Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Late Night with Seth Meyers via YouTube, Lloyd Bishop/NBC via Getty Images
The audiences were activated this week in late night, and we got some real buck-wild woos. The Last Week Tonight audience was all in on John Oliver’s takedown of AI chatbots. They were oohing and aahing and making little noises of approbation like a very special episode of Moesha — specifically the one when Myles brings a joint home and the parents think it’s Moesha’s. I think it was in part because Oliver was so outraged by his topic. By the end, he was shaking with anger at the callous indifference to user suicide shown by these tech freaks.
We also got two really odd solo woos this week. There was a stray pop on The Daily Show when Gaten Matarazzo said food should be edible, and one person cheered for the Axis powers during WWII on The Tonight Show during Francesco De Carlo’s stand-up set. He was definitely taken aback. If you glean nothing else from this column, please heed these words: Think before you woo, because you may be woo-ing the Nazis.
Jimmy Kimmel’s been having a week, hasn’t he? Again, he is the main focus of the Trump administration’s censorship efforts, and again that thrusts him into an uncomfortable role of Important Truth Teller. It’s not one he particularly seems to want. Kimmel wants to tell nice jokes for the nice people, not lead la révolution. But thank God he married super producer Molly McNearney, who knew it was important to get cameras on Kimmel when he found out that the president was calling for his firing once again. She took a video of him in bed, waking up to his precarious job prospects. It was great because of how indifferent Kimmel is to Trump’s whining, but also because he sleeps with so many pillows. A comically large number of pillows. It is a wonder he doesn’t suffocate.
The producers on The Tonight Show know how to spend their money. Big musical numbers from artists like Diljit Dosanjh. Last week’s contortionist archer. And puppy after puppy after puppy. Jimmy Fallon helped all the degenerate gamblers out there choose a Kentucky Derby winner by having puppies (who each represented a Derby horse) run to kibble. It’s a way better, cuter, and more ethical system than the CNN collab with Kalshi. Put your money on The Puma.
Fresh off his Interview interview with Adam Friedland and subsequent appearance on The Adam Friedland Show, Maury Povich brought his broadcasting chops to the Bravo Clubhouse. He was there to surprise his former employee, The Real Housewives of Atlanta’s Pinky Cole, and to do what he does best: reading off cards. Cole and Real Housewives of Rhode Island’s Rulla Nehme Pontarelli played a game with Povich, revealing more deets from their backstories. Povich was clearly having a ball, and that was infectious.
Triumph the Insult Comic Dog (and, by extension, Robert Smigel) was at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner when Things Popped Off. Like Wolf Blitzer and all the other journalists on the scene, Triumph bravely told the news as he became it. Or maybe he just had poop jokes to tell — who cares? Triumph’s red-carpet work was great, but the true highlight of the week was when he and Jon Stewart battled over who had control of the segment on Monday. Triumph’s absurdly long paw is never not funny, especially when it’s shushing Stewart.
Seth Meyers had a kiki this week. Two, in fact. One with Ayo Edebiri, which touched on topics like the Chinatown bus and Ocean’s Eleven. And another with Lena Dunham, who is not mad at Seth, no matter how much he ruined her life by not helping her write a SNL monologue. But what really linked these two bubbly, charming, and super-fun Late Night appearances was a brave commitment to prop comedy. Edebiri demanded a Shirley Temple to match her outfit (“We want to platform new and exciting outfits,” Meyers said) at the beginning of her appearance, and Dunham protractedly signed a copy of her book at the end of hers. Meyers gave these — dare I say it? —comediennes plenty of runway, and they freaking soared.
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