Midterms! Midterms! Midterms! Did you know we voted in the midterms this week? On Tuesday, no less. Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert both hosted live shows Tuesday night, before anyone really knew anything. So the commentary was perhaps premature. Guillermo’s “I Voted†stickers–covered suit for the occasion was a delight to behold. The live episodes made sense when people voted in person, but since mail-in became normal (as well as election denial), night-of coverage is less than helpful. It’s like two steps above one of those videos on TikTok where someone reacts to an alleged DIY hack that’s secretly a fetish video. (Did you know about those? They are everywhere.) Colbert’s night-of coverage fascinated me, because each election result also had a gag to go with it, which means a whole room of people were in a room frantically pitching jokes for 45 seconds after CBS called any one race. I’d love to see Studio 60 portray that. But it wasn’t all midterms. There was gay candy, Weird promo, and more. Here’s who did the best job Pokémon Go–ing to the polls this week.
5. The Problem With Gay Candy
The Problem With Jon Stewart really benefited from combining its two divergent formats this week. At one point, the show’s YouTube featured roundtable discussions with the writing staff. We got to see people riff and try to impress each other with their insights/dick jokes, and again I am just writing Studio 60 fanfic when I say it was interesting to watch! Then the show gave Stewart a more Daily Show–esque relationship to an audience. The midterms coverage combined the two, with Jay Jurden and Kasaun Wilson sitting courtside for Stewart’s monologue, conjecturing on which candy is gayest (Skittles, natch. Twix is bisexual). Stewart had two groups to impress, and it made him work harder.
4. Will Ferrell Goes Tiger King
Former co-workers Will Ferrell and Jimmy Fallon had a ball of a time on The Tonight Show. When someone in the audience popped for a Justin Bieber name-drop, Ferrell commented that the “woohoo†sounded more like a sheep’s bleat. The two derailed the interview to see what other animal sounds the audience could make, which somehow devolved into bringing an audience member to sit on Ferrell’s lap as they pretended to be a baby Bengal tiger. Now, thanks to Netflix, we all know tigers need to be kept away from private ownership. But still, this was a nice mélange of classic Jack Hanna–on–Carson energy with Whose Line Is It Anyway–style audience participation.
3. The Weird Charm Offensive
Evan Rachel Wood and Daniel Radcliffe were so good on WWHL. They were game, they had good answers quickly, and they mostly stayed away from shit-talking. At the end of this clip, Radcliffe kind of mumbles that he’d never accept a knighthood, which is very cool and dishy and anti-monarchist of him. And Wood’s story about a Madonna interview is not to be missed. If you’re prepping for any interview, watch this clip — both as a good model of how to answer questions affably and also for Wood’s story about how Madonna threw a reporter off their game.
2. Lizzy Caplan Goes Off
Double-dipping in Kimmel this week, because Lizzy Caplan ranting against overly crunchy breastfeeding consultants needs to be seen. This is classic talk-show stuff here, folks. Everyone’s firing on all cylinders. Caplan has a story she needs to tell, it’s not overly rehearsed, and Kimmel pops in at just the right times. This clip gives that sense of being at a cool dinner party, the optimal mode for a talk show.
1. Jimmy Kimmel Spills Tea
Jimmy Kimmel has carved a weird niche as the late-night host most likely to take things personally or bring his personal life into the show. His impassioned advocacy for Obamacare after his child’s health scare put his show in a new light. And when he beefs with a conservative, he beefs hard. This week, he spilled hot goss about Donald Trump pushing a woman into a water feature at Mar-a-Lago, while Dr. Oz and his wife looked on in shock. Often in politics, there’s this hey we’re all insiders here, we can squabble and go to dinner mentality that is deeply sketchy to beltway outsiders. And Matthew Perry recently wrote about the Famous Club, the way celebs treat each other like buds without earning any particular trust. Simply for being another fame-o, they are deserving of trust. By telling this story that seems to have been shared in the confidence of we’re all celebs here, Kimmel pierced that veil. Nah, Dr. Oz, everything is content.
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