Goofing Through the Trauma Won Late Night This Week
Well, it was a weird week for late-night TV. Both Los Angeles–based shows, Jimmy Kimmel Live! and After Midnight, only aired episodes on Monday and Tuesday, and with good reason. Los Angeles is still working through the worst wildfires in its history. Many people, from working-class Angelenos to Billy Crystal to Black families that have lived in Altadena for generations to Club Chalamet, lost their homes. Los Angeles is a completely different place than it was just 72 hours ago.
As someone on Twitter said, “Climate change will manifest as a series of disasters viewed through phones with footage that gets closer and closer to where you live until you’re the one filming it.” And since Los Angeles is a city of cinematographers, vloggers, and the like, we’ve seen this disaster from every angle. Even the late-night shows that weren’t canceled spoke about what this industry town is facing. Everything that happened on late night happened through a smoky lens, but for better or worse, the show went on. Here’s what still hit.
Jason Kelce Enters the Late-Night Fray
I can’t promise that Jason Kelce’s new ESPN talk show, They Call It Late Night, will make it onto this list with a lot of frequency, but we gotta give him props for his first-ever cold open. In full Mummers Parade regalia, Kelce has a heart-to-heart with Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Field — and gives it a hug. He shows more emotional honesty and openness to this stadium than many late-night hosts display in their whole career. Kelce name-checked Conan O’Brien in his first monologue, and you can see his influence in the way Kelce decided to open his show. Philly is a weird, lawless place. One time, I saw a woman running down Broad Street holding a clump of someone else’s weave and cackling — like the Wicked Witch of the West, but in an Eagles jersey. Getting more of Philadelphia’s, uhhhh, unique flavor into late night can only be a good thing.
Josh Johnson Says, “Fuck You (Complimentary)!”
Let it be known New York is also going through hardships: the implementation of congestion pricing in Manhattan. The Daily Show used the new policy as an opportunity to do some good ol’ fashioned man-on-the-street interview stuff with Josh Johnson. The best part, obviously, was when the guy said New Yorkers say “Fuck you!” to each other to express love, then he and Johnson lovingly told each other to fuck off. Beautiful.
Seth Meyers Learns About Circuit Parties
I have said it before, I will say it again, and I am saying it currently: Seth Meyers is the best roll-with-the-punches interviewer out there. He’s not afraid to look silly or uninformed if he thinks there’s comedy to be mined out of making Matt Rogers explain what a circuit party is. And then he’ll bring his newfound information up for a few callbacks. That’s called professionalism. Look it up, idiots.
“The People Yearn for Monk Books!”
This is my new favorite After Midnight game, in which comedians yell passionately about their real-life obsessions for not enough time to get a coherent thought out. If you want to see some world-class yelling, this is the video for you. Pete Holmes cannot contain his enthusiasm for seeing a dad struggle through Family Double Dare. Corin Wells is asking all the right questions about JC Chasez, except why ’N Sync is credited as duetting with Blaque on “Bring It All to Me,” but it’s only him singing?! But Zach Cherry’s impassioned plea to read the Monk novels is a thing to behold.
Pete Lee Posts Through the Pain
Take notes, fellow people existing in increasingly unprecedented times: This is thee coping strategy. Life is going to keep giving us lemons, and we have to make some choices. Do we, as Paul Rudd says in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, say “Fuck the lemons” and bail? Do we try to process the lemons emotionally? Or do we write a tight five about lemons and hope that someone else out there has been handed the same citrus? There’s probably not a wrong answer, but I appreciate Pete Lee joking through the destruction of his home. What else can we do but make content and be merry?