The tradition continues: Jimmy Kimmel wrapped Disney’s upfront presentation Tuesday with yuks about the competition like the naming of Comcast’s Versant and that “wrinkly Peacock who’s finally old enough to watch CBS.”
After Disney’s 80-minute presentation that included an off-key musical performance by Peyton and Eli Manning and an “Alien invasion” to promote Noah Hawley’s new Alien: Earth, Kimmel kicked off his annual appearance with a pre-taped skit from his daughter’s maternity room that featured Dr. Dre in scrubs.
That’s right: Kimmel’s about to be a grandpa!
After offering naming rights for his grandkid to the advertising world, Kimmel showed up live on stage at the Javits Center to deliver his much-anticipated bon mots before ending his monologue with a plea to advertisers to support shows like 60 Minutes.
“You have the power because you have the money to support journalism,” he said.
Here were his best yuks.
“Before we start, it’s come to my attention that yesterday Seth Meyers also did some jokes about selling naming rights to his kids. But I want you to know what you just saw. We taped that a week ago and I thought about killing it, but then I also thought about Dr. Dre killing me and for making him drive to Hollywood to put on makeup for no reason. That is how asses get capped and I want no part of it. So we kept it. And you know what? If Seth has a problem with it, he can take it up with motherfucking Dre.”
“How about those New York Knicks last night? Okay, I think there are more athletes here than there were at the game last night.”
“So much sports. This is all sports. Now what happened? We used to be so gay. I do want to thank the Manning brothers for finally answering the question, what if two jars of mayonnaise could sing? The answer is they can’t and they shouldn’t. That was worse than what the Menendez brothers did.”
“This is my, I think, my millionth upfront. I do it once a year like a prostate exam, but it’s hard to say no when Bob Iger shows up. Bob Iger has passionately led Disney for 20 years and reluctantly for three. This was Bob’s second upfront appearance in a row. You think he needs to be here? He doesn’t need to be here. He’s got bigger things going on. You think Bob gives a shit about The Rookie season eight? Bob doesn’t care if this whole room turns into Avengers: Endgame dust, okay?”
“This is a weird experience for me because usually I come out here to distract you from the fact that we’re dying, but somehow network television’s like Jesus before us has risen again. Of the four major networks, only one of us didn’t see viewership go up year to year. Now, I’m not going to tell you which one of us it is because it doesn’t matter, and please don’t ask. Just be happy for all of us.”
“I want to wish a happy birthday to those plucky centenarians at NBC. That wrinkly Peacock is a hundred years old, which is amazing. NBC is finally old enough to watch CBS. NBC’s Chairman of Global Advertising, Mark Marshall — seen here in a hula hoop — claimed yesterday his network has amassed the greatest collection of content that has ever been assembled by one media company. I guess Mark has never heard of PornHub, although based on the expression on his face, I feel like he has. But listen, Mark’s personal masturbation habits are none of your business and shame on you for even thinking about them.”
“At the end of the day, this isn’t all just a dick measuring contest and NBC still has the biggest one, Dick Wolf, the Michael Jordan of character actors getting murdered in the park. Dick has six shows on NBC and two on CBS, including a new one called CIA, which has an interesting premise. It’s a show about two partners, both in law enforcement. One of them is very by the book, but the other, and I’m actually glad you’re sitting down because this is where it gets crazy. The other one doesn’t play by the rules, plays by his own rules. I know this is why the writers had to go on strike to stop AI or as our Secretary of education calls it, A1.”
“CBS was the most watched network again for the 17th year in a row led by their hit comedy Ghosts, which is also what most of their viewers will be. Soon Fox has a new show called Memory of a Killer. This one is about a hitman with Alzheimer’s, which sounds bad, but it’s actually very sad. He keeps killing the same guy over and over again, and that is a dumb idea, but at least CBS and Fox are making shows.”
“ABC ordered one new show and it’s a spinoff of an old show, which really begs the question, what are we doing here? We risked our lives flying into Newark for this. I mean, if you went to a restaurant and the waiter said, ‘our special tonight is last year’s fish,’ would you eat it? No, you would not. Our fish is not fresh. But you know what? We do have a seasoned grandmother, fucking two golden bachelors. Say what you will about ABC. We are still the only network where you can see Pop Pop get a squeezer in a hot tub and season 34 of Dancing with the Stars. We know what young people want to see and it’s not us, it’s YouTube.”
“Deloitte just did a survey and the survey showed that Gen Z and millennial viewers are spending more time on social media than watching television. Yeah, no shit. You think we needed a survey to know that? Fuck you, Deloitte. And you know what? Fuck those ungrateful Gen Z-D bags too. Oh, you’re too cool for Match Game. Well, guess what? When you have kids and you need that hit of Moana to keep the little bastards quiet for two hours, you’ll come crawling back to Disney like dogs. Disney has 164 million active users per month across our ad supported platforms, more than twice the number Netflix has. I don’t have a joke for that. I just want you to know we finally beat those motherfuckers. That’s nothing. And we have our highly anticipated new sports platform. Now, originally the rumors were that it would be called flagship, but it is not called flagship because flagship is a bad and confusing name and we don’t give things bad and confusing names. Just ask FX on Hulu on Disney Plus.”
“So what will this mysterious new streaming service be called? Well, they had a conclave and a little puff of white smoke came out of Jimmy Pitaro’s ass. And the new service bringing live content to millions of fans around the world will go by the name ESPN. And that’s why they call us imagineers … it could have been worse. It could have been Versant. Versant is a perfect name. It already sounds like something you subscribed to by accident. Versace’s portfolio includes MSNBC, CNBC and USA, Oxygen, E, Syfy, the Golf Channel. Now, every channel is what a sexless marriage could ever need, according to their president. The Versant audience is the most devoted audience in the industry, which is impressive considering the fact that they didn’t even exist until yesterday.”
“At the end of the day, and maybe this sounds corny, but this business is about relationships. No one knows what the future holds … There could be a rough road ahead, but we’re going to get through it and you know how we’re going to get through it. I’ll tell you how. Ladies and gentlemen here with another song, please welcome the Manning Brothers. No, I’m kidding, but do give us money or we will bring them back out again. Alright, I’m going to go before they send Jamie Lee Curtis out to pull me off stage.”
