“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” host Jimmy Kimmel once again shared the Disney upfronts stage on Tuesday, providing his zingers in person for advertisers and media buyers at the programming presentation for the first time in five years. That’s because last year Kimmel didn’t attend due to the Hollywood WGA strikes. And in 2022, he was in New York — but had to be beamed in to do his routine after testing positive for COVID. (The 2021 and 2020 upfronts were virtual because of the pandemic.)
“Two years ago, I couldn’t be here in person because I had COVID. And last year, I couldn’t be here because of the writer’s strike. And this year I couldn’t think of a third excuse,” Kimmel said. “I tried diarrhea on the plane, but I guess they get that all the time now.”
Kimmel being Kimmel — he’s been doing this at the event for two decades now, and it’s usually the most anticipated performance of upfronts week — he didn’t hold back.
“You’re probably wondering why I am so giddy today. Okay, I’ll tell you why. It’s because Disney is using proprietary meta tagging data that leverages video intelligence to tap into the moods and emotions within the content we create. That’s why I’m so proud of what we’ve done here. Being a part of innovations like Disney’s magic words, you know, until this afternoon, I thought Disney’s magic words were ‘bibbity-boppity-we-own-everything-fuck-you.’ But it would seem I was mistaken. Half the world’s population connects with Disney every day. Did we know that? I didn’t. And you know, I didn’t. We made it up. I don’t think Jesus even connects with half the world’s population every day.”
RELATED CONTENT: Upfronts 2024 FULL COVERAGE
Before going in for the jugular, Kimmel started out on a bit of a positive note: “Things are good for change. They’re pretty good. We’re back in the strong masculine hands of our once and rightful Bob, just as the prophecy foretold. For Bob Iger, this guy, he should be retired by now. You should be off on a yacht somewhere. Instead, he’s here pretending to be excited about a new season of Will fucking Trent.”
Kimmel then featured a gag with what he introduced as “A.I. Bob.” “The only Bob that can replace Bob is Bob,” he noted. And with that said, I am thrilled to present the most exciting artificial CEO technology in the history. of American business.
“How could anyone even think about selling ABC? This is the home of ‘The Rookie’! This is the home of ‘The Golden Bachelor!’ ‘The Golden Bachelor’ is a key part of our strategy to steal CBS viewers by putting them all in a house together… As you know, Gerry the ‘Golden Bachelor’ and his bride Teresa decided to end their marriage and after a very short union. Even though the whole thing was a complete jerk off, it was so popular we are now launching ‘The Golden Bachelorette,’ a game show where you can win an old lady! Joan is our new Golden Bachelorette. She has four kids and two grandchildren. Are the kids ready to see grandma get rawdogged in a Jacuzzi?”
Now we’re cooking!
“We’ve got the most highly anticipated shows with ‘The Acolyte,’ about a Jedi investigating crimes. A show is set during the High Republic era of the Star Wars timeline, which means it takes place before the ‘Phantom Menace’ and after I stopped giving a shit. We’ve got Mandalorians and Kardashians. We’re launching season five of ‘The Kardashians’ on May 23. And there’s nothing you can do to stop us. This new season shows you the Kardashians like you’ve never seen them before, assuming you’ve never seen them before. Otherwise, it’s exactly the same shit as the last 17 years.”
SIGN UP for Variety’s free daily Upfronts newsletter
Kimmel then turned his attention to the competition, first CBS.
“For the 16th consecutive season, CBS was the most watched broadcast network. They don’t have an upfront anymore, so let’s give them a round of applause — but do it loud so their audience can hear it. Things are changing and CBS and not for the better. On Thursday, ‘Young Sheldon’ is coming to an end after seven seasons. I know I haven’t seen it either. But what I do know is that there’s a 100% chance that somewhere at CBS headquarters right now there’s a whiteboard with the words ‘Old Sheldon’ and question mark written on it. CBS also announced this will be the 14th and final season of ‘Blue Bloods.’ Those assholes — your grandpa has one thing left to live for. And they’re taking it away.
“CBS renewed the Dick Wolf show ‘FBI’ for three more seasons, not just one, which is incredible. There are now more FBI agents on CBS than there were at Diddy’s house.”
That was one of the greatest lines of the night, but elicited groans from the advertisers. “Friends of Diddy’s?” Kimmel teased. Meanwhile, “Dick Wolf is on CBS. Dick Wolf is on NBC. ABC, we’re still Dick-less.”
Kimmel also took on the changing business environment, specifically the news that Disney+, Hulu and Max plan to sell a streaming bundle. “We’re joining forces with Warner Brothers Discovery. We have Spider-Man and Superman together. I love this. The old dogs teaming up to take out the young guns. I have to say, I haven’t seen this much corporate camaraderie in this business since last summer — when they all work together to starve the writers!
“This may look like an act of desperation from the inside,” Kimmel added. “It also looks like that we didn’t want to bundle. We had to. Like you know when you’re freezing to death and it’s so cold you have to get in a sleeping bag with your uncle so you don’t die? That’s us right now. You’ve seen our churn rates! This It’s not just churn, it’s Chernobyl. Now finally, our users can turn on their TV and get all the channels in one package for one price all supported. By ads. We call it ‘basic cable’ and it’s gonna blow your mind! We’re consolidating, we are building one enormous ad supported streaming pile of shit. And then we just sit back and wait for the next pandemic and let the money roll in.
“We have a sports bundle, ESPN is teaming up with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery to give subscribers all the family entertainment you get on Disney plus live games, fantasy sports and betting. It’s a package we’re calling ‘Weekend at divorced dad’s house.’ The CEO of Fubo is not happy about that. Or about the fact that he’s running a company called Fubo. What happened — was ‘blow job’ taken? So that’s coming in the fall of this year.
“But it must be a good idea is we’re already getting copycats. Netflix, Apple and Peacock just announced their new bundle, Stream Saver, today What an excellent name that is — stream saver. Sounds like a catheter you might find for sale on Tuckercarlson.com.”
Kimmel didn’t spare NBC either. “You ever have a friend who buys a boat and he paid a lot of money for the boat and he’s always posting pictures of the boat and in every conversation you have with him he somehow finds a way to make it about the boat? That’s NBC with the Olympics.”
He then leaned into Netflix and its sudden pivot to commercials. “They came in, they destroyed commercial television and now guess what. They want to sell you commercials on television. They spent years ignoring you, sneering at you, making you eat their Unbreakable Kimmy Shit. And now those smug b-holes have to lick your nuts like the rest of us do. And of course they’re acting like they’re excited about it like, ‘Oh my God, we love ads in our shows. It just never occurred to us to put them there!’ Scumbags.
“You know, it makes me so mad. We’ve been whoring ourselves out for years and we know how to do it. We don’t need all this for play. We do this like we always do. We leave a key at the front desk, you come up to the room and have at it. Grab a bottle of Hulu, I’ll be face down on the bed, OK?”
“Unlike some of our competitors, we don’t think of you as faceless ATMs,” he said. “We pretend to give a fuck about once a year and throw shrimp at you like sea manatees of SeaWorld. I mean, we think of you as freedom fighters. We think of you as American heroes fighting to keep television free for the people. Remember when Elon Musk was being interviewed and he told advertisers to go fuck themselves? We would never do that. But we do want to remind you that he did.”
In closing, Kimmel name-checked the TV ad sales veteran who made waves last year by exiting NBCUniversal days before the upfront to join Musk in his takeover of Twitter (now X).
“Before we go, I’d like to close with a prayer. Lord God, Bob, all you guys, thank you for bringing us together,” Kimmel said. “Thank you for our reach machine. Thank you for the mushroom I took before I went on stage here tonight. We are humbled by your many blessings. Please watch over the next tonight. And please, please help Linda Yaccarino sell something other than Cheech and Chong gummies on Twitter, amen.”
Source Agencies
