Sunday, February 05, 2006

see rock city

"Jimmy Kimmel Live" debuted after ABC's broadcast of Super Bowl XXXVII. The game is on ABC again this year, which will be their final Super Bowl for the foreseeable future. After the game, Jimmy will have a three year anniversary show around 11:35pm Eastern (8:35pm Pacific) tonight. I've had a TiVo Season Pass for Jimmy's show since its first night. A Dallas reporter recently described it as the most vital of the late-night shows.

This weekend I've been catching up on (and very much enjoying) last week's episodes of Jimmy's show. He's taken the show on the road to Detroit's Gem Theatre. So many people showed up for the tapings that they had a pizza party for those who couldn't get in. On Thursday night's show, Jeff Daniels alluded to the history of the Gem Theatre. He mentioned that the theatre got into the Guinness Book of World Records when it was picked up and moved on wheels to make room for a new stadium.

The Detroit media has been covering every aspect of Jimmy's visit. The information is so detailed that I know to look for a funny bit during the pregame show at 4:13pm today. Most of the stories are about the incident that got Jimmy in hot water with the Motor City.

I'm glad to see Jimmy making up with the people of Detroit. About a year and a half ago he made a joke about Piston fans that didn't go well. By coincidence, I was visiting L.A. and was in the audience the night that Jimmy's show got pulled by the network. The show that night was very funny. The guests were George Lopez and a talented singer named Katie Melua.

It was June 9, 2004. Jimmy opened the show by talking about the controversy that erupted the night before while he was interviewed on ABC during the NBA halftime show. He had joked that Detroit shouldn't win the championship because their fans would burn the down the city. Jimmy played some of the Detroit news coverage about his remark and followed that with an extremely funny pre-taped piece that spoofed the history of Detroit. The bit included lines like "in the 20th century Detroit became the capital of automobile production... Automobiles perfect for flipping, smashing and burning."

After the show, we went to the green room so we could take a photo of my son with Jimmy. Cousin Sal and Cleto recognized us and said hi. Sal told us there was a problem with the show and that Jimmy would be delayed. At that point, George Lopez's manager, Ron DeBlasio, spotted us and invited us into George's dressing room. We had a great visit with George. We talked mostly about radio.

After about half an hour, we went back to the green room looking for Jimmy. Carrie, his assistant, told us Jimmy was still on a conference call with the network that could last a while. She apologized for making us wait so long, not realizing we had been visiting with George Lopez the whole time. When Jimmy was able to see us, he joked that we picked a great night to come since it could be his last night on the air. He told us that the network had decided to air a rerun. We told him that we hoped they could air George Lopez's and Katie Melua's segments at a future date.

Jimmy apologized to Detroit and most of that "Jimmy Kimmel Live" show finally aired two nights later on a Friday night. There was a new opening monologue. After the first commercial break the show picked up with the remainder of Wednesday's show. Thanks to the slow motion and freeze frame features of TiVo, we even saw ourselves on TV when we returned to Knoxville.

Now that Jimmy is welcome in Detroit, I don't have to worry that his visit will end up with an unwanted trip to the Frank Murphy Hall of Justice.


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2 Comments:

Blogger Frank Strovel III said...

Sorry. Jimmy Kimmel lost me with "The Man Show".

Give me Conan anyday.

2/06/2006  
Blogger bean said...

mmmmmmmm......carrie.

2/07/2006  

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