TVSquad

A funny thing happened at the beginning of the ABC executive session this morning. After ABC Entertainment president Steve McPherson got on stage, said some opening remarks, and opened the floor to questions, someone got up and identified himself as Tom Weinerman of the Sarasota Star-Herald Tribune. That was a bit unusual, as the reporters here never identify themselves before asking questions.

But then, people started recognizing the voice, or turned in the direction of the questioner, and realized what was going on: It was Jimmy Kimmel, and he had some pointed -- and funny -- questions for McPherson about the possibility of Jay Leno coming to ABC.

The late night comedian will be appearing during your primetime schedule. Starting tomorrow, Jimmy Kimmel LIve will run special half-hour shows each night that ABC airs the basketball finals. Special guests include: David Beckham, Edward Norton, Charles Barkley, Liv Tyler, Adam Sandler, Eminem, Shaquille O'Neil, Magic Johnson and New Orleans Hornets guard and 2008 MVP contender Chris Paul, among others.

Out of the celebrities mentioned, I'm most interested to see Eminem. I haven't seen the Real Slim Shady on TV in awhile. He's always a good interview though -- all that contrived hostility and testosterone in overdrive. Who are you looking forward to seeing? Or is Kimmel's fabulousness enough to get you to tune in?

The schedule is after the jump.

Sarah Silverman, the star of The Sarah Silverman Program, is fu*king Jimmy Kimmel, the host of ABC's late night talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live. At least we assume so, considering they've been dating for years and kidding about their love story in public -- remember her video, "I'm fu*king Matt Damon," which he countered with "I'm fu*king Ben Affleck"? These two are a fun couple and seem to really have it together. However, don't look for Ms. Silverman to ever become Mrs. Kimmel.

Simply stated, Sarah Silverman told People.com that she's vowed to never marry Jimmy Kimmel. Nothing personal, Jimmy, she just likes things exactly as they are and doesn't want to muck it up with rice, flowers, lace, cake, invitations and all the other wedding malarkey.

Clearly, little Sarah never fantasized about her parents walking her down the aisle, standing under the chuppa with her groom, and seeing the man of her dreams shatter a wine glass beneath his foot, all elements of a typical nice Jewish wedding for a nice Jewish girl like Sarah.

Remember that song, "Everything Old Is New Again"? Well, it's true. In the old days of broadcasting, it was typical for the host of a show to appear during the hour or half-hour doing a live commercial endorsing the sponsor of the program. That old idea is being re-invented and ABC will soon announce that Jimmy Kimmel will be doing live spots on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Call it the ultimate in product integration, if you will, but it's just one more way for advertisers to guard against DVR watchers zapping through the commercials or live viewers clicking to another channel. And if they're smart, they'll make the commercials clever enough to be worth watching. The live ads will launch in May.

There are many ways to get through a Lost hiatus: watch the DVDs, check out Lost fan blogs, or perfect your complicated time loop theories. Jimmy Kimmel decided to pass the time by poking fun at the show's underwhelming enhanced episodes. Kimmel rewrote one of the enhanced scenes from "The Beginning of the End," in which Hurley and Jack play Horse. His on-screen facts were only slightly more dumbed down than the original text, but were much funnier.

Looks like the late-night talk shows may be coming back sooner rather than later, and this regardless of what happens with the strike. Variety admits that nothing official has been said and no one will comment one way or another, but insiders are saying the time may be nearing. Carson returned after two months of the '88 writers strike. With ratings taking a nosedive, January 7 has been pegged as a possible return date for the NBC hosts (Leno and O'Brien), with the others starting the same time or soon thereafter.

They initially shut down production in deference to their writers and stayed dark to help the writers maintain some leverage in negotiations, even going so far as to pay non-writing staffers out of their own pockets. But, when reruns of Spike TVs MANswers are beating your reruns, and your ratings are half what they were (as is the case with the NBC pair), it's time to rethink everything.

Isn't it time to leave Miss South Carolina alone and let the poor girl get on with her life? (Answer: no).

To help us all understand just what the teenage beauty pageant contestant was trying to say, late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel gives us a complete breakdown via chalkboard. He explains what she meant by "U.S. Americans," why the U.S. has to help the U.S., and says he knew a guy once who didn't own a map. Such as.

As a bonus, Kimmel explains why high school is like prison, with its beatings, bad food, and forced showering with other men. Full video after the jump!

Here's a funny clip from a recent Jimmy Kimmel Live. Seems Kimmel bet a lot of money that former Beverly Hills 90210 star Ian Ziering would actually win Dancing with the Stars. But Ziering lost, and Kimmel didn't win the $4000 that he could have won. So he sends his Uncle Frank and Cousin Sal over to Ziering's dressing room to beat him up. But Uncle Frank doesn't stop there.

The thing that stands out to me in the video? Even in a comedy sketch, Ziering isn't a very good actor. Takes a fake punch well though. Video after the jump!

This clip is worth it for the reaction of Gawker editor Emily Gould. She seems completely shocked and unprepared.

Jimmy Kimmel was guest host on Larry King Live on Friday night, and the topic was gossip, celebrity stalking, and the various celeb mags and web sites. Though usually irreverent, Kimmel was dead serious about confronting Gould about the many false or mistaken sightings that readers (or as Gould calls them, "citizen journalists," gag) sent into Gawker Stalker.

I would put this in the "What the f***?" category.

Tonight's Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC is a repeat...from this past Tuesday. That's right, they're dipping waaaay back into the archives, because fans have been asking for it. The guests are/were Hilary Swank, Hilary Duff, and Dancing with the Stars castoff Shandi Finnessey.

Now, OK, I understand that the show probably has to be a repeat, because Kimmel is sitting in for Larry King tonight on CNN at 9 (though I wonder if it's live or taped or what's going on with that), but do they have to air a repeat from three nights ago? Seriously, that's just bizarre to me.

It's keeping with what all the late night shows do now, from Letterman to Carson Daly. When they show repeats they're always fairly recent. But they're usually from 2, 4, 6 weeks ago, not 3 days.

The New York Observer is reporting that ABC has filmed two secret pilots for a new hour-long version of Nightline. The shows were filmed on Feb. 9, but ABC and Disney haven't decided to go through with the new version of the show or not.

Of course, if this new hour-long show were to happen, that means it would air from 11:35PM to 12:35AM. Jimmy Kimmel Live starts every night at 12:05AM, so (one assumes) Kimmel's show would be pushed back to the 12:35 slot, starting at the same time as Late Night With Conan O'Brien and The Late, Late Show With Craig Ferguson. But the article also states that execs have said that Kimmel's show is losing "buckets of money." So could Kimmel be pushed out of the network completely?

If Kimmel stays and goes to 12:35, I probably won't watch the show anymore. As it is I usually only watch the monologue (he has one of the best in late night, in my opinion), but the rest of the show falls a little flat to me. Plus I'm getting old and can't stay up really late like I used to.

Related:

Andy Dick removed from Jimmy Kimmel set - VIDEO

Well, this is...interesting.

Howard Stern continues his TV talk show tour to promote his Sirius radio show, and last week appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live, but not in the same studio as Kimmel. At first it looks like Stern is sitting down in the chair next to Kimmel's desk, but you quickly realized that Stern is in New York City (Kimmel tapes in L.A.) and is sitting in front of a green screen to make it look like he's with Kimmel. You also figure out what's going on once you see Stern and Kimmel attempt to kiss and they can't quite line up their, um, tongues.

Stern also gives Kimmel a free Sirius Stiletto radio. He did the same thing on Letterman last week. I wonder if Dave and Paul feel cheap now? Video after the jump! (Note: the video also includes a 90 year-old woman having an orgasm.)

ABC likes what Jimmy Kimmel has been doing for their late-night schedule. They especially like the fact that, during the 2005-06 season, Jimmy Kimmel Live increased its audience by about 6%, which is pretty decent for a show that airs after midnight. So, to reward the comedian turned talk-show host, the network has renewed Jimmy Kimmel Live for a fifth season. That keeps the former co-host of Comedy Central's The Man Show on the alphabet network through 2008.

According to Andrea Wong, the executive vice-president of alternative programming, specials and late-night at ABC Entertainment (must be a humongous business card), Kimmel represents the future of late night television. She went on to say that Jimmy offers the network great creative strength, which is shown in his growing audience. This is most likely the opposite of what ABC executives thought when the show aired three-and-a-half years ago. During the first few weeks of the show Kimmel allowed the audience to imbibe in alcoholic beverages, which caused a bit of a panic at the network.

In addition to the renewal, Jimmy Kimmel Live will get its own one-hour primetime special this fall called Jimmy Kimmel Live's All-Star Salute to Jimmy Kimmel Live!. Scheduled to air at 10 p.m. on September 13th, the special will include show highlights, comedy sketches, and musical guests.

Last night Jimmy Kimmel Live had a clever, quick sketch about a Keith Richards sitcom (after talking about a new Mick Jagger sitcom in the works), where Richards would play the dad, mumbling at the dinner table, flicking his cigarette into the forehead of his son and passing out into a plate of spaghetti. It was pretty funny (and, unlike something SNL would do, they didn't drag it on too long), and I thought to myself, "hell, I'd watch that!"

And I keep thinking that sometimes the shows-within-a-TV-show are often better than the shows themselves. Like Tool Time on Home Improvement. I've always wondered why no one has actually done a Tool Time-like show for syndication. Hell, I think it would be great if Tim Allen and Richard Karn got together and did a spinoff. They always treat the shows-within-a-show as not particularly good, but does anyone doubt that a show like Tool Time would be a funny, entertaining half hour, with two comedians hosting, giving home improvement/makeover tips, with a hot girl assistant?

Did anyone see Jimmy Kimmel Live on Tuesday night? I usually watch it but for some reason thought it was a repeat (you'd think the guy who does a daily talk show roundup would know what's new and what's repeated - duh) and I'm sorry I missed this. Seems that actress Viveca A. Fox wasn't too pleased with all the jokes that Jimmy Kimmel makes about The View's Star Jones (Fox is a good friend and was in Jones' wedding). The imdb has the lowdown.