Jimmy Kimmel reveals how Jon Stewart nearly took his ABC late-night spot
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Jimmy Kimmel has just revealed how close Jon Stewart was to getting the ABC late-night slot that ultimately became 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!'
The comedian was poised to sign on the dotted line to take over for Bill Maher in 2002 before an unexpected turn awarded the job to Kimmel.
In an interview recorded for Ted Danson's ‘Where Everybody Knows Your Name’ podcast, Kimmel described how ABC was nearly ready to hire Jon Stewart when he stepped in.
“They wanted a traditional late-night talk show in that slot,” Kimmel explained. “Jon and I have the same manager, James ‘Baby Doll’ Dixon, and James was about to close this deal for Jon to host the show.”
Bob Iger picked Jimmy Kimmel for his price tag
ABC's Michael Davies pushed on behalf of Kimmel, recommending that chairman Lloyd Braun view his tape. “Lloyd watched the tape and he was like, ‘I think this might be the guy.’ And he brought the tape to Bob Iger and Iger said, ‘Yeah, I think this might be the guy.’”
Kimmel added, “It was a very strange thing because” he and Stewart’s shared manager was “in the difficult position of having to tell Jon, ‘Uh, you’re not going to ABC, but Jimmy is going to ABC.’”
Kimmel quipped, “That was a mistake by the way. They definitely should hire Jon. If I’m in that position, there’s no question I hire John 100 times out of a 100.”
Kimmel was surprised at the time, speaking to the New York Times in 2002, he said, “I think the best word to describe what I felt when they offered me the job is ‘bewildered.’ I am not surprised that I’ve been successful in television. I was surprised to get the job at ABC.”
Kimmel told Dan that he later questioned Bob Iger on why he received the approval ahead of Stewart. “I said, ‘What was it, like why—this is quite a leap that you guys made. I was on The Man Show, I was doing football picks on Fox NFL Sunday—what was it?’ He goes, ‘Well, you were cheaper.’ And everybody laughed, but I knew he wasn’t kidding.”
Jimmy Kimmel shares bittersweet moment of initial days
Notably, ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ debuted in 2003, and Kimmel readily admitted the initial phase was rough. He told Dan, “I think my vision of hell is being forced to watch my first year of shows, because it is just as painful as anything could get for me. It took us a long time to figure it out and we’re very fortunate to get a long time to figure it out.”
Kimmel further went on to say that despite the chaos, the show stabilized. He said, “Somehow we wound up getting good ratings.”
He went on, “I still don’t know how that was, but they were good enough to keep us on the air, even though I was causing trouble once every, like two and a half months, some major thing was happening. Something that came out of my mouth, you know, and caused a whole thing. It was just tumultuous.”
Jon Stewart Defended Jimmy Kimmel against ABC pull
Just a few days after speaking with Danson, Jimmy Kimmel was briefly pulled from off air because of threats from the Trump administration's FCC Chair. This was followed by support from his once-competitor, Jon Stewart, who skewered the president over the censorship crackdown.
'On The Daily Show', Stewart joked by saying, "Some naysayers may argue that this administration’s speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smokescreen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation, principle-less and coldly antithetical to any experiment in a constitutional republic governance,” he also quipped. “Some people would say that... Not me, though. I think it’s great.”
Stewart also showed up on ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ in a sketch, reinforcing the theme. Dressed as a Grubhub driver, he warned his friend, “In case you haven’t heard the news: late-night talk show host, the job security’s not really there right now.”
