I was very young when Johnny Carson was regularly on the air, but even as a young boy, I still felt something like joy from his show. My grandparents would watch him, and there seemed to be something good-natured about it that lifted the spirits of everyone in the room when it was on. It wasn't until I was a young man who watched reruns from an old VHS best-of collection of Carson's that I truly understood the man's comedic brilliance.
I'm not sure people much younger than me, who never saw Carson reruns, understand the night and day difference between figures like Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, and why the fall of late-night television is actually tragic. Something was unifying about Carson's show. We were all laughing together, and even when we were laughing at something, it wasn't divisive.
As I've covered previously, Colbert is facing the end of his late-night career shortly, and Kimmel is likely not far behind if rumors are true. What's interesting about this is that no one seems to care. They were consistently bleeding viewers to a point where YouTubers actually get more attention. Kimmel had a ratings boost of six million upon his return to television after being suspended for his gross comments about Charlie Kirk, but according to Outkick, that audience has shrunk by 70 percent after only three days:
Still, Kimmel's long-term future with ABC remains a question. For those wondering if Kimmel could retain his newfound momentum, his ratings on Wednesday suggest no.
While Wednesday's average of 2.4 million is well ahead of Kimmel's norm (1.7 million), it marked a near 70% drop from Tuesday's record 6.3 million.
Someone better pick up that phone... because I called it.
Read: The Left Is Celebrating His Return, but I Don't Think Jimmy Kimmel's Show Is Long for This World
As I said in my previous VIP on Saturday, the left is trying to make Kimmel and Colbert victims of an oppressive regime out of D.C. The bad orange man is acting as a dictator, and network executives are only too willing to follow his commands, or even preempt them if possible. As I wrote, this isn't necessarily true. The market (meaning the people) has moved on from leftist entertainment and is seeking something else. They go elsewhere now, oftentimes to independent creators on YouTube, Rumble, or TikTok.
It's not politics, it's just business, and modern Hollywood is just really bad at business.
Read: Hollywood Still Isn't Getting Why Its Product Is Failing
But if I could needle the left just a little deeper, I'd say they've forgotten how to entertain. Sure, they pump out a random hit and get lucky, and you'll notice these hits are often devoid of the self-inflicted wounds Hollywood likes to give its own creations, but overall, people are just not feeling it anymore.
This is especially true when it comes to comedy. The left largely seems to have forgotten how to be funny, and that's especially true for the late-night comedy hosts whose jokes are structured according to their politics.
Trump/Republican does thing ----> Zingy one-liner ----> virtue signal ----> zingy one-liner ----> wait for applause
There's no real comedy here. It's just politics delivered in an often humorous tone, or if you're Jimmy Kimmel, delivered with a few tears, because nothing is funnier than crying about something someone you didn't like did during a comedy show.
They've forgotten how to be funny, and this is especially bad for them in an age where comedy is trying to make its full return.
Carson saw the pit that people like Colbert, Kimmel, and many a leftist writer fell into long ago, and he had a quote that I'd love for everyone to read.
"When a comic becomes enamored with his own views and foists them off on the public in a polemic way, he loses not only his sense of humor but his value as a humorist."
Carson nailed it. These people aren't humorists. They're no longer comedians. They put on the Greek comedy mask and deliver woe through it, then they lose their audience, who came to feel good and make their burden feel a little lighter, and these miserable "comedians" blame the people who left for their failures by tossing them into groups they probably don't even belong to.
Carson laid a perfect roadmap for everyone to follow, but while he's revered by these people, he's simultaneously ignored because they have their own itches to scratch. Now they're being pushed out, not by politics, but by people who just want to laugh a little.
