When CBS cancelled late night’s number one rated talk show, fans pitched an amazing idea. Every summer ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel takes an extended break. Rather than air repeats, Jimmy Kimmel Live instead has famous faces fill in for him. Some viewers saw that annual guest host job as the perfect opportunity for Kimmel to have some fun at the expense of CBS and the people who supported the network’s shocking cancellation of a popular show critical of the government. They wanted Jimmy Kimmel to have Stephen Colbert to fill in for him. It would have been absolutely perfect for a whole lot of reasons. And Jimmy Kimmel agreed. He said he did ask his former competitor if he’d like to do exactly that. Unfortunately, Colbert turned him down… for now.
In Variety‘s story about how Jimmy Kimmel, himself an unfair target of the federal government last year, has been one of the biggest benefactors of CBS shocking cancellation of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Kimmel’s ratings are up big time. Colbert’s viewers needed a new late night show and found it on ABC. But we can’t even imagine how big those ratings would be if the man currently penning a Lord of the Rings script had accepted Kimmel’s offer to return to a late night desk.
“Of course, I asked him, and I think it feels premature,” Kimmel told Variety about his offer and why he thinks Colbert politely declined. But that doesn’t mean it can’t still happen in the future. Kimmel also said he let Colbert know he can host “anytime” he wants. And he does mean anytime. “It doesn’t matter if it’s the summer, I’ll gladly step aside,” said Kimmel.
We don’t care if he eventually says yes during the summer, fall, winter, spring, or a fifth season we don’t know about. This was a perfect idea from the moment someone first mentioned it and it always will be.