Jimmy Kimmel Live!

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I think I might have mentioned in a previous gambit that most of us really enjoyed the first episode of the Jimmy Kimmel show after the superbowl. Snoop Dogg co-hosting, George Clooney coming out with the bottle of Grey Goose vodka. It was beautiful (and funny) organized chaos.

I've tried really hard to catch the show since then, but here in the Twin Cities the local ABC affiliate has chose to put a re-run of Dharma & Greg and Cheers after Nightline so Jimmy gets that prime 12:05 AM time slot. How frickin' annoying is that? When Letterman first moved to CBS, our local CBS station kept it's usual 10:30 showing of old Cheers episodes for months. They eventually moved Dave up...I'm hoping the same happens to Jimmy.

Anyway, I taped a couple of episodes and watched them, and then I caught last friday's episode. Here is the template for your basic Jimmy Kimmel show

  • Special Guest announcer announces who is on the show that night, then introduces Jimmy who runs is outside the of the theatre and runs in through the front door.
  • Jimmy takes a seat and does a sort of rambline monologue of unpolished jokes and bits, and talks way too much to his band leader. The band leader makes Paul Schaffer seem interesting.
  • Jimmy brings out his co-host for the week (first week was Snoop Dogg, I've also seen Kathy Griffin, and Janeane Garafolo).
  • More jokes and bits while bantering with the co-host.
  • Usual parade of guests with a few bits mixed in.
  • The end.

The couple episodes I taped were pretty lame. Nothing particularly funny, and the unpolished nature of the show kind of annoyed me. Although it is refreshing to realize do have live unscripted TV happening right in front of you.

Last Friday's episode gave me hope though. There was still the lame banter with his band leader (have I mentioned that this guy sucks yet?), and Janeane Garafolo was strangely quiet, and not very funny (I think the impending war is weighing heavily on her mind), but Jimmy was in a great mood because Jennifer Garner (the girl from Alias) was on the show that night and he's got a big crush on her. The other guests that night were Rich Eisen (from ESPN), and a 10-year old girl who is a baseball pitching phenom.

The two best parts of the night: When time was up with Jennifer Garner, Jimmy first said that he's not bringing Rich Eisen out and that he's going to continue to talk to Jennifer...but then decides since Rich came all the way from Connecticut that he'd have to bring him out, but instead of taking the chair next to the desk, he'd make him sit on the couch...which he did. Heee-larious. The other part was Jimmy talking smack about how the 10-year old girl was going to pitch to him and he was going to knock it out of the park. To make a long story short, she struck him out. Nothing like a grown man talking smack to a 10-year old, and then her making him look like a fool.

At any rate, the jury is still out on this show. As with any new show, there are a lot of kinks to work out. Maybe part of the charm is the fact that they all seem so unprepared, but if they are serious about staying on the air, I think we'll need to see some serious improvement...with the first one being the local ABC affiliate putting the show on earlier!

Jimmy Kimmel Live: KMSP Ch. 5 - Weeknights at 12:05 AM

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