Stephen Colbert and The A.V. Club were on the same page yesterday when we both declared that the national nightmare of Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension had come to an end. Of course Colbert got the one-up on us with the joke that “our long national late-nightmare is over.” That’s why he gets paid the big bucks—at least for now!
Though Kimmel has rightfully been reinstated, Colbert will still be off the air in a few short months. “This is wonderful news for my dear friend Jimmy and his amazing staff. I’m so happy for them. Plus, now that Jimmy’s not being cancelled I get to enjoy this again,” Colbert said on his show Monday evening, grabbing his Emmy. “Once more I am the only martyr in late night! Wait, unless CBS, you wanna announce anything? … Still no? Right, because of the ‘money’ thing, I forgot.”
Colbert referenced the reported spike in searches for how to cancel Disney+ and Hulu in the wake of Kimmel’s suspension at ABC. “Which explains why the other trending search was ‘how to entertain feral child without Bluey?'” he joked. However, he declared, “Disney put Kimmel back on because you, the American people, were upset. But not just people. Also Ted Cruz.”
In fact, it was Ted Cruz, more so than Kimmel, who was the focus of the jokes across late night shows on Monday night (In fairness, Seth Meyers said they found out Kimmel was reinstated only “minutes before we started taping” Late Night.) Jon Stewart spent a good portion of The Daily Show making fun of Cruz’s impressions, which Meyers also took a turn at on Late Night. But the fact that Cruz was willing to call the FCC’s threats to ABC “dangerous” is certainly notable. “I want to say I agree with Ted Cruz and I want to say it because I feel pretty sure there won’t be another occasion to say it,” Meyers said during “A Closer Look” (below).
Meyers took a closer look at President Donald Trump’s repeated claims that network coverage is “97 percent” against him, which Trump personally feels is “illegal.” The FCC’s meddling with Kimmel prompted “massive national backlash,” Meyers said, that even crossed partisan lines. “I haven’t seen a poll yet, but I think if you asked Americans if the president should be dictating what TV hosts can and can’t say, you’d get about 3 percent positive and…” he then cut to the president’s own words: “97 percent negative.”
