🎙️ Listen to this episode:
Featured: Jimmy Kimmel, Donald Trump, Bill Carter, Jon Stewart, Nathan Fielder, John Oliver, Trey Parker, Matt Stone, Jerry Seinfeld, Pete Davidson
What’s in This Episode
- Jimmy Kimmel’s show potentially ending in May 2027
- South Park renamed to South America for Season 29
- Jon Stewart trolls Trump using Nathan Fielder’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary
- Comic Relief Live revival at Carnegie Hall October 19th
- Comedians boycott Jerry Seinfeld-headlined Portugal festival over Israel support
- 9/11 comedy benefit at Madison Square Garden with Jon Stewart and Pete Davidson
Questions Answered in This Episode
Is Jimmy Kimmel Live ending in 2027?
Page Six reported the show would end in May 2027 when Kimmel’s contract expires, but ABC denied the report as purely speculative. Johnny Mac notes Kimmel could negotiate to work less rather than retire entirely.
Why did South Park change its name to South America?
Trey Parker and Matt Stone announced the name change for Season 29 as satire, saying they were inspired by the ‘bravery and patriotism’ of companies like Apple and Google making corporate capitulations.
Why are comedians boycotting Jerry Seinfeld’s Portugal comedy festival?
Multiple comedians, including the duo Cibola Mole, withdrew from the November 1st festival in protest of Seinfeld’s support of Israel and statements dismissing pro-Palestinian activism.
What did Jon Stewart do on his return to The Daily Show?
Jon Stewart used clips from Nathan Fielder’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary trailer, superimposing Trump’s face over Fielder’s to troll the president.
When is Comic Relief Live happening in 2026?
Comic Relief Live will take place Monday, October 19th at Carnegie Hall in New York City, hosted by John Oliver with performers including Roy Wood Jr., Josh Johnson, and others.
What is the 9/11 comedy benefit at Madison Square Garden?
A 9/11 comedy benefit is happening in New York City tonight at Madison Square Garden, organized by Jon Stewart and Pete Davidson, with proceeds going to various 9/11 charities.
Full Transcript
This transcript was automatically generated and may contain spelling and/or transcription errors.
Hello, I’m Johnny Mac with your Daily Comedy News. Big, big day today. A lot of big stories. Plus, the 49ers play tonight. And if it’s your birthday..
I hope everybody in your life makes a big deal out of it. Like if you have a Facebook group, I hope everybody jumps on there and wishes you a happy birthday.
All right, let’s jump in.
Jimmy Kimmel’s summer is over. Everybody’s summer is over. But Jimmy Kimmel’s back. He hosted his 4,000th episode and took shots at the president of the United States. As always, send your letters to Jimmy Kimmel, not me.
Kimmel said, Donald Trump and I have one thing in common. We both accomplished nothing all summer long. He then slammed the president of the United States for 15 minutes. He particularly made fun of the reflecting pool. Now, I was in D.C.
A few times during the summer, and yeah, the reflecting pool is not coming out too well. Kimmel used photos behind him and told viewers when he left in June, the country was a mess. Now, only three months later, I’m pleased to report that thanks to your favorite president, DJ Jazzy Donald, every one of those problems has been solved. We made America great again. So he focused on the pool and said the president had three months, spent $ 20 million, and couldn’t even get a pool cleaned.
I thought he was supposed to drain the swamp. He turned it into gravy instead. Kimmel also talked about the Strait of Hormuz and said on Friday, fuel prices hit an all-time high. The Strait of Hormuz is still closed. At this point, Blockbuster Video has a better chance of reopening than the Strait of Hormuz.
But the big story came out of Page Six. Page Six published a report suggesting that Kimmel’s show would end in May after Jimmy’s contract expired. ABC has denied the reports, calling them purely speculative. Bill Carter, he’s written a few books about late night. He knows more about late night than anybody.
Let’s see what he said via Late Nighter. Bill reminds us on February 11th, 1991, the headline in the New York Post read, There Goes Johnny, NBC Looking to Dump Carson. 35 years later, the headline on page six is Jimmy Kimmel’s Late Night Show Set to End in 2027. Amazingly enough, the post is being run by the same guy, Rupert Murdoch, who was 60 when the first story ran and is now 95. Bill Carter reminds us, I did a little reporting about that infamous Carson story 35 years ago from my book, The Late Shift. I found the person who planted the story in the post.
He worked for Helen Kushnick, then the manager of Jay Leno. He related how he and Helen hatched a plan to use the manufactured story in the post in an effort to force NBC’s hand in moving Johnny Carson out so Jay Leno could take over. Carter writes, not one NBC executive had discussed this with Kushnick or her source. It was completely fabricated and it landed like a grenade in NBC’s offices and in Carson’s heart. He was devastated by this public diminishment of his reputation.
Carter says Carson was not mollified by NBC’s response at the time, which was Carson would be the one to decide when to leave. What NBC did not say is that it hoped Carson would stay forever. I think Bill Carter and I are aligned on this next point. Bill writes, Jimmy’s contract expires in May, but he’s hardly at retirement age. He’s my age.
And what else are you going to do? Host a podcast in the basement wearing a 49ers jersey like a loser? No. We’ll see. As I’ve said on this show several times, I could see Kimmel negotiating to work less, perhaps make less and work less.
You know, Seth Meyers is on a seven-week break. The Rosie O’Donnell experiment worked well for a week, so maybe you bring in Rosie to do a couple weeks a year around the holidays, stretch out your summer break. There are solutions here. I don’t think the show’s going anywhere, but what do I know? Jon Stewart also returned from summer vacation.
He hosted on a Tuesday night. He used the trailer for Nathan Fielder’s Elizabeth Holmes documentary, You Can See Everything, to troll the president of the United States. I told you about that trailer yesterday. If you haven’t seen it yet, you absolutely have to watch it. Jon started talking about Trump’s assistant, Natalie Harp, and asked, can we even trust her?
Well, decide for yourselves, because tonight here on The Daily Show, we’re premiering exclusive footage. We lived with Natalie Harp and the president for a month to determine what the relationship was really like. He then took clips from the viral You Can See Everything trailer, except had Trump superimposed over Fielder’s face. In the preview, Elizabeth Holmes says, Why would I deceive you? There’s no reason for me to do that.
We’ve got a lot of late night today. I’ve got this Jerry Seinfeld story that originally was the lead off, but all this other stuff moving ahead of it. John Oliver is going to host the return of Comic Relief Live. Remember that from the 80s? Billy Crystal, Whoopi Goldberg and Robin Williams would raise money and comedians would come on.
It was pretty cool back in the day. Well, Comic Relief Live will take place Monday, October 19th at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. So is that right after the New York Comedy Festival? I’m not part of it. That’s interesting.
We know some of the performers. They will include Roy Wood Jr. Josh Johnson, Zorna Garg, and Mary Beth Barone. Comic Relief will also present the 2026 Visionary Award, an honor established to recognize leaders and organizations who use the platform, innovation, and resources to advance systemic change for children and families facing poverty. Tickets go on sale today if you want to go.
South Park has changed its name. I love this one. It’s no longer called South Park. It is now called South America. It is the show’s 29th season, and Trey Parker and Matt Stone have announced, inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google, we are changing the name of South Park to South America.
We especially want to thank our parent company, Paramount, a Skydance capitulation. Season 29 premieres on the 16th at 10 east and west on Comedy Central. And streams on Paramount +, where they have that horrible new Star Trek series that ruins everything, so don’t support that now. Comedians are boycotting a festival headlined by Jerry Seinfeld in a protest against Jerry’s support of Israel. It’s a comedy festival in Portugal, I’ll butcher this, but it’s the Comedia a la Cartfest, something like that.
It was going to be November 1st, Seinfeld was going to be the headliner there. A comedy duo, Cibola Mole, were among the first to withdraw, announcing the boycott on Instagram with a picture of themselves with a slice of watermelon. Which is a symbol of Palestinian resistance. None of the artists who have pulled out have named a jury specifically, but one said Deshi pulled out because one of the performers insistently defends indefensible ideas and actions. We cannot relativize or normalize a genocide.
You may recall that in 2025 at Duke University, Jerry Seinfeld was quoted as saying, Free Palestine is to me, you’re free to say you just don’t like Jews, just say you don’t like Jews. I’m actually thinking the Klan is actually a little better here because they can come right out and say we don’t like blacks, we don’t like Jews. Okay, that’s honest. Another time, an influencer asked Jerry Seinfeld to say Free Palestine, and Jerry said, I don’t care about Palestines. In 2024, students at Duke University jeered Jerry Seinfeld and staged a walkout when he was awarded an honorary doctorate.
Last week, the comedy festival said it regretted to announce the first two acts it pulled out without explaining the reason. Over the weekend, three more artists pulled out of the festival. Tonight in New York City, Madison Square Garden. New York City still rising after 25 years, a 9-11 comedy benefit. Jon Stewart and Pete Davidson have put this thing together.
Proceeds go to various 9-11 charities. The performers include, now, this gets very complicated very quickly. Here are the list of the performers. Aziz Ansari, who played the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Bill Burr, who played the Riyadh Comedy Festival.
Dave Chappelle, who played the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Ronny Chieng, who played the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Pete Davidson, whose father, Scott, was killed on 9-11. And Pete also played the Riyadh Comedy Festival. Plus, Nikki Glaser, Josh Johnson, and Jon Stewart.
In a joint statement, Stewart and Davidson said, We look forward to once again celebrating this great city’s tenacity, resilience, and championship heart, and we don’t only mean our Knicks. This one is a little weird, and John Mulaney is getting pulled into this because all the headlines are saying John Mulaney, and I thought Mulaney had pulled out of a festival, but no, the entire festival pulled out of the festival. The Great Outdoors Comedy Festival was supposed to play in Arendelle Park up in Canada this weekend, the 11th through the 13th. The entire thing has been postponed. Organizers didn’t give a reason The statement says, after careful consideration, the GOCF team has made the difficult decision to postpone our shows scheduled for September 11th through the 13th, 2026.
We know there’s a lot of excitement around the show, but our priority is to deliver the best possible festival, and we believe postponing this week’s performance is the right decision to ensure we can do that. Organizers are trying to figure out new dates and how to handle everything. Mulaney was going to perform on Friday night with opening acts Stavros Halkias and James Austin-Johnson. Other headliners at the now-postponed festival were Adam Reyes, Dr. Phil, Jeffrey Curie, Matt Matthews, the wrestling guy from yesterday, yeah, Jordan Jansen, Hasan Minhaj, and Ronny Chieng, Ms.
Pat, TJ Miller, Brad Williams, Grace O’Malley, Catherine Blanford, and Michael Costa. John Mulaney posted on social media that the decision was unfortunate, but he intends to perform in the area soon. Very strange. We’ll see what’s going on there. Johnny Mac loves a good kerfluffle.
No, it’s kerfluffle. I was told I say it wrong every time. Kerfluffle is wrong, but I like kerfluffle. Anyway. Ari Spears.
Not impressed by Bernie Mac’s comedy, apparently. Ari’s was on Live from the Green Room. He was asked to name acclaimed comedians whose appeal he has never quite understood. So, like, if I was on that show, somebody would ask me that, and I would say Adam Sandler, the great dramatic actor. Some people think he’s a comedian, but I don’t say it at all.
He’s good in movies. Dramatic movies. Anyway, Ari Spears said Bernie Mac. I just don’t get it. The voice makes you lose.
It’s hard for me to buy into the jokes because I’m so caught in the.
And then he kind of did like the Peanuts teacher voice.
I guess the I guess he did that. Now, before saying this, Spears joked that his comments would be considered, quote, blasphemous by the black community because we hold these people in these institutions to such high regard. He also took a shot at Martin Lawrence’s comedy, saying that it’s so over the top that it, quote, bordered buffoonery. Tracy Morgan, also a target. I certainly would not say that he’s not talented.
But he described Tracy Morgan as hard on the palate. This is not going over well. Comedian Faison Love shot back saying, Bernie Mac was a compadre of mine. We shared a lot of laughs together. In regard to Ari Spears, consider the source.
All right, we’ve got a cast change on set. Night Live. Late Nighter reports that Martin Herlihy, he’s one of the Please Don’t Destroy’s, has left the show after five seasons. John Higgins left after season 50. Ben Marshall was promoted from writer to feature player last season.
Herlihy hung around and starred in a series of pre-taped shorts billed under his own name, Altogether, Herlihy appeared in 42 sketches over his five seasons at SNL, 34 Please Don’t Destroy shorts, and three A Film by Martin Herlihy pieces, plus five sketches. Please Don’t Destroy remain active as a trio. They recently played a pair of shows in Brooklyn, New York. I’m excited for this one. There’s a TV show called The Inbetweeners.
If you’ve never seen it, it’s fantastic. Netflix is bringing it back for a movie, The Inbetweeners 3. Simon Bird, James Buckley, Blake Harrison, and Joe Thomas come back as the in-betweeners Will, Jay, Neil, and Simon, who get into all sorts of misadventures. They were like horny high schoolers when this thing started. Now they’re like 40.
I don’t know. The Coming of Age sitcom was originally broadcast on Channel 4 between 2008 and 2010. All right, so 2008’s 18 years ago. So if they were pretending to be 16 then, so the characters are 34 now. Did I do the math right?
Following the misadventures of suburban teenager Will and his friends Simon, Neil, and Jay at the fictional Rudge Park Comprehensive School as they navigated school life, friendship, and failed sexual encounters. Over three seasons, the series set ratings records for the British broadcaster and won multiple awards. I forget where I saw it. Like, I used to watch it. It was really good.
They did do an American version. I think MTV did an American version that was okay. But wherever this thing is streaming now, you should check it out. And that is your comedy news for today. Go Niners.
Here’s my Niners jersey that I’m wearing. And again, if it’s your birthday, I hope you have a great birthday. And everybody in the Facebook group wishes you well, assuming you have a Facebook group. Some people do. See you tomorrow.