Photo: Randy Holmes/Disney via Getty Images
Last week was the Sedaris takeover of late night. This week was “Seth’s Buds” on Late Night With Seth Meyers. Staff writer Jenny Hagel got to talk about her new book, Mike Schur discussed how good of a hugger Meyers is, and the Las Cultch boys got to hang out with the incumbent Best Vibe, Hands Down. Considering Seth Meyers is the late-night host most likely to refer to a guest as “our friend,” it was fitting to see so many friends of the show in the same week.
Shows were just really leaning into their formats this week. The Tonight Show really Tonight Show’d off, harkening back to the Carson days with both stand-up and magic making appearances in the lineup. Jimmy Kimmel did tequila shots, then talked about his vacation. Andy Cohen spilled tea about Jennifer Lawrence. Everyone was being their most singular selves, and it made the programming stand out all the more for it.
I, for one, have never seen checkerboard hair on a non-buzz-cutted person. That’s fun. Continuing the “Seth’s Pals” theme, John Lutz got to do his “Leave Him Alone” recurring segment, this time defending Pete Hegseth. Beyond the actual content of the jokes, what made this particular outing fun was how giggly both Lutz and Meyers get. It was infectious to see them bounce off each other and desperately try to get back out of gigglepuss mode.
Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show has a rep for being apolitcal, something he even joked about in the final Late Show With Stephen Colbert sketch. But it’s impossible to not weigh in on this particular moment in history. Fallon’s monologues are never going to be all politics all the time, but it’s more politics some of the time than people give him credit for. Case in point: the two sketches in Tuesday’s monologue. One had a Karoline Leavitt stand-in perpetually walking out of a press conference, taking off more and more mic packs all the while. The other had a rep for the (thankfully) failed Spencer Pratt campaign reacting to his boss’s failure. Each was really well constructed and harder-hitting than some may expect.
You’ve heard of Tickle Me Elmo. Now meet Degenerate Sports Gambling Elmo. He’s been taking a bath on high-school baseball. Jon Stewart played both sides of this man-versus-Muppet debate, and it was a hoot. Also, Elmo perfectly illustrated why online betting needs stronger regulation, something that is currently being debated in Washington. Insider trading/offering to suck Stewart off to win a Kalshi bet shouldn’t be on the table. We laugh, but also, we learn.
Look, there’s not even that much to be said here. Like Teller, it speaks for itself. The magic was cool, the pageantry really added to the experience, and Teller’s mime work is so, so, so great to see. We as a comedy society need to pivot away from experimental clown and into mime.
Jimmy Kimmel is basically the only prankster I trust/don’t want to call the FBI on; you can tell the darkest emotion he wants to illicit in his prankees is just confusion. Olivia Rodrigo was his latest victim. After being told she was finally going to have the opportunity to be a babysitter, Rodrigo could only smile along bemusedly as Kimmel added kid after kid after kid to her caseload. It would be an illegal adult-to-child ratio IRL, but for probably an hour of entertainment, it was fun. The thing that really zhuzhed the bit was Kimmel naming every child. The specificity really made the total sum of tots completely overwhelming. That and the screaming.
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