Jimmy Fallon Was the Only Late-Night Host to Ignore Jimmy Kimmel’s Return
America’s late-night hosts did a victory lap last night, celebrating Jimmy Kimmel’s return to network television.
“Wonderful news for my dear friend Jimmy and his amazing staff,” crowed Stephen Colbert, once again the reigning martyr of late night.
Jon Stewart applauded all of his audience members who pretended they were going to cancel Hulu. “I’ll tell you, Jimmy Kimmel’s flying high like Advil today,” Stewart said after the President declared Tylenol to be the secret cause of autism.
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Seth Meyers hailed the “great news,” assuring his audience that “it is possible to stand up to this kind of bullying and censorship.”
Well, that about does it. All of late night weighed in with their congratulations and… Wait a minute! Where was Jimmy Fallon?
Oh, there he was, delivering his monologue on The Tonight Show without a peep about Kimmel, a conspicuous silence that could earn him a chair on The View if he’s not careful.
Did the Kimmel announcement come too late to get on the show? The news broke during the afternoon yesterday, giving every other host time to acknowledge the day’s buzziest news. Instead, Fallon joked about Trump’s gold-plated ballroom, a potential TikTok sale and proposed artists for the Super Bowl halftime show. As usual, the playful punches at the administration were pillow-soft.
Maybe the Kimmel news came too late to write new monologue jokes? No problem — Sean Penn arrived on the guest couch and gave Fallon the perfect opening to talk about Kimmel.
The always-ready-for-a-fight actor started his spot by pulling out an envelope addressed to the FCC. “I just thought I’d get it out of the way, because, you know, it’s got brevity,” Penn said before opening the envelope and pulling out a two-word message for Brendan Carr and friends: “Suck less.”
There it was, Jimmy Fallon, a gold-plated invitation to acknowledge the FCC’s attempts to silence late-night comedy. Here’s how Fallon rose to the moment: “I left that in (Penn’s dressing room),” Fallon giggle-mumbled. “Or a friend of mine did.”
What?
Was Fallon taking credit for Penn’s political statement? Was he trying to give the glory to Kimmel? Whatever his intent, the barely-there “joke” was completely lost on his audience — and Penn, who ignored the remark and changed the subject to music documentaries.
Kimmel’s suspension shines yet another spotlight on Fallon’s reluctance to say anything that might upset, I don’t know, the corporate partners behind his new game show/infomercial, On Brand. While everyone from John Oliver to David Letterman to Howard Stern was expressing outrage over Kimmel’s punishment, Fallon took the milquetoast approach last week: “To be honest with you all, I don’t know what’s going on — no one does. But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he is a decent, funny, and loving guy. And I hope he comes back.”
Way to take a stand, Jimmy.
Fallon outdid himself last night, not even mentioning Kimmel by name as Penn did the heavy lifting. Fallon’s offend-nobody approach continues to irritate everybody — except the marketing heads at On Brand participants Southwest Airlines, Marshalls, Sonic, Captain Morgan, Pillsbury, KitchenAid and Therabody.
