On January 26, 2003 Jimmy Kimmel Live! made its debut on ABC at 12:05a and tonight almost 10 years later the show is moving to 11:35p. The new timeslot means that ABC has enough faith in the late night talk show host to put him up against the big guys, David Letterman and Jay Leno. This is something that has been a long time coming, and I am so proud that the show is finally getting the recognition it deserves.
As someone who has been watching the show for almost 6 years, I have seen it grow and I have gotten to know Jimmy Kimmel through JKL!. But what about the people who haven’t been able to stay up until midnight to watch him? Well I was recently on a conference call with him and he told us things about his personal life. Two of the biggest highlights he has had since doing the show happened to him this year when he got interview Oprah Winfrey after the Oscars and David Letterman when he took the show to Brooklyn for a week. In fact he elaborated to me how much it meant to have his teen idol on the show, he said “It might be pathetic to say, but it was probably one of the most meaningful moments of my life, that interview with David Letterman. I mean, for everyone that’s known me, since I was a kid, it was, I really I can’t overstate how crazy it was. I mean, this is somebody that when I was in high school everyone knew me as the guy who watched David Letterman. I mean, it was ridiculous. And to be on his show was strange enough but to have him on my show was beyond anything I could’ve every imagined.” So who hasn’t he had on the show that he would like to interview some day? He would like to sit down and chat with Steve Martin and Bill Murray. These were two guys who he idolized as a kid. He was also a big fan of SCTV and one the show’s biggest stars Martin Short. Howard Stern was someone he listened to when he was teen on the radio, but it was Jimmie Walker’s album that he played nonstop. He also enjoyed the comedic styles of the late greats Redd Foxx, Jackie Gleason, Richard Pryor and the living legend Don Rickles, who has become a JKL regular. Since Kimmel is on TV he also told us what shows he has loved the most throughout his life, they are Modern Family, LOST and Welcome Back Kotter. He didn’t tell us which Sweathog he wanted to be, so I am assuming it would be Vinnie Barbarino, but to me he is more like a Horseshack.
Tonight for his first 11:35p show he will be interviewing Jennifer Aniston (his vacationing Friend) and No Doubt will perform, so he told us his favorites for those two. Office Space is the movie he liked best that Aniston was in and if he followed the title of his favorite No Doubt song he wouldn’t have a job because it is Don’t Speak. So make sure to check out Jimmy Kimmel Live! tonight and ever weeknight at 11:35p. You no longer have an excuse because he is on a whole 25 minutes earlier and you ain’t ready to go sleep at that time. I mean who goes to sleep before midnight?
