Full Transcript
Caloroga Shark Media. Hello again, I’m Johnny Mac. Another bonus Jimmy Kimmel episode. So what this is. This is a crossover episode with The Letterman Podcast.
Mike Chisholm and I jumped in the respective studios and talked for about an hour about Jimmy Kimmel. I do want to, just in case you’re just catching this episode, clear up what the feed is. So it is Thursday. There was the normal episode on Thursday morning, there was a bonus episode about Kimmel. You’re hearing this now.
Then on Friday morning there will be a normal episode where I don’t talk about Kimmel at all because I had recorded that before any of this happened.
And then I will come back on Friday afternoon and do another Kimmel episode.
But let’s just jump in with Mike Chisholm from the Great The Letterman Podcast. All right, Johnny Mack. I like that we do this. I do not like the reason that we do this. Lately, I will talk with you all the time.
I just I appreciate you so much and everything that you contribute to the world of this thing that we love so much, which is comedy. Everybody Daily Comedy News podcast. Subscribe, listen to it every day. It’s awesome, Johnny, What the heck is going on with Late Night? This is insane.
I’m still as we record. We’re what nineteen hours into this news story? Twenty hours in? Yeah, my head is still spinning. I dropped a bonus episode on my feet on Wednesday night.
I was just reacting, couldt I’m just so stunned by this, and forget about what I have been calling Colbert Gate. This is a whole other level for reasons, we will get into this. This is not Oh, your show’s losing forty million dollars and we didn’t want to ruin your vacation. This something else entirely. Yep, I could not agree more.
I’ve got two things going against me. Number One, I’m Canadian, so I don’t quite understand the nuances of everything going on down there. So I’ve got some questions on that. Number two is that I’m a buffoon, and so I need to talk to people who know more about these things than I do. To me, there’s a couple of issues here.
People are talking about free speech, free speech, free speech, okay, but then there’s also broadcast standards, the rules that need to be adhered to and if those were violated. And perhaps there’s a third one, which is personal taste. So everything with free speech checks out, everything with broadcast standards checks out. But the personal taste is now such that it has irked people who can make decisions on that. In your opinion, what are we dealing with here?
Sure, so let me speak to the FCC part of it, and I’ll approach this the way I do in my college classes. Legal scholars will be able to nitpick what I’m saying here. I don’t want to use the phrase dumb it down, but I’m simplifying. Please do for a realizing to get the point across succinctly. So, the FCC governs the airwaves as we used to call them AMNFM, radio, broadcast television.
Those are scarce resources. So if you look at the FM dial in the United States, if you look at the New York City FM stations, there’s one at ninety two point three, the next one’s at ninety three point one, the next ones at ninety three point nine, etc. They’re all point eight apart. YEP. That is so that the radio stations don’t step over each other, and we regulate that if you and I started a pirate radio station at ninety two point five, it would interfere with ninety two point three.
So we have government oversight to say, Okay, this station goes here, that station goes there. Go. The same logic applies to television. Okay, because those are scarce resources. We don’t have infinite band, we want to make sure that they’re properly taken care of.
In the public interest as a phrase, you hear a lot in the public interest. As part of that, you shouldn’t be reckless. And there are things you can do that could have your license to broadcast on such frequencies AMFM television taken away. Yes, the government cannot as to risk. Maybe they can.
But up until yesterday morning, I would have said, cannot take your station away because they don’t like what you’re saying. Now, there are rules. There can be corporate rules, there can be federal rules. For example, you can’t swear on broadcast television on HBO where all you want, but HBO is coming to you. And again i’m simplifying through a wire it is cable television as a term.
Maybe you’re getting a satellite or over the internet, whatever you’re not using the spectrum to receive HBO, so it does not apply. I worked at satellite radio, same thing that wasn’t governed by the FCC. We still chose not to yell fire in a crowded theater, but we could drop f bombs we want. The other thing about things like swear language is the FCC is not staffed and does not spend their day going around playing gotcha. So you could go on ninety two point three FM and go ffff and just curse for two hours, and if no one complains, there won’t be an investigation because no one has complained.
Yes, if someone complains, then they’ll investigate, and you know there’s recordings or whatever will be like, oh, this guy, Mike, he broke the rules, and then that would normally be a fine. We will find your radio station. For the twenty three times Mike broke the rules and you’re scolded to go straight to taking away a license is off the charts. Extreme. I used to work for WOR Radio under Buckley Broadcasting, who had acquired the station from RKO.
Now at some point my memory’s foggy. Here o r KO was, I’ll cute it up, strongly encouraged to sell all their radio stations to get out of the business for whatever they did wrong. So it was was the rehorse head involved. Something like that, Right, so sell the stations or we’re taking them away. Okay, And I heard Keith Oberman say this on his podcast.
Keith was unable to think of he could not recall a time when a TV license was taken away. I cannot and I can’t easily recall a radio license being taken away other than for maybe for like you know, you haven’t actually broadcast on your frequency in years, you’ve clearly abandoned it, so we’re taking your license away, that sort of thing. Okay, let’s hit a pause here for a question. Let’s go back to perhaps an example that that we would when the Smothers Brothers were pulled. It had nothing to do with what you’re talking about here, licenses being pulled and the actual right to be in business and broadcasting.
Correct, that’s that’s that’s not the same thing. No, not at all. These Smothers Brothers, much like Jimmy Kimmel said some things that were based in opinion. Yes, network chose not to back that opinion. And I want to get into the let me sidebar here for a second too.
I’ve worked a lot of big companies. You back your talent that was drilled into me by those who game before me. You back your talent. You may have a conversation in the back room and be like, hey, Mike, can you cut it out with the Canadian stuff? You know, let’s get that a lot.
Yes, Yes, Publicly, I’m not going to shun you. I’m going to say, you know, Mike’s been an outstanding host for us. We love the Letterman podcast. We continued, you know, we’re going to continue to work together for years to come. Now, in the back room we might be like, dude, the advertisers are like it, right, enough with the Colbert stuff, get back to Dave.
But that’s a whole separate thing. Publicly, we’re going to support you. So this news on Wednesday that I was in the car, I was telling the story in my show. I was picking up my nephew at the train station. I played on my phone, and while I was playing on my phone, it was that the next Star stations were pulling Kimble, which was a big enough story, and within ten minutes it had evolved into ABC is pulling Jimmy kimmelive pulling, not even like, you know, we’re gonna run a rerun tonight because he has a cold, which is you know, something you could do.
Jimmy’s not feeling well today. That kind of stuff goes on Straight’s a poll, Are you kidding me? And ABC is owned by Disney? But these are big numbers, these are big players, big numbers, these are big things. Here’s what I’m saying.
So I was talking to some friends about that. You know, Hey, you know we’re mad. We’re gonna boycott ABC. We’re we’re gonna take this out on ABC. Okay, boycotters, and I emotionally support you.
Yeah, but I’ll ask the boycotters. While you’re boycotting ABC, are you also boycotting Disney, Hulu, Star Wars, Marvelville? Yep? Are you boycotting all that too? Because you’re either boycotting or you’re not.
And I’m as much as I support Kimmel in all this, I think you’re not. Yeah, that’s right. Well, okay, so I’m really grateful that you framed it that way, and even in the aside, because my phone started blowing up at the moment of the Kimmel announcement. And I think a lot of people don’t even know what you just said. Is that, well, hold on a second.
Twenty minutes before a very important piece of the puzzle was placed, and it was done so in plain sight. But many people aren’t talking about that right now. So can we go into that a little bit. How big of a deal is that within the broadcasting world. To have stations pull a show has happened in the past.
There were ABC affiliates that didn’t show NYPD Blue until they got over themselves and aired NYPD Blue. There have been shit. And affiliates have switched networks because of things like this as well. Right, sure you do you? Yeah?
Do you? Yep? I think there were forgive me if this is inaccurate. I think there were some stations that didn’t air the Carol O’Connor series in the heat of the night for whatever reasons. One might make that decision.
So affiliates can do this, and then you get into the discussion of, well, hey, if you guys are going to be an affiliate, you probably should air our programming, and you know you can break up and all that. But to further the timeline, a few hours before the next star piece of it. The FCC chair was on a YouTube podcast and made some comments about Kimmel and how Disney better do something, and it was a little loaded, and I think things escalated very quickly. Many people are looking at this story as through the lens of Jimmy Kimmel said horrible things. He shouldn’t be on the air.
But the real story is the FCC chair going Hey, wouldn’t be the worst thing if Jimmy Kimmel weren’t on the air. I’m just saying, sometimes people who lose licenses, you know, you never know what happens in this world. And it’s really about the FCC pressure on the stations, which again, to come full circle, Jimmy Kimmel didn’t get on and go fffff, which would have resulted in a fine. Yep, this is Oh, we’ve got a late night host who said things that somebody doesn’t like, and things rolled downhill. Yes, and then actually the President of the United States later in the day tweeted that NBC should get rid of Fallon and seth next.
Now, let’s stop off there. Even in a world where we’re like, you know what, we shouldn’t be criticizing our leaders. We shouldn’t be making jokes about our leaders. So this seth Meyers fellow. He has to go to Yep, even if I flip that card, we’re coming after Jimmy Fallon.
Jimmy Fallon’s biting, cutting edge political commentary. Exactly what’s going on here. Yeah, So let’s precurse that what you just talked about there to when the announcement of Stephen Colbert came to light. The last time we did an emergency podcast, President Trump at that point, what was the first thing he said? Celebration about Colbert, Kimmel’s next, Kimmel’s next, and now, and then you have people who now, okay, So here’s the other question that I have.
How is the FCC an independent organization or are they a full on government organization where literally, like you said, things roll down hill from the top, a decision could be made and it could roll downhill and just be this is now our mandate. I e. We don’t like Jimmy Kimmel. I don’t know the legal structure of where on the on the government organizational chart the FCC falls, but they are the government regulate of the public airwaves. Again, if on the Jimmy Kimmel podcast, he could do whatever he wants, and he could broadcast from his boat in the middle of the Pacific, and if he has an RSS feed, he can get his thing out there.
And that has nothing to do. With for now. What you’re saying is for now, we can’t well for now. But the crux here, even a version of Jimmy Kimmel Live airing on ABC doesn’t have their own Peacock. But if you know Jimmy Kimme alive on Peacock or Disney Plus or Disney Plus straight to Disney Plus without touching the public airwaves, that has nothing to do with the FCC.
You can frown all you want, right. You could say, when when Disney Plus wants to merge with Peacock, maybe we’ll throw a wrench in the wheels, you know, maybe that kind of thing. But the crux here is you’re using your airwaves to say things we don’t like, and we’re going to take your license away. And the stations went, ooh, we don’t want to lose our license because then your business goes from X million dollars to you have no asset at all, right, which is scary, Yes, but you and I were I think I did this publicly in the Facebook, in your Facebook group, and I keep thinking of Edward Rmorrow. I can’t stop thinking of.
All right more with Mike Chisholm in a second, be right back, Okay. So let’s connect it just a little bit more. Okay. So this this thing that’s happening with Next Star, there’s a merger as well, is there not? Did I read that?
I’m not sure I have. Okay, I thought I read that there was a merger as well, but that could have been the One thing that I do I do not appreciate about the world right now is the amount of fake, like headline like clickbait type news that’s out there. And that was something that I did read that there’s a there’s some sort of merger that’s upcoming as well. But the startling thing about this is, like you said, two different issues here, the idea of taking a host unpopular opinion in certain circles and allowing that retribution to occur. In your mind, has that ever happened?
Has on this scale? Has this ever happened? So there’s the court of public opinion. You know, nothing is coming to mind, but there could be a scenario where someone on TV says something and then there is public outrage and then this person either gets put in time out or I’m sure if I took a second think here, there’s plenty of examples of people having gigs that abruptly end because they said. Something totally Yeah, Jimmy.
The Greek, I think his career may have ended. The old CBS betting guy, I think his career may have ended abruptly. And my apologies to the Greek family if I’m misremembering that. But uh, you know, there have been a couple things that. The Greek family.
Yeah, apologies to the Greek family, but yes. There have been some things like that. So sure, but that’s the court of public opinion, where that is the court of yo. The advertisers aren’t going to support this anymore, you know that that’s a thing. But this is seemingly pressure from the Federal Communications Commission.
Yes, and that is just I want to get to what he said. I’ve had a lot of people maybe we can Okay, So you’ve thank you so much for that background. I appreciate it very very much. It provides a lot of insight. There’s a lot of people I don’t think that even knew about.
Again, that previous fifteen minutes. Proverbially, I want to talk about I’ve had a lot of people reach out to me. I’ve talked to like eight former Letterman staffers, all which I’m not going to name any of what we’ve said in our conversations. One of them said, and soberingly, this is the end of democracy as we know it. I want to talk a little bit about what he said.
A lot of people have said to me, Oh, what would have Dave? How would Dave have handled the Charlie Kirk situation? And my word, you know, we could go into that too, but I want to talk about what he said, and let’s get to the free speech aspect of it, and the and the and the was what he said really like, I’m not going to say it’s not in poor taste. Somebody just was killed very publicly, and they’ve got a family and they’ve got like so there’s always that part of it. There always is.
Now the asterix is many times late eight host comics too soon? Is it too soon? No? Can I start making fun of this now? And they make fun of things right so we know that this is the culture that does exist.
Was what Jimmy Kimmel said over the line as I put together my podcast this week. On Wednesday, when I was putting together Friday show, I saw that Newsweek had an article about people reacting to Jimmy Kimmel’s comments. I clicked on it, I read it, and I didn’t even put it in my script. It wasn’t a thought. In my head.
I did not read that. And let me say loudly and clearly, no one should be murdered. No one. Yeah, I read the comments, I didn’t react to it at all, and I didn’t put it in a script. And a lot of things make it into Daily Comedy News, and I didn’t even put that one in.
So I personally didn’t read Kimmel’s comments. I still haven’t heard him speak them. I’ve only read them. Yes, me too, personally did not freak out. Now, if you want to get into the too soon or all that, the opposite of too soon is if you go back to last week, the first thing Kimmel said, and maybe as you talk, I’ll pull up on my phone he said something like, can we all just be decent people for a day and not get into this?
So I’m gonna look that quote up. Yeah, no, please do I’ll talk a little bit too. One thing I do want to throw out there real quick, Like, I’ve had so many people saying, oh, Dave would have diad this, and Dave would have said that. Hold on a second. In my opinion, David Letterman like, let’s go back to OJ for a second.
The O. J. Simpson thing. And many people attribute Jay Leno and the Tonight Show going past Late Show and the ratings partially because Jay Leno made fun of the hoopla around the OJ Simpson trial, which was back in the day, believe it or not, you know, one of the top things that all of pop culture was talking about was this O. J.
Simpson trus Dave famously said I don’t find double homicide funny and said, let’s steer away from that, and Jay went full force into making fun of all of that. So, to me, the sensibility of Late Night slash Late Show when making any political humor was to celebrate. To me, it was to celebrate the buffoonery of it. President Bush the second, you know, walks into a wall, you know, knows first, Okay, let’s celebrate that. Let’s let’s let’s make fun of that.
You know, he called President Clinton bubba Okay, So so it’s not like it’s not like he didn’t make fun of things, but he made fun of buffoonery as opposed to trying to weave into it, which is I don’t know if it was The Daily Show or whatever it was, but we’ve into it political commentary or social commentary into the joke at the same time. In my opinion, that wasn’t Dave’s thing. That wasn’t Dave’s thing. He might go for a hidden meeting or some irony maybe under the surface of the joke, but that would be the limit of it. I don’t believe Dave would have touched this with a twelve foot poll other than to maybe book people who talk about the polarization of our of our of our society, and people are listening to words and going out and inciting violent those words are inciting violence.
I think Dave would maybe comment on that in a serious way with a guest. I don’t think he would have touched in his monologues making fun of I don’t think he would have touched Charlie Kirk. That’s just my opinion, and that’s to answer probably thirty people’s questions they’ve asked me the same thing so or they’ve talked about it, so I just want to throw that out there. I’ve noticed more and more on my own show just how much of a Letterman influence there is. I will I will one of the reasons I like it, John, I will drop an uh that I don’t need to and it’s not me doing a filler word, but I will do the Letterman the quote from Jimmy Kimmel and I didn’t need to do that other and that is a thing that’s just in my brain from Dave.
The thing we’re going to talk about here is just a Davism that’s in my brain from when I was fourteen years old. Yes, I share his sensibility. I’ve struggled with this. If you listen to my pod, YEP, I have been thank you. I have been saying.
What I want to do is make fun of Jim Gaffigan signing bottles at a Kroger, which is a thing that happened last weekend. I feel Jim Gaffigan doing a bottle signing for his whiskey at a Kroger is exactly what I want to do. I want to nitpick Adams saying their movies. I don’t want to talk about somebody being assassinated, but I do have to talk about Jimmy Kimmel not being pulled off the air, and to do the story properly. Now I have to.
There’s clearly some political things to it. I’m not trying to debate mister Kirk’s work or nots, although I need to have I have just now before I started talking to you, I did some research to learn more about him. I will encourage people google the phrase controversial Charlie Kirk quotes and then choose an international source of your choice. So you’re not being biased by the US media. Why don’t you read some European articles about it, Yeah, and then you can form your own opinion on how you feel about what he had to say.
Again, no one ever, ever should be murdered, exactly Jimmy Kimmel on day one. I found the quote Jimmy Kimmel said on September tenth, instead of the angry finger pointing, can we just for one day agreed that it’s horrible and monstrous to shoot another human on behalf of my family. We send love to the Kirks and to the children, parents, and innocence who fall victim to senseless gun violence. And you hear me choking up even reading that. I know, I know, I’m gonna run this guy out of town.
Exactly. Yeah, that’s right. And that’s that we talked about clickbait earlier with headlines and whatnot. That’s a sentence or two with no context. Is how we live of People will pull out the eight words that somebody says, the fragment of a sentence that somebody says on a podcast and say, oh, and they’ll point at it completely out of out of context.
And I believe that that is certainly certainly happening here on a larger scale when you go back six days, five days, whatever it was. At the same time, I look at what he said, so let’s take yes, murders and again taste too soon all of that. I don’t know that what he said is something that in a sane world is actionable. I can’t. I’m having a hard time seeing it.
And I tried to put it through the lens of Okay, what if it was a very liberal person and and some stereotypical situation, you know, a gun son of a gun showed up and did what they did, would it be the same reaction I’ve been looking at it that way as well, and I’m trying to put the words over it. I don’t I can see why people would be upset about that commentary or that that opinion, if you want to take the humor or the attempted humor out of it. But I don’t see it being actionable. But again, Canadian and a buffoon. I don’t know why.
But is it actionable? Again? The network can have their own standards, Yeah, the advertisers. Do you have influence on all these things? Right?
It’s that it’s a federal thing. I mean, what happens if someone doesn’t like the opinion piece in Tomorrow’s New York Times? What happens if somebody doesn’t like this podcast? Can I stay in your extra room, Mike, Like, this is just not the way things have been up until this point. Are you hip to the Brian Kilmead comments from over the weekend?
I’m not, No, okay, I have to pull this up correctly, because again I don’t want to misquote people. I know it’s laying the guy playing on his phone during it. No, no, no, no, we’re good, We’re good. I’m I’m about four days behind everything right now because last week, I was in Calgary seeing Public Enemy. Interviewed Chuck D.
And he’s like a huge Letterman fan, talked about his I interviewed him for six minutes. That’s gonna come out, hopefully, Chuck D’s coming on the show and he’s going to talk about his love for Letterman. But yeah, no, no, no, So if you if you put these in your in your show, already forgive me. I’m a couple of days behind it. So Brian kill Mead was on Fox and Friends.
Yeah, they were discussing the mentally ill homeless challenges the United States is facing. Yep, we are too. By the way, reading verbatim here, then kill me chimed in quote or involuntarily or involuntary lethal injection or something. Just kill him? Oh okay, so yes, yes, yes, this I am familiar with that.
I haven’t gone into it deeper. Is there more context to that quote? It was just a discussion of what are we going to do with these homeless people? Let’s kill him? Excuse me?
What? Ye? Mister kill Mead has apologized yep, and he still has his job. I don’t know what Jimmy Kimmel was going to do during Wednesday’s monologue, he apparently was going to address this situation. I don’t know if he was going to comment, apologize, you know, maybe he changed his own opinion, Maybe he was going to double down.
Maybe he was going to meet in the middle and be like, you know, I didn’t I’m Jimmy Kimmel. I don’t come out here to be a jerk Monday night. And you know some people took it the wrong way. Let me clarify further and do one of those type monologues. Yeah, or maybe he was just going to do Trump jokes for twelve minutes.
I don’t know, but you know, we gave mister kill meat the benefit of the doubt. He’s still got a gig. There we go. Yeah, we’ll talk about context. That adds a tremendous amount there.
That’s right now. I mean we’re again if there is a merger happening or this big business, these big business behind the scenes with him, doesn’t sound like there was any of There’s plenty with Kimmel. And again, it’s just so the idea that if President Trump behind closed doors, you know when he makes that here’s the thing about me, is a Canadian listening to the things that come from down south and come up. One of the things the opinions that myself and a couple of friends who talk about the dumpster fire that is your government right now is is things like Trump will say, this sounds ridiculous, and it’s proven ridiculous. This sounds ridiculous, and it’s proven ridiculous.
This sounds ridiculous. Okay, but that sounds ridiculous, and then one of them in the middle will come to pass and it will happen. And this does feel like they’re coming after late night, and I the from up here, the level of eerie tension that I’m feeling is palpable. How is it down there in New York? So a lot of people like Team A, a lot of people like Team B.
Yes, but things have challenged our mutual friend Alex Bennett. So back in the day, he and I would do friendly discussions about politics in the hallway, serious and they were very friendly, and we would give each other the business, and depending on the news cycle, you know, he’d be like, hey, I saw your boy, did da da da da?
And then I’d be like, I saw you’re a candidate, Da da da da da.
And we would just. Do that and we’re friendly and we’re still friends twenty years later. Yes, that’s gone now that if you open up any sort of discussion and you’re not rooting for the same team, there’s no friendly banter anymore. Nothing gets solved. We’re not going to meet both ways, and there’s just so much noise.
You know. For example, we’re all talking about Jimmy Kimmel today. There are some other things that we might need to talk about that are Should we have a discussion about guns. Charlie Kirk had a clear opinion about guns, but maybe the events weren’t. Let’s have that conversation, and let’s have the respectful version of that conversation.
Let’s just take a look at things. Let’s not yell and scream, and you know, let’s not set out on a course of far I’m going to take away your rights or no you’re not. Let’s just talk things through. You know. Yes, somebody, uh, factually and I don’t mean to laugh there at all, so let me wake that off.
But somebody say, uh, somebody who had advocated for the right to bear arms. Fine, yeah, was assassinated. YEA, might be a good time to just have the conversation. You know, it’s funny. I know that certain parties whenever like a school shooting happens, there were people the too soon thing that we were talking about.
When when there’s a school shooting that happens and people start bringing up the idea of of of of that it’s the Second Amendment, right, people who are in favor of that start to stop trying to take this and uh and make it. It’s a manipulation almost, And to me, that is a that is a crazy argument. And when somebody who I would love to hear with civil discourse as you’re as you are are talking about like we have gun controlling candidate now. I mean, don’t get me wrong, my dad rests in peace and all of his friends hunters forever. All of my dad’s friends had guns, mostly rifles and things like that.
But we we have gun control up here. The gun crimes and the murders a fraction of what they are down south. This guy is a guy that rallied people like what he rallied them about. Don’t like what the rallied about. This is a center of influence down there.
One of your centers of influence in your country was just killed. Is it not the best time to talk about this, and again Canadian and a buffoon. So I don’t know, but wouldn’t that be the time to talk about it. The time to talk about it was after a few dozen children were murdered at Santejo, Connecticut. Right, we didn’t and that’s when I heard it.
I’m getting choked up even bringing that memory out that we didn’t have that conversation that day. Bogo’s my mind. And again, what. Formed that conress station should take? Your dad would like to go hunting?
I would like to buy an AR fifteen with many many stocks that can fire off more rounds in one second than a farmer in seventeen ninety two may have been imagined. Yeah, but you’ll get the deer. You’ll get it. So let’s what are we talking about. Let me just try and lighten this up about so you’ve talked about too soon?
Okay in terms of comedy and too soon. You just have to nail the joke. I actually saw a good joke within twelve hours. I’m paraphrasing it, but the gist of the joke was that the head of the FBI, or the assistant head of the FBI was a podcaster. Yep, and we’re investigating the murder of a podcaster.
This is exactly what podcasters are into true crime. And there was a joke based around that premise. There you go, that’s a in terms of crafting a joke, yep, that is a good joke premise. Now, do you show up at Charlie Kirk’s funeral and tell that joke? No?
What are you an a hole? No? Of course not, but you know a Yahoo on social media firing that off? You know what clever writing. If you told that at the Chuckle Hut at ten thirty, that is what comedians do.
And okay, you know at some point it’s too soon. It’s environmental, it’s you know, you’re joking among friends, you’re at the comedy club, you’re hosting a late night show. You know, Like I said, you don’t show up at the funeral and do that material. Yep, But at the Chuckle Hut it’s a well crafted. Joke and it needs to stay that way.
I’ve been hanging out with stand ups a lot lately. I’ve been I’ve been I’ve been trying to get the skill under my belt, and so I’ve been doing some local open mics and things like that. And I mean the level of that balance is so important to know publicly, especially when you hang up, when you hang up with stand ups, because a lot of the time when you’re at the table, after the place is closed, the joke there is no too soon because it’s a free form. And this is just my experience. I’m not saying it it’s like this with all stand ups, but I’ve been through a couple of different pods, and to me, the similarity was you could say anything you want at that table and nobody is going to be chastised for it.
Nobody’s going to be you know, they might say, oh man, brother, no like they might give advice about it or whatever. But you’re free to say that stuff. But time and place is extremely important. Of course, I want to pivot a little bit with you, John. I was just on the phone not to name drop, but I’m gonna name drop Scott Ryan, who wrote Last Days of Letterman, which is my favorite book at about all things Dave.
I even like it an edge more than the Bill Carter books because of just what it is. Scott Ryan, awesome guy friend. He’s gonna come on the show again soon. We were talking about this as well, and he said to me, he goes, okay, I want you to go into your memory banks here. We might need Don Giller for this.
But do you remember when Dave started in his late show run. Somewhere along the line, Dave started, while he was doing his monologue, he would throw to a video piece of some sort. It never used to be like that, Like people might come in and interrupt the monologue or something like that, but he would never throw to a piece of video. And that started, and we think it started around the time that Jimmy Kimmel started around then. Just the evolution of this and then so we got into this big conversation about this, and then it goes back to the Daily Show and to me, you take Weekend Update on Satday Live.
Okay, it merges comedy and commentary, but the Daily Show really really was, in my opinion, the first thing to really blew the blur the lines between the two on a giant scale is what we’re seeing here, in your opinion, the eventuality of doing that, Like is this the extreme like like if the extreme of I don’t know, is this the extreme of it where where political commentary is so interlaced with comedy that it will incite violence. Is that the eventuality that come from mixing those two mediums together. I’ve never met any of the you know, I have met Jimmy Fallon. Other than Jimmy Fallon, I haven’t met the rest of the current generation of late night hosts. Their public personas, they don’t seem like they’re trying to incite violence.
I feel like they’re joke tellers. I feel Colbert and Kimmel and John Stewart and John Oliver. Maybe truth teller is to use a term that gets thrown around in a lexicon. Ye I feel and seth. I feel Fallon is like, Hey, it’s the tonight show.
I’m gonna do karaoke with let’s be Yep. That’s not a dig, it’s We’ve had this conversation many times. Yep. That’s Jimmy Fallon understanding what the tonight show is. That’s Lane.
Yep. Kimmel, his public persona has always been more outspoken. I don’t at all think he’s trying to incite violence. I think he is wearing his politics on his sleeve, whereas maybe a previous generation did not. And that’s okay.
You know, we’re all smart people. I know what I’m watching now. Back to John Stewart. Yeah, he was the first one to He freaked out when he found out he was the most most trusted man in America, and he was like, no, no, no, I’m doing a comedy show. What no, No, don’t trust me.
I’m telling jokes. You know, he was the first one to say it. You know, Kimmel’s monologues have been a little more loaded for lack of a better term. But I don’t think he’s. Hiding it’s uh.
So, no, I was hoping the original question, is this the evolution? I think it’s just the who’s in the current chairs and you know, we’re gonna have to see what happens on the other side of this now. So it’s okay, it’s it’s it’s okay. We have this medium that’s mixing these two things together. You know, maybe it’s three things.
Actually, now I think about it, it’s it’s not just commed. It’s comedy commentary, and it’s also news because, like you said, Stuart, talking about there was a lot of I remember reading when I was growing up an article that talked about how a lot of people were getting their news from weekend update on Saturday night Live and then later on you you referred to John Stewart people saying that all the time that they go into check in with the Daily Show just to see the major headlines of the day. But now it’s grown and evolved from that and twisted to people forming their comment getting opinions from these things. I’ve heard Colbert say it as well. People have flat out asked him, you know about him the truth teller part that that He’s like, I’m just trying to make it’s just jokes.
It’s just jokes. And fairly recently, I think it was during the you know, the Biden run is when the last time I heard him say that at an interview. I think all of them say that, do they really believe it? They like John Oliver. I watched John Oliver show a couple of weeks ago, and I love I love Last Week Tonight.
I do think my wife and I both think that over the run it has gone from silly and interesting to certainly, in my opinion, it is the expression of mandates from above. You know, it’s moved in that direction. But I think today if you still ask John Oliver if he should be a trusted source for whatever I think he’s still gonna side on the idea of being a comedy show. Yes, absolutely, is that but is that reasonable? Like these guys are all brilliant guys, and and some gals too who’ve been who’ve taken the mantle a little bit.
They must understand because they’re fans too, they must understand that there’s some responsibility on that side of it. They must understand that, really, Like, wouldn’t you think? I think it’s been the evolution of the media, how we communicate in general. You know, So if we go back many presidents, you know, Ronald Reagan was the whale, and we all we all did the whale impression. Whoever started that?
Then we all did Dana Carvey’s Bush. By the way, Johnny Carson did a phenomenal Ronald Reagan. Yeah, you know, but you know it was less about the politics and more about this old cowboy. It was caricature. Yeah, and that’s what the Bush impression was.
And Clinton and I want to dance delicately here because I don’t want to offend, you know, Monica Lewinsky jokes there is a person named Monica Lewinsky. Yes, but generally speaking, Monica Lewinsky jokes were about Bill Clinton and the Intern, not specifically the Intern Monica Lewinsky. It was about the married dude in the Intern and he’s the president, and that sort of joke. That’s what that was. It was the way to talk about You could say Lewinsky instead of the word blowjob, which you’re not allowed to say on TV.
Yeah, say Lewinsky and everyone knows what you’re talking about. You know, we get into George w and we got into the malapropisms of it all, and that was sort of a harmless, harmless characterature.
Meanwhile, people were very much debating the politics of the times, but the …
It was just funny. On No one really nailed Obama, nobody really nailed Biden.
And then we have Trump, who almost every comedian says, it’s not it’s too har…
Now, if you’re hosting a show, if you talk into a live mic long enough, you’re gonna just you’re gonna say things. I’m gonna listen back to this hour, We’re doing, and I’m gonna be like, I wish I had phrased that better. I wish I had I wish I had explained that better. Oh I misspoke there. I taught a class today for two and a half hours.
I’m sure I said something stupid. And when you’re live, or if you’re live to tape, you do enough thing, somebody’s gonna get wrankled and you’re gonna wish you had phrased something better or differently. But over time, if you listen to somebody for twenty thirty years, in some cases with the late night hosts, you get a feel for what they’re about. Yes, you know, they might not outright say I’m on Team A or Team B, but you’ll kind of sort of get a vibe, you know. You know, if you told me Jimmy Kimmel were I don’t know hunting, was hunting with George W this weekend, I’d be like, Oh, I didn’t expect that doesn’t seem like it matches Jimmy Kimmel’s persona.
If you told me THEO Vaughn went hunting with George W this week and I’m like, yeah, okay, cool. Sounds about right. Great example Yep, let’s get one more break in here with Mike Chisholm from the Letterman Podcast. Be right back. I’m still I’m still dumbfounded by this.
My my, my original. I think the Facebook quote that you look the Daily Comedy Podcast or Daily Comedy News podcast commented on was my first line of that one. If it’s the one I’m thinking of. By the way, go to the Letterman Podcast Facebook group, everybody and enjoy the come, enjoy the talk outside of this viewing and listening pleasure. And be very respectful talk to you know.
I was in that chat on Wednesday night. It was a very topic Yeah, all respectful. It was totally like you know, I think part of it is that we’re all on both baffled by it. I really do. But my my my initial sentence was I hope Disney supports Kimmel.
And this is kind of to go back to something you said earlier. What do we think, like what are we taking? Are we taking this Vegas taking bets? Is there odds on? This is is because I mean, yeah, like you say, you know, it’s a lot of stations potentially in play, and Disney of course is gonna is gonna look at that.
Is it a foregone conclusion that he’s gone. I think he’s gone. His contract only goes to may yep, the whole you back your talent, you did not back your talent. He’s floated the idea of retirement. I’ve been quite loud about not believing him at all, because me too, What else are you going to do?
Yeah, but the network didn’t back the face of the network and just his public persona personality. I think he’s gonna tell them the buzz off. Now it’s a pay or play contract, I imagine, as most are, they could compel him to perform. Here’s the money. We do want a show tonight, so pay or play is.
I’ve signed you for sixteen million dollars a year, whatever the number is. And in exchange for that, probably your holding company will provide Jimmy Kimmel to provide the duties of host. That’s probably how the deal is. So ABC can say, well, the money and the deal here says Jimmy Kimmel as to host Jimmy Kimmelive, and we’d like our Thursday night episode please. I think he may tell them to go buzz off and walk away from the money, in which case, he would get fired and that would be the story Jimmy Kimmel gets fired, see them going, you know what bigger fish should play here?
We want to get other deals done. We didn’t nobody complained about celebrity family feud. Let’s just run that and who cares? And CBS gave us cover and we’re out of the late night business too, and we’re also going to save X million dollars, so we’re out. I think he’s gone just based on his public persona, Like, how do you come back from that if the network didn’t back you, especially with you know, nine months to go in your contract, sit home, collect the money and figure out what you want to do.
And you know, much like Obi wan Kenobi, he may become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Uh yeah, the uh you know, I want to talk a little bit. Okay, so let’s let’s put a pin in that because the whimsical part of this. I knew how I wanted to finish this podcast today with you, because I mean, like, it seems like it’s just bodyblow after bodyblow after body blow, and and and there’s so many reasons to be sad. I wanted to end with a little bit of whimsy.
So we’re gonna end with that, but just to go into what you just said too about the contracts and whatnot if you want to learn more and do a deep dive in this subject, including that talks a lot about pay or play contracts. Bill Carter’s second book on the subject, called The War for Late Night, highly recommend. I highly recommend both The Late Shift and The War for Late Night. They’re phenomenal books. I believe that they are books one and two of a trilogy, because the third one is being written right now.
I am positive that that’s happening, even though I try. I I reach out to him, and he’s not. He’s not answering that question. He’s being very elusive about it. But if you read The War for Late Night, it talks about this because the Jay Leno deal back in the day when he was on ten PM, the contract that he signed was actually it wasn’t just a pay or play contract like what you just talked about.
It was a pay and play. He was guaranteed that he would be on the air and because of that part of that word, and that was the reason that NBC was so intent about keeping him, either putting pushing Conan back, putting the Tonight Show back, whatever it was, because of that contract. So these contracts very very important when it comes to when when when stuff starts hitting the fan, very important to know that stuff. And it’s gonna be very interesting to see how uh uh, you know, I’m curious what James, Baby Doll, Dixon and Jimmy are talking about today. I’m curious about a lot of these things.
One of the things that where the whimsy comes in is the idea of what these guys are gonna do next. Like I have thought about a Conan O’Brien, Stephen Colbert sketch show four times a year, you know, like where they could really come up. I mean I said it jokingly kind of in the in the group, but there’s a lot of people that are saying to me, oh my gosh, Strikeforce five could be a weekly podcast that could come out and be absolutely huge. These guys, all of them, no matter what happens, They’re gonna land on their feet, aren’t they. Like I get this feeling that even though yeah it feels bad now, they are gonna land on their feet.
Yes, asterisk I just did a hit spot on Alison Lips podcast, and I brought this up, so let’s talk. It out to Alison. Greetings from the Idiot Box. Let’s go back to Conan. Conan gets fired from the Tonight Show, and we all love Conan.
We all rally behind Conan. And you know what, we never talked about Mike the eleven years on TBS. No one cared. Sorry, we all love Conan, but no one cared. It just kind of went.
So, you’ve got on the Big three or the Big four networks, but you’ve got one of the big three eleven thirty shows that that’s something that’s a big platform, even in the diminished era of twenty twenty five, when it’s not Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show, it’s still an eleven thirty network show. You’re somebody with a capital S. Yes, I’m a podcaster. No, you know whatever. You know.
Amy Poehler is awesome. We love Amy Pohler. She had a great sitcom, she was great on SNL. She’s got a big podcast. But like, is Amy Pohler’s podcast the Tonight Show?
No, it’s we’re watching reruns of Parks and Reck. Not the Amy polar Show, you know, and it’s super popular and I’m sure she’s being paid well, then she’s really good at it, and we all love Amy Polar, But it’s not the Tonight Show, it’s not eleven thirty five. So will they land on their feet? Will they work again? Sure?
Conan O’Brien has landed on his feet and he won the Mark Twain Prize and everybody loves Conan and he’s sink Conan and it’s all great, But we’re kind of glossing over those eleven years in the wilderness on Turner. I got to take a little exception for that because my gold it’s so funny. I love my Okay, my golden age of Late Night was actually Late in the Late Show run by a nose. I loved Late Night growing up. It’s what created the sensibility that I have.
Was Late Night. It was literally weird fertilizer for the plant that was me. But my favorite run in late Night was when I had Late Show, Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show and Conan’s TBS Show. And I will throw this out there by a lot of people say what you said there? Maybe they weren’t habitual viewers of it, but we wouldn’t know guys like Jordan Slansky.
We wouldn’t know, so now we wouldn’t know Reggie Watts. There are some things from that show. I think that show is probably the most underrated part of Conan’s work, and a lot more from that show has entered our culture. But I do hear where you’re coming from. Would you talk about the idea of him doing Late Night and then the Tonight Show and then that show?
It’s a completely different deal. But people still talk about the Chris Rock Show. People still talk about the Dennis Miller Show. It’s just in a different way than they talk about the Tonight Show. Is what I would throw out there.
Yeah, I’m not saying it’s bad. No, no, no. Jimmy Kimmel gets a show on Hulu. Yes, it’s nice. I mean the first week will be like Jimmy Kimmel’s back, good for him, Yay.
But let’s check back two and a half years into Jimmy Kimmel’s Hulu show, and let’s yes see where it is in the zeitgeist. Yes, and that of course that can’t be you know, that can’t be argued. You and I have seen it where it’s gone from one Late Night show with outliers to two late night shows, solid but both on the same network, to it then expanding into kind of a an entertainment slash broadcasting subculture of its own. We’ve seen that happen, so everything can you know, you know, you have the expanding and the other thing, the contracting. The expanding and the contracting of things were that happen right now, But we’re also watching a contraction of the medium itself, and it’s we are living in fascinating times, like I got the popcorn made, and I’m glad that I have you to talk about this with and so many other people to talk about this with, because obviously some parts of this are heartbreaking, you know, certainly the real life events things like that.
But at the same time, when you kind of take that emotion out of it, this is fascinating to watch right now. It’s a good news story and I always like a good news story and sitting in front of the television watching things like you said, eating the popcorn. The thing, the thought I do want to put in everyone’s mind before we start heading for home is what’s really worrisome here is the departure from the norm. So if you support, if you think Jimmy Kimmel should be gone. He said horrible things and all that.
Okay, when President Democrat comes for Joe Rogan and Theo Vaughn and Andrew Schultz, yep, that’s going to be just as badsolutely absolutely well. And again I hope that you and I can keep doing what we do. I hope it doesn’t then move to that down the layers, like is YouTube next? You know, is there going to be some sort of mandate that anything that gets put out there content wise? That that to me seems unthinkable, But at one time there was a comic books code and and so you know, we it’s it seems unthinkable because of our time and place.
But oh no, no, no, no, like this could easily happen. And I think perhaps us talking about this and certainly, you know, if there was not an incentive to at least get if not getting fully involved, at least get competent on you know who it is that is setting the standards, the laws, the regulations politically around us, making sure you know who your local leadership is, who you’re you know, the next level, and then up to federal it couldn’t be more important. And I hope that this, if there is an optimistic thing, I hope that this can serve as a wake up call for people to get involved and create the country the world that they want to create, because we do currently it seems that we have that opportunity still. But at point does it feel like it’s slipping away? I hope you’re right.
I do think there are those whose your initial reaction to the story is good, he should be fired, and then you know it’s good Colbert is gone. He deserves it. And you know, maybe you don’t find either them funny or you don’t like their politics, you know, but I could rattle off, you know, should we all come for Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson shouldn’t have a show anymore. We’re gonna get rid of Tucker Carlson.
I personally don’t watch Tucker Carlson, but I have no problem with Tucker Carlson existing. Yeah, do your thing, and I’ll choose not to watch. I feel the exact same. I choose to listen to your podcast because I can’t watch it, although you do have the YouTube stream now but with the graphic, but the Daily Comedy News podcast, I can’t endorse it enough it’s on all the major podcast platforms, and there’s a YouTube version of the show too, similar to this one as well. Johnny, I thank you so much.
I know we’re going to talk again sooner than later. I hope it’s all with happier circumstance. But I just appreciate everything that you do, and thanks for taking some time kind of spur the moment to come on here and we can do this together. And it’s an honor always to even be mentioned on your show. I appreciate your shout outs.
I appreciate everything that you do. Thanks for being such a good friend. Bud backcatch and let’s hope the next one is a happier episode. I couldn’t agree more. Thank you so much, and it’s always great to talk with Mike.
As I said, I’ll be back in the morning with a normal episode that was already recorded where I don’t talk about any of this, and I’ll check in with you on Friday afternoon with developing news on this massive Jimmy Kimmel’s story