Jimmy Kimmel Targets Bob Iger, ‘Blue Bloods,’ P Diddy & Golden Bachelorette At Disney Upfront: “A Game Show Where You Can Win An Old Lady”
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After a two-year absence from the upfront stage, Jimmy Kimmel was back Tuesday to take aim at Bob Iger, P Diddy, CBS and the new Golden Bachelorette.
Introduced by Kerry Washington — who he said was the “last decent lead-in I ever had” — Kimmel had fun with an artificial version of Bob Iger on screen and another version of the Golden Bachelor franchise called The Golden Retriever: Love is a Bitch.
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Here’s his monologue:
“Let’s hear it for all the talented stars who were forced to come here today because of a clause in their contract their agents didn’t bother to read. I am glad you’re all inside. I heard Amazon left you guys out on the porch. You’re lucky you didn’t get stolen.”
“It is so great to be back in the abandoned shopping cart district. And as I look out into your long dead marketing executive eyes, I am filled with a sense of enthusiasm that is truly unrivaled. I don’t know if you can tell I’m igniting pure joy right now. Two years ago, I couldn’t be here in person because I had Covid and last year I couldn’t be here because of the writers strike. And this year I couldn’t think of a third excuse. I tried diarrhea on the plane, but I guess they get that all the time now.”
“But it’s so good to be back. You’re probably wondering why I am so giddy today. Okay, I’ll tell you why. It’s because Disney is using proprietary meta-tagging data that leverages video intelligence to tap into the moods and emotions within the content we create. That’s why I’m so proud of what we’ve done here, being a part of innovations like Disney’s Magic words. Until this afternoon, I thought Disney’s magic words were Bibbidy Bobbidy, we own everything. Fuck you.”
“It would seem I was mistaken. Half the world’s population connects with Disney every day. Did we know that? I didn’t. And you know why I didn’t? We made it up. I don’t think Jesus even connects with half the world’s population every day.”
“I know you got hit with a lot of information today, but if there’s one thing I hope you take away from this, it’s that [president of global advertising] Rita Ferro’s mother spoiled her rotten with hundreds of trips to Disney. When I was a kid, we went to Disneyland once. We went one time in 1978. [Pointing to photo of his family upstage] That’s me with my arms folded and my sister about to make out with a racist statue outside the store that sold cigarettes. Okay? That’s my favorite Disney memory, my only Disney memory.”
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“Things are good for a change. They’re pretty good. We are back in the strong masculine hands of our once and rightful Bob, just as the prophecy foretold. Poor Bob Iger, this guy, he should be retired by now. He should be off on a yacht somewhere. Instead, he’s here pretending to be excited about a new season of Will fucking Trent.”
“Bob tried to sell us last year. He put us up for sale. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, no one wanted to buy us. No one was interested. Bob explained that he didn’t mean he literally wanted to sell us. He was just testing the waters for Wall Street. But thanks Bob. Usually when people test the waters, they dip in a toe. They don’t drown their children. But we’re glad you’re back, albeit for a limited time, which is very McRib of you. But I think what we’ve learned over the last few years is that the only Bob that can replace Bob is Bob. And with that said, I am thrilled to present the most exciting artificial CEO technology in the history of American business. Behold, Bob isn’t going anywhere ever again. We uploaded him to the cloud so that we can live in peace and prosperity under the watchful AI of the Iger.”
“By the way, that’s just the model. The real AI Bob will blast lasers out of his purchase funnel.”
“So hey, how could anyone even think about selling ABC? This is the home of The Rookie. This is the home of the Golden Bachelor. The Golden Bachelor is a key part of our strategy to steal CBS’ viewers by putting them all in a house together. As you know, Gerry, the Golden Bachelor and his bride, Theresa, decided to end their marriage after a very short union. But even though the whole thing was a complete jerk off, it was so popular. We are now launching the Golden Bachelorette, a game show where you can win an old lady. Congratulations Joan. Joan is our new golden bachelorette. She has four kids and two grandchildren. Are the kids ready to see grandma get raw dogged in a jacuzzi? Okay, now I’ll open the floor to questions.”
“You know the Bachelor and the Bachelorette. Now the golden version of the show have been so successful that next we are now very pleased to introduce another exciting chapter in the Golden Bachelor verse.” [He shares a video of The Golden Retriever].
“Take that Legally Blonde prequel!”
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“We’ve got the most highly anticipated shows of anyone, The Acolyte is about a Jedi investigating crimes. A show that’s set during the High Republic era of the Star Wars timeline, which means it takes place before The Phantom Menace and after I stopped giving a shit. We’ve got Mandalorians and Kardashians. We’re launching season five of the Kardashians on May 23rd, and there’s nothing you can do to stop us. This new season shows the Kardashians like you’ve never seen them before, assuming you’ve never seen them before, otherwise it’s exactly the same shit as the last 17 years.”
“And while we’re talking about milestones, I feel like we should give credit to our competitors where credit is due. For the 16th consecutive season, CBS was the most watched broadcast network. They don’t have an upfront anymore, so let’s give them a round of applause, but do it loud so their audience can hear it.”
“Things are changing at CBS and not for the better. On Thursday, Young Sheldon is coming to an end after seven seasons. I know I haven’t seen it either, but what I do know is that there’s a 100% chance that somewhere at CBS headquarters right now, there is a whiteboard with the words Old Sheldon, question mark, written on it. CBS also announced this’ll be the 14th and final season of Blue Bloods. Oh man, those assholes. Your grandpa has one thing left to live for and they’re taking it away!”
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“CBS renewed the Dick Wolf Show FBI for three more seasons, not just one, which is incredible. There are now more FBI agents on CBS than there were at Diddy’s house. Dick Wolf is on CBS. Dick Wolf is on NBC. We’re still dickless, but we’re crossing streams like never before. We are one unified Disney and we’re joining forces with Warner Brothers Discovery. We have Spider-Man and Superman together. I love this. The old dogs teaming up to take out the young guns. I have to say I haven’t seen this much corporate comraderie in this business since last summer when they all worked together to starve the writers.”
“We are bundling. And while from the outside, this may look like an act of desperation from the inside. It also looks like that we didn’t want to bundle. We had to. When you’re freezing to death and it’s so cold, you have to get in a sleeping bag with your uncle so you don’t die. That’s us right now. You’ve seen our churn rates. It’s not just churn, it’s Chernobyl, but not anymore. Now finally, our users, I mean guests, can turn on their TV and get all the channels in one package for one price. All supported by ads. We call it basic cable. And it’s going to blow your minds. We’re consolidating. We are building one enormous ad supported streaming pile of shit. And then we just sit back and wait for the next pandemic and let the money roll in. “
“We have a sports bundle too. ESPN is teaming up with Fox Warner Brothers and Discovery to give subscribers all the family entertainment you get on Disney plus live games, fantasy sports and betting. It’s a package we’re calling Weekend at Divorce Dad’s house.”
“Finally, all our content is available in one place and also in multiple other places too. But it must be a good idea. We’re already getting copycats. Netflix, Apple and Peacock just announced their new bundle stream saver today. What an excellent name that is. Stream Saver sounds like a catheter you might find for sale on Tucker Carlson Dot Com. And then you have NBC. You ever have a friend who buys a boat and he paid a lot of money for the boat and he’s always posting pictures of the boat? And in every conversation you have with him, he somehow finds a way to make it about the boat? That’s NBC with the Olympics.”
“Rita said, what we do best is understand audiences. And it’s true over the last 10 years, what we’ve come to understand about our audience is they would rather be watching Netflix. Remember when Netflix thought they were above all this? They came in, they destroyed commercial television. And now guess what? They want to sell you commercials on television. They spent years ignoring you, sneering at you, making you eat their Unbreakable Kimmy shit. And now those smug bee-holes have to lick your nuts like the rest of us do.”
“And of course they’re acting like they’re excited about it. Like, oh my God, we love ads in our shows. It just never occurred to us to put them there scumbags. You know what? This makes me so mad. We’ve been whoring ourselves out for years and we know how to do it. We don’t need all this foreplay. We do this, we always do. We leave a key at the front desk. You come up to the room and have at it. Grab a bottle of Hulu, I’ll be face down on the bed. Okay?”
“We still have the best buzzwords in the business. No one is more buzzed when they come up with these words than Rita and her team. We are pulling this stuff out of our ass like that. You can literally watch your money swirl all the way down the drain. So we can decide if you’re a trusted partner or a cheap ass bitch. We have the best AI analytics of anyone. We have a reach machine. Okay? How far does that machine reach? Can it reach around? Because I think that would be good.”
“Here’s the thing. Unlike some of our competitors, we don’t think of you as faceless ATMs. We pretend to give a fuck about once a year and throw shrimp at like you’re some kind of sea manatees at SeaWorld. I mean, we think of you as freedom fighters. We think of you as American heroes fighting to keep television free for the people. Remember when Elon Musk was being interviewed and he told advertisers to go fuck themselves? We would never do that. But we do want to remind you that he did.”
“Just think about how you want to live your life. The only thing that matters, the only thing that truly matters is our relationships. That our families are healthy and that the inter-operability of our various digital tools and sales platforms provide efficient data tracking and unparalleled identity management. That’s it. Let’s circle back on that next week, huh? I’ll ping you. Alright, I need to wrap it up because Rita’s ready to do a keg stand with a Kelce brother.”
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