Screenshot: CBS
Donald Trump finally figured out a way to keep late-night hosts from getting big laughs mocking him: Keep talking so long that their shows start really late, the audiences go numb from sitting around so long, and the writers go half to sleep.
In theory, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel both had a great idea: try to jump on whatever craziness the President stuffed his State of the Union address with and present hot takes with fresh jokes on live (or, in Kimmel’s case, near-live) shows.
But after the longest SOTU address in American history—filled with all-too-familiar riffs on the greatness of MAGA, dubious stats that everyone has heard before, and a sort of parody of game show prize giveaways (“You get a medal! You get a medal!”)—the plan lost much of its promise Tuesday night.
Colbert, who has made the live post-address show a staple of his tenure on CBS’s The Late Show, seemed especially affected by the long night’s journey into a daze. He came out pumped, his audience greeted him with an enduring, affectionate ovation, and that just about exhausted the energy in the room.
Rarely has Colbert’s monologue played as flat as it did last night. The deadening effect of the long wait through the Democratic rebuttal and the late local newscasts can’t have helped.
But the material didn’t rouse the crowd back to alertness, proving that even the best writers can struggle when they are on the clock.
Playing off the speech’s theme of America as “strong, prosperous, and respected,” Colbert joked it recalled the theme of a Bill Clinton edition: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” Presumably that earned a laugh in the writers’ room. On the air, it just earned dead air.
Something about Trump being as unpopular as a Lion King sequel about Jafar, and an attempt to play with the similar-sounding names of Democratic senators who didn’t attend—Murphy, Markey, and Merkley—just seemed to confuse the up-too-late crowd in the seats.
A few lines played better—the women’s hockey team declining to attend was summed up as “Puck, no!”—but it was, by Colbert’s usual standards, a low-scoring spin around the rink.
The advantage of having more time to compose jokes was somewhat apparent in Colbert’s frequent Act Two bit, “Meanwhile.” That segment did produce at least one more elegantly crafted example: about the discovery of a man with three penises, which Colbert attributed to the scientific experts at “Johnson, Johnson, and Johnson.”
Meanwhile, out on the West Coast—where the three-hour time difference had clearly convinced Jimmy Kimmel and his staff that they’d be able to put together a show that could comment on the speech without being actually live—the plan ran head-on into the same long-winded blowing from the Capitol.
Kimmel acknowledged that the idea had been to seize the opportunity to comment immediately on the speech, but they were compelled to start the show while Trump was still speaking.
At least his audience didn’t have to sit unentertained for as long as Colbert’s. Their energy level was notably higher, as was the host’s.
And the jokes were better. Example: “The speech went on so long, Kristi Noem’s dog shot him-self.”
There was also some prepared, heavier-hitting anti-Trump material, in the form of a pair of pre-tapes:
A faux Sergeant at Arms introduced the president in stentorian voice as all the things he has claimed he is, including rightful winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, undisputed champion of beautiful clean coal, someone who doesn’t wear diapers and has no idea his best friend was a pedophile; and a faux J.D. Vance, so riled up from all the standing and sitting—and Trump referring to America as “the hottest country anywhere in the world”—that he started humping his big chair behind the podium.
Kimmel could also reach into what’s becoming an evergreen joke about Trump’s collapsing approval ratings, noting that the President is now less popular than chlamydia.
It was a more successful effort at instant-skewering analysis under difficult circumstances.
Both shows went with opening guests aimed at functioning as political commentators, much as you would have seen on the cable news channels.
That may have been intended as an “oh yeah” directed at the ever-watching, ever-hopeful regulatory executioner Brendan Carr, because it sure played like real, not fake, news.
On CBS, John Dickerson, late of CBS News and, as Colbert pointed out, the second-most frequent guest of his tenure, offered experienced analysis with a few light stab wounds for Trump.
On ABC, Kimmel was joined by the foursome of hosts from the lib-leading Pod Save America podcast, who were much more aggressive knife-wielders.
Overall, that cemented the impression that Kimmel had the edgier effort at jumping on the speech—and the speaker.
Both hosts came to similar conclusions. Colbert called it a “dark speech.” Kimmel called it an “angry speech.”
Neither is exactly a formula for a funny show.
But: can’t blame the guys for trying.
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