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Jimmy Kimmel Skewers the Upfronts Again in Today’s Must-Laugh Item of the Day

May 14, 2014  •  Post A Comment

In the parlance of stand-up comics, Jimmy Kimmel was on fire at ABC's upfront presentation yesterday afternoon, Tuesday, May 13, 2014, as he did his annual skewering of the broadcast network upfront presentations.

TVWeek was there, and here are some of his best lines, in no particular order:

NBC is very pleased with themselves, aren’t they? They should be. Who would have ever guessed that the Olympics would rate? The fact of the matter is C-Span could have been No. 1 with the Olympics. The video screens above the pumps at the gas stations would have been No. 1 if they had the Olympics on them. And yet there was [NBC Entertainment chief] Bob Greenblatt yesterday on the stage rubbing his nipples the whole time.

Now NBC is on top. What do you do when you are on top? You double down and you hit them with Peter mother f—ing Pan. And then 'The Music Man.' Is Bob running a network or a musical theater camp?

But they are spending money. Mark Burnett is producing an elaborate new miniseries called 'AD,' which he described as 'Game of Thrones' meets 'The Borgias' meets 'The Bible.' Now I read the pitch for this show. It sounds more to me like total meets cluster meets f—.

I was on 'The View' this morning. Either I was on 'The View' or I had a very vivid dream that all my aunts were mad at me. Anyway, I was there to say goodbye to Barbara Walters, who is stepping down this week — very carefully — and I thought this was interesting. She’s leaving because she wants to spend more time fighting her friends in real life.

Being a president of a television network is hard, there’s no question about that. But somehow [ABC Entertainment chief] Paul Lee makes it look even harder. You heard Paul say it, we’re No. 1. We’re No. 1? Look, I don’t know what this No. 1 brand bullshit is, I don’t know what kind of 17-mile-long … collider they spun that one in, but the ABC I work at is not No. 1. In fact, we might need to crash on your couch for a while.

Even Anne Sweeney [Disney Television co-chairman] was like, to hell with this, I’m outta here. By the way, if anyone is looking for a director with no experience who is used to a high seven-figure salary and always getting her way, make sure to accept Anne’s invitation to LinkedIn.

For the first time in a long time CBS did not have a good year. Just to give you a sense of how disastrously things went for CBS, they almost didn’t beat us this year.

This year I’m being completely serious when I say all of our new shows will be canceled. But it doesn’t matter. We need to relax, we need to stop worrying about who gets the best ratings and about who’s No. 1. As Vince Lombardi once said, winning isn’t everything. There was more, but that was the basic gist of it.

We are introducing a number of limited-run series this year. 'American Crime' is 11 episodes. 'Secret of Lies' will go 10 episodes, and most of our shows will probably go even shorter than that.

This fall Paul gave the creative community a mandate: Bring us your passion, we’ll take off the handcuffs — which sounds like something you’d say to a hooker. I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t get attached to any of these shows because it’s like adopting a kitten with cancer. [Here the audience groans.] Oh too much? I’m sorry, then you will hate our new show 'Kittens with Cancer.'

I know Paul makes up a lot of words but [Fox Entertainment chief] Kevin Reilly said he’s making eventizing a priority this year. That’s actually how I popped the question to my wife. I said honey, I think it's time to eventize this relationship and then I pregnatized her. And by the way my wife is pregnant and this seems like a good time to mention that for the first time ever as part of an ultra premium integration package, ABC is offering your client naming rights to my baby. For a $25 million media spend, my newborn will be named after your product. Can you imagine the pride we will both feel as we introduce Crest White Strips Kimmel? It’s a concept I call cervical integration. Look at what happened to Apple after they made that deal with Gwyneth Paltrow.


 

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