysterious news training service be called? Well, you know, they had a conclave and a little puff of white smoke came out of [ESPN boss] Jimmy Pitaro’s ass. And the news service, bringing live content to millions of fans around the world, will go by the name ‘ESPN.'”
Not really original, he quipped. “That’s why they call us Imagineers… we forgot we had to come up with a name for this thing until this morning, and we had it. And you know what? It could have been worse. It could have been ‘Versant.'”
That’s a reference to the new name for the cable spinoff at NBCU. “‘Versant’ is a perfect game. It already sounds like something you subscribe to by accident,” he said. “Versant’s portfolio includes MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Oxygen, E, Syfy, the Golf Channel and Golf Now. Every channel a sexless marriage could ever need. According to their president, Versant’s audience is the most devoted audience in the industry, which is impressive because the fact that they didn’t even exist until yesterday.”
Are we doomed to artificial intelligence taking all of our jobs? “It won’t be long before this whole event that gathers us together will be AI bots buying time on shows made by AI bots that human people watch on platforms programmed and operated by AI bots,” Kimmel said. “So who wants to go up on the roof and drink some rat poison?”
Kmmel noted that Disney is touting its position as “the number one multi platform network. What does that mean? We don’t know. And we’re hoping you don’t even listen. I might not see you again. This could be it for you. So I want you to know I enjoy doing this, and I’ve grown very fond of you. I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know many of you over the last 23 years, and I also know that many of you are worried that AI may take your jobs, but I don’t think it will. I don’t believe a computer, even the most powerful computer in the world, will never be able to do what you do. And you know why? Because no computer wants to do what you do. Your jobs suck.
“Every year, our audience gets smaller, and we tell you it’s bigger and we want more for less, and it’s exhausting. I know it’s we are annoying and unreasonable, and you have shitty jobs because of it, but at least you have the shitty jobs all those kids who start graduating this weekend, who knows, they might not be able to get shitty jobs. Some of them might have to date Bill Belichick to make it. So let’s not be stupid. Let’s keep this gravy train roll each point for as long as we can. You give us someone else the money we put on the commercials. Everyone gets paid, and then you get drunk with Darth Vader at the party.
Kimmel ended on an important note, urging advertisers in the audience to support journalism and “60 Minutes.”
“I know it’s not part of our multi platform, but support ’60 Minutes,'” he said. “They deserve it. You have the power because you have the money to support journalism. It’s important, and it doesn’t work without you.”
Kimmel has been off and on the upfront in recent years due to many issues often beyond his call — he was at the Javits last year, but in 2023 Kimmel didn’t attend due to the Hollywood WGA strikes. And in 2022, he was in New York — but had to be beamed in to do his routine after testing positive for COVID.
Kimmel noted that he almost pulled his pre-tape when he discovered Meyer made a similar joke about family naming rights yesterday, but he joked, “we taped that a week ago, and I thought about killing it. But then I also thought about Dr Dre killing me, for making him drive to Hollywood to put on makeup for no reason. That is how asses get capped. And I wanted no part of it. If Seth has a problem with it, take it up with motherfucking Dre, lobby baby!”
English (US) ·