Is Jimmy Kimmel's 80's Week a Good Idea or Cheap Nostalgia?

Jimmy Kimmel is spending the week styling his show as if it were the 1980s. He’s wearing the slightly oversized tan suit; the guests and musical guests all have 80s relevance. His backdrop is no longer the sleek rendering of Los Angeles’ skyline, but a ‘Tonight Show With Johnny Carson’ throwback curtain design from decades ago. Even the show intro captures the Memphis-Milano style graphic design signature of the time. 

“Welcome to ’80s Week,” Kimmel introduced the theme on Monday night. “I was thinking about 2025 and how much it sucks. So I thought it might be nice to hop into the DeLorean and go back in time—to a better place.”

Upon first glance, it is pretty cute. A way to switch things up and have fun with some new motifs. But as with most things in 2025, when you take a closer look it's impossible not to wonder if a fun little gimmick is covering for something much more cynical. 

In the case of Kimmel’s blast to the past, one must remember: nostalgia is bad for us. What is yearning for the way things used to be, if not a summoning of the way things used to be? So why is it happening? 

The most obvious answer is that it's a ploy to draw in more viewers. There’s been a lot of conversation about late night television fading away. The model is struggling to keep up with the internet, social media, and the generation of viewers who don’t pay for cable or stay up past 11pm on weeknights. 

This puts late night show hosts in a precarious position. Ratings plummeted in recent years; CBS and Paramount pulled the plug on Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show with little mercy; ABC briefly yanked Jimmy Kimmel Live! off air under pressure from the Trump administration.  Kimmel’s triumphant return saw historically high ratings—but those quickly petered out after just a week. 

Now, there’s a reek of desperation coming from the late night realm. Over on The Tonight Show, where ratings are lowest at the 11:35 pm time slot, Jimmy Fallon is doing everything from interviewing right-wing talk show hosts like Greg Gutfeld to dedicating a full night to the most recent Taylor Swift album roll-out. Colbert leaned heavily on martyrdom through his Emmys wins. 

Kimmel, to his and team’s credit, is at least getting creative. It’s too soon to tell if it will work out for ratings. But there’s one thing holding the show back: You can make it look like 1985, but there’s no escaping 2025 headlines—as evidenced by the portion of the monologue Kimmel delivered on President Donald Trump getting booed at a Washington Commanders football game.