Arguably the stealthiest comedian in show business, Jimmy Kimmel started in radio when he was 21 and spent a decade moving between major markets while racking up TV time as the co-host of Win Ben Stein's Money on Comedy Central and a regular guest on Fox NFL Sunday. In 1999, Kimmel and Adam Carolla teamed up for The Man Show, a love-it-or-hate-it outlet for Kimmel's sleepily sardonic regular-guy persona; in 2002, he and Carolla helped create Crank Yankers, a prank-call show featuring cute puppets and a voice cast that includes nearly every all-star of mainstream and alternative comedy. (It recently began a new season on MTV2.) In 2003, after ABC failed to lure Kimmel's boyhood idol David Letterman for its new talk show, Kimmel stepped in to host Jimmy Kimmel Live, which started weakly but has steadily grown in viewership over the last three years, as Kimmel's mix of pop-culture savvy and populist appeal has become increasingly well-honed. The most successful comic that hardly anyone raves about recently spoke with The A.V. Club about the talk-show grind, his career ambitions, and the new season of Crank Yankers.
The A.V. Club: Do the voice actors on Crank Yankers help conceive the gags?
Jimmy Kimmel: Sometimes. Mostly it's just as simple as, if we make the calls from Vegas, I pick up a Thrifty Nickel or Penny Saver at 7-Eleven on the way in, and go through and randomly make calls to some of the phone numbers. Some people are not great at making crank calls, and you want to get a few phone numbers in advance so our writers can come up with a bunch of different concepts. But sometimes people do come in with their own ideas, like something they did as a kid that they want to do again, or something they just thought of.
AVC: Do you pre-call these places with a straight call just to see what they're like before the prank?
JK: No, but we do try to call a week ahead to make sure somebody's going to be there to answer the phone. Sometimes it takes 10 calls on the same premise to get it to work. It usually works.
AVC: How often do you record a really good call that you then can't get permission to use?
JK: Every once in a while. But we're relentless. And the truth is that people are always kind of relieved when they find out it's a joke, because they get so, so mad. When they get really mad, we usually wait a couple of days and then contact them. But we don't take no for an answer very often.
AVC: Do you ever feel bad for them?
JK: No, I never do. Some people have remorse when they're on the show, but I'm heartless when it comes to a prank. And it's just a telephone call. There's only so much damage you can really do.
AVC: If nothing else, you've given them something to talk about for the next few days.
JK: Yeah! People's lives are boring. You can really fire things up if you call a candy store and tell them Rosie O'Donnell wants to take the whole place over and bathe in the food.
AVC: You've used your own kids on the show.
JK: Yeah, my kids are too big to do it now, because they sound like adults. But that was the greatest, because when you got a kid's voice on the other line, you can get away with almost anything. It's also interesting to see how cruel people will be to children.
AVC: Are your kids that foul-mouthed in real life?
JK: They're not particularly foul-mouthed. My definition of cursing is probably different from what other people's definitions are. But I wouldn't ask them to say anything I don't hear them say already.
AVC: You were reportedly interested in being an artist when you were younger.
JK: Yeah, I'd draw cartoons. Really just very detailed line drawings. Like the sorts of things that insane autistic people draw on the street. As a kid, I drew a picture of Lech Walesa addressing a thousand Polish workers, and I drew every head of every worker in the drawing. I don't have time for that sort of thing anymore. It was more of an obsession than anything else.
I still love comic books. When you have a kid, that's an excuse to keep reading all the comic books. I read R. Crumb comics and stuff like that, but I also read my son's Spider-Man and X-Men comics. All the stuff that usually winds up on the floor of my bathroom.
- Comments