Jimmy Kimmel was a recent guest on Ted Danson’s “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” podcast and revealed that he almost lost the ABC late-night talk show host job to none other than Jon Stewart. It was the early 2000s, and Stewart was a few years into his role as host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.” ABC was looking for a late-night replacement for Bill Maher, who had hosted the half-hour political show “Political Incorrect” since joining the network in 1997.
“They wanted a traditional late-night talk show in that niche,” Kimmel said (via The Daily Beast). “Jon and I have the same manager, James ‘Baby Doll’ Dixon, and James was about to make this deal for Jon to host the show…(Lloyd Braun, ABC president) looked at my tape and he was like, ‘I think that could be the guy.’ And he took the tape to Bob Iger, and Iger said, “Yeah, I think that might be the guy.” It was a very strange thing because (James) was in the difficult position of having to say to Jon, ‘Uh, you’re not going to ABC, but Jimmy is going to ABC.’
Stewart was already a late-night favorite thanks to “The Daily Show,” while Kimmel was much more inexperienced in the space as host of Comedy Central’s “The Man Show.” As Kimmel joked, “That was actually a mistake. They should definitely hire Jon. If I’m in this position, there’s no doubt I’m hiring John 100 times out of 100.”
Kimmel was so confused about winning the gig against Stewart that he asked Bob Iger about it. As Kimmel recalls: “I said, ‘What was that, like why? That’s a big step you took. I was on ‘The Man Show,’ I was doing football picks on Fox NFL Sunday, what was that?’ He responds, “Well, you were cheaper.” » And everyone laughed, but I knew he wasn’t joking.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” debuted in 2003 and Kimmel recalled that the beginnings were difficult. “I think my view of hell is having to watch my first year of the series, because it’s as painful as anything could be for me. It took us a long time to figure it out, and we’re very lucky to have this much time to figure it out.”
“Somehow we ended up getting good grades,” he continued. “I still don’t know what it was like, but they were nice enough to keep us on the air, even though I was causing trouble once every, like, two and a half months something big would happen. Something would come out of my mouth, you know, and cause a whole thing. It was just tumultuous.”
Watch Kimmel’s full interview on Danson’s podcast in the video below.
