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Jimmy Kimmel today said Jay Leno reminds him of Jason from the Friday the 13th horror movies. “Just when you think he’s dead, he comes back,” said the ABC late night host Wednesday on a conference call about his show’s move to 11:35 PM next year. Kimmel was addressing rumors that Jimmy Fallon could replace The Tonight Show host in the next few years. “The fact is that NBC is going to make a decision someday. As much as he would like it, Jay Leno can’t stay on television forever and Jimmy Fallon is the heir apparent,” Kimmel said of his soon-to-be direct rival come January 8, 2013. While Kimmel admitted that he didn’t like what he perceived as Leno scheming against his hero David Letterman over who would take over The Tonight Show from Johnny Carson back in 1992 in the end “Jay’s just another guy doing a TV show.” Kimmel also said that The Tonight Show’s move to a minute earlier at 11:34 PM doesn’t worry him much either. “It tells me that they are a bit concerned,” said Kimmel on a conference call Wednesday. “I’ll be curious to see how long that goes on. That’s a trick designed to bring up their ratings in the first month,” he added. “What really matters is how you do in May and that’s when we’ll know where we stand.”
Related: Jimmy Kimmel Books Heavyhitter Guests For 11:35 PM Move
Kimmel said today that not a lot will change on his show when it moves to 11:35 PM. “It will pretty much be the same show we’ve always been doing,” he said. There’s this idea that you need to broaden the show or make it more wholesome, and I think that is outdated,” he added. “The jokes will remain exactly the same,” he said. “We’re moving 25 minutes earlier. From a Standards and Practices standpoint it’s not a huge difference.”
ABC announced in late August that after a decade in the midnight slot it was moving Kimmel to 11:35 PM. Starting January 8, 2013, this will put Kimmel Live in head-to-head competition with NBC’s The Tonight Show With Jay Leno and CBS’ Late Show With David Letterman. The ABC talk show hit some solid highs this year with a debut visit from First Lady Michelle Obama in late October and a first time appearance by David Letterman on Halloween. Kimmel also hosted the Primetime Emmys this year and was the headliner at the White House Correspondent’s Dinner in April.
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Arrogant jerk. And where are all the Conan disciples now that his show is watched by virtually no one? And did anyone ever believe, that in money-driven Hollywood, NBC would have let Conan go and bring Leno back if it weren’t that it would make them more money?
Yes, that’s right. For NBC and Jay, it’s ALL about money, and NOT AT ALL about funny.
Conan disciple right here! NBC only kept Big Jaw on the air to keep from paying him a massive penalty. They didn’t fire Conan. He left after NBC wanted to crap over the legacy of TTS. That is whatever little legacy it had after 17 years of Big Jaw’s horrible “Comedy.”
Jimmy may be an ‘arrogant jerk,’ but he’s far less arrogant and a LOT less of a jerk than Leno. Anyway, I like Kimmel and so do millions of Americans. If nothing else, he has one thing Leno couldn’t buy with all of his hundreds of millions of dollars: integrity.
Whatever, so you are implying that Leno purchased his job from NBC? That is absolutely ignorant. I like Kimmel a lot and Leno too. Both of them are funny as hell. I think Kimmel needs to focus on putting together a few months of great ratings rather than throwing cheap shots at Leno. If Kimmel’s new time slot doesn’t go well it will make him look like an even bigger idiot.
NBC put Leno back on The Tonight Show because they were afraid that he’d jump to another network (ABC, to f-over Kimmel).
if I were Kimmel, I’d want Fallon as a competitor too…. Fallon sucks
Thank you for pointing this out! This guy doesn’t deserve to host the talk show he’s got, let alone the Tonight Show. Zero on the wit scale. You used to need to be able to ad lib witty remarks to host one of these things. An empty suit the camera likes. End of story.
Fallon has some of the dumbest bits on Late Night. Late News Now is just terrible. There are some nice things, but very few anymore. It has lost what little luster it had!
So if Leno begins his show at 11:34 p.m. does that mean we will be treated to one more Monica Lewinsky joke in the monologue?
I guess the logic is that when your audience is that old, moving the show up 60 seconds increases the odds of the viewers living through the musical guest.
Hahaha! Great post!
Don’t forget the OJ jokes!
I wonder what it is like to be stuck living in the mid-90s like Jay is.
Leno has become an embarrassment and an albatross around NBC’s neck. I know that I never watch ANYTHING on NBC since the Conan dust up and I know I’m not alone. In my office I know at least six other people who avoid most NBC shows because Jay Leno is still there. One watches “Community” or “Parks and Recreation” but that is it.
Fact is, Leno’s ratings, especially in the young demo, are waaaay down since he came back to the show. If they weren’t NBC wouldn’t be putting out feelers for a host to replace Fallon at 12:35. (Or is it 12:34 now?) And NBC resorting to this type of shit gimmick just makes me hate ‘em even more.
Those are probably the entire seven people boycotting NBC over this, in the entire country. Amazing they all work in your office. Except for the guy who doesn’t watch nbc except for the shows he does watch lol
No, they are not the only ones boycotting Jay Leno. I have made it a point not to ever watch Leno ever since he sabotaged Conen, no matter who he has on as guests (I don’t even check to see). I’m sure there are many who boycott Leno. You just don’t happen to know who they all are.
The only reason Leno has ANY ratings is that most insomniacs are senior citizens. Get all of them a good sleep aid, and his show tanks.
Used to watch Jay. But me no like Jay no more. He lost his fastball. (Meaning, he’s no longer semi funny, he’s just plain unfunny.)
I do like Jimmy Fallon. He’s the young prince of late night, and, I might add, very Johnny Carson-esque. He doesn’t yet have Carson’s interviewing skills, but, man, the singing, the dancing, the charm, the smile, he’s the future and, I hope, the immediate future.
I have to agree. I was never a Fallon fan, I had serious doubts about him hosting that show. But he is the first late night host that I watch and makes me feel like I’m seeing the new Carson. I like Letterman, I like Conan, I like Kimmel, I like Ferguson, but for some reason Fallon seems to have that little thing in him that Carson had that made him great. He’s not there yet but I think he’s well on his way.
I watch whichever show has a celebrity i would like to see.all the hosts do infantile comedy bits and no one will ever replace the immortal Johnny Carson.
I do like Jimmy Fallon as well, I think he is brilliantly gifted. I’m just not sure that I like him on that show, I think he’s more suited towards a variety show because of his skills at characters and impersonations and bits and broad comedy. At all that stuff, he’s one of the best that has ever been. Sucks we don’t have variety shows any more!!
Kimmel is the perfect late night host – insanely clever and his whole presentation is just understated enough. He makes it look easy and natural and it’s so comfortable to watch. Easily my favorite late night host since Letterman was on at 12:30.
Even though it’s been 20 years, I’ve never gotten used to the transition Dave made in his act when he changed time periods. It’s always seemed like he’s now a different guy.
I have never seen commercial breaks longer than during Jimmy Kimmel’s show. ABC better reconsider that when the show moves to 11:35pm.
When Conan did The Tonight Show he had a very weak lead-in every single night – Jay Leno.
That’s true, but I think that will change. They certainly can’t keep doing those two-minute commercials at the top of the show. Hopefully, Nightline will inherit the bulk of those excessively long breaks.
I agree that Jay Leno is not the same as he used to be but Jimmy Kimmel just needs to get off that high horse and stop acting like he is Johnny Carson. He isn’t exactly Mr. Comedy at all times either. He can be just as boring and repetitive as Jay Leno or any of these other talk show hosts.
Sure, Jimmy, no need to broaden the show. That worked out great for Conan on the Tonight Show.
I like how people still live in this fantasy world where Conan is the one who failed. Conan’s Tonight Show wasn’t the problem in that whole situation, the Jay Leno show was the problem. Jay Leno’s primetime show failed, not Conan’s Tonight Show. NBC did NOT want to keep Leno and they did NOT want to lose Conan, but Leno’s contract had such a massive poison pill if they cancelled him that they had no choice but to keep him.
Jimmy’s show is already more consistently funny than ANY other late night talk show. And that’s saying something for me, as a Dave-is-god disciple.
For the first three months of Conan’s “Tonight Show”, he did not have Jay Leno as a lead-in. And within those three months, Conan managed to lose a whopping 45% of Leno’s audience. Forty-five percent. That was before Leno’s primetime show ever premiered. Go back and check the NY Times archive and Bill Carter’s articles from that period.
Forty five percent is an absolute nosedive. By comparison, Leno lost about 10-15% of Carson’s audience when he took over in 1992.
The fact is, Conan’s ratings were tailing off during the last 18 months of his run at 12:30 on NBC. He was frequently losing to Craig Ferguson by the end. And Leno was handing him a big lead in every night. People were already tiring of Conan’s schtick at that point. Why NBC went ahead with the transition anyway is beyond me. They damaged Leno, they damaged Conan, and they damaged “The Tonight Show”.
Leno’s show seems very tired now. But NBC has to be careful, because he’s still doing relatively well for NBC even when he’s getting awful lead-ins (“Rock Center”, “Dateline”, “Parenthood”, etc.). Those shows are getting numbers as low or lower than “The Jay Leno Show” got in primetime. But it’s clearly time to think about transition. I’m not convinced, however, than Fallon is the right successor.
Excellent comment by ‘Miffy.’ Extremely well informed and very interesting. Thanks, Miffy!
Kimmel and Fallon are both funny and deserving of their success, as are Leno, Letterman, Ferguson, O’Brien and Handler. All are talented. And, frankly Kimmel’s right. Leno has to let go at some point. The younger generation will supplant. Tis the natural order.
I never found Kimmel funny, either on Win Ben Stein’s money, the man show, or this show. I also don’t find him likeable. So i never watch his show.
Fallon is hit or miss but he’s very likeable which helps
Personally i feel leno and letterman are passed their prime but in many ways, so is the whole format imo.
So, how do you know you don’t like him now, if you don’t watch his show? He’s changed a lot since The Man Show, and even since Win Ben Stein’s Money. I think you’ll be doing yourself a favor if you give him another chance.
Really late night is boring. Wish the networks would just killed everyone off and try something else.
Jay just surrounds himself with the wrong people. From his dingaling EP to his “head writer” who is basically just a subpar club comic, to his new band leader, you know, the guy whose name nobody can remember? Man, Kevin Eubanks had a nice, light touch and sort of made you feel good at the end of the day. Even if he never said much that was witty the dude had a presence. The musicianship of the new guy is perfectly fine but he’s not Kevin.
There is nothing memorable about Jay’s show except for the clunkers. You know, the joke’s that are so bad you shake your head and say, “How did that get on the air?”
Questions For Wazzup: Are You In The Business? Do You Have A Personal Ax To Grind With Leno’s Executive Producer? Why Not Work Hard, Pay Your Dues, Earn The E.P. Job, And See If You Can Perform To Your Own Satisfaction?
A heads up to Jimmy Fallon – if you do get the nod for 11:35, I mean, 11:34, just don’t let Gavin do your deal.
Man, Kimmel needs to leave the room now. What is his show going to be? The same show it has always been of the same shows that are already on the air. This guy is at best sixth funniest guy on your dorm floor in college. He’s awful. And everyone here said he was awful when he was trying to get his own show years ago. Now that is the Kardashian of talk show hosts he’s good?
Kimmelneedstogo.org
TAKE OFF THE TIE KIMMEL! Remember when you said your show was going to be different. Wow. Couple days in he fell into line. Kimmel is the biggest lemming around. Jay Leno is an institution at this point. Sorry. Kimmel will not be. He shouldn’t even be on the air. He is part of the mediocre elite. Garbage.
Kimmel Must Go – Petition starts now….
@joe,I’m pretty sure you meant Leno & Letterman are “past” their prime. At times it only feels as if Leno is “passed” his prime because most of his jokes seem dead & ancient-just like Jay himself.
Go Kimmel, FYI VERY LIlKEABLE.
Jimmy Kimmel is an arrogant jerkoff and Jay Leno is a survivor and a huge earner for NBC, which people seem to forget—people all over the country still tune in to him in massive numbers, way more so than Letterman, Fallon and Kimmel. And by the way, l don’t watch network television AT ALL anymore.
Kimmel would be a big mistake. He’s far too political of a choice.
Leno will still be here in 2212 because he’s really a zombie.
Conan is the big loser here he was stupid and badly advised if he had just swallowed his pride and taken the 12:05 start time he’d have the 11:35 time coming his way instead of Fallon. Conan’s only hope for salvation is that he can get out of his TBS contract to take over for Letterman when Dave finally retires. CBS would do this in a minute they’ll have to because Craig Ferguson is horrendous. Two years from now if we are lucky it’ll be Kimmel on ABC, Fallon on NBC and Conan on CBS all at 11:35 and that will the the new generation of late night hosts for the next 15 years.
He has his own show with his own name that no one will ever inherit, and more freedom because he’s on cable, and along with Big Bang Theory is basically the baby of the network and has gotten deals for his own sitcoms. Broadcast late night is tired. Conan is better off.
Ferguson is better than Fallon, Conan and Kimmel combined.
Finally someone gets it right.
Cool story. Ferguson still dominates, though.
Kimmel is an self centered, arrogant jerk. His smarmy style is like a great used car salesman. Looking froward to him going the way of Conan.
Jimmy Kimmel is an arrogant jerk who only wishes he would / could be as successful as Jay Leno. Lets see how long he lasts in the industry before he starts forcing people out of retirement.
Best part of Kimmel moving is that hopefully it will finally put an end to the misery called, “The Late Show with David Letterman”.
Jimmy Fallon is by far the funniest (and funnest) host on late night right now.