Jimmy Kimmel on What Makes Integrations Great and Why He Hoped ABC Would Cancel His Show

In this week’s cover story, Jimmy Kimmel had a lot to say about battling politicians, his unexpectedly tumultuous year and his future in late night. In fact, the Jimmy Kimmel Live host had so much on his mind—like remembering the upfront joke ABC wouldn’t let him tell—that there wasn’t room to fit everything into the magazine. From what makes a great integration to planning for next year’s Oscars to the time that he wished ABC would cancel his show, here are the most noteworthy parts of Kimmel’s cover interview that didn’t make it into the story. The art of great integrations Kimmel said in the cover story that he was inspired to include integrations on his show after watching a classic Larry Sanders Show episode in which Garry Shandling’s talk show host is forced to do a Garden Weasel integration on his program. While he’ll say no to a pitch that “seems to be cheap or lowbrow,” Kimmel said that his favorite integrations don’t even seem to be showcasing a brand. “I have a great relationship with Diageo and I love doing integrations with them because they really understand. Dan Sanborn [Diageo’s vp of public relations and entertainment marketing] is the guy we deal with, and he, more than anybody I’ve met, understands these integrations need to be genuinely entertaining,” said Kimmel. “Some clients will get hung up on specific wording and their slogan and they’re very, very conservative. But Dan understands the reason they come to us is so we can make these integrations more like show content.” For example: “I do a thing called three ridiculous questions for Diageo and their various brands. I’ll sit down and ask three ridiculous questions of a celebrity. We’ve done Kobe Bryant, we have one with George Clooney coming out, and we did one with ridiculous questions for bartenders in Brooklyn. It turned out to be a very funny bit. You wouldn’t even know it was an integration, and I think that’s what you want. At least, that’s what I would want if I was marketing a product.” [kickout id="1"] His healthcare approach: keep it simple When he spoke out against the Graham-Cassidy healthcare bill in September, Kimmel intentionally used clear, concise language to break down the bill for his audience—and for himself. “I worked very hard on trying to explain it in simple terms,” he explained. “One big reason is because I needed to understand it in a simple way. I also know that my audience is not interested in having a 30-page document read to them. So when I boiled it down, I consulted with a lot of people who know about this stuff, and I didn’t want to rely on one person.” However, he dealt with some political backlash for this decision. “There’s this right-wing narrative that Chuck Schumer told me what to say, which—like most of the right-wing narrative—is absolute nonsense,” he said. “But I did want to hear what people thought of it and if I had everything correct. I think every independent analysis of it said that I did have it correct, and that was very important to me.” But the most important part for Kimmel was “wak[ing] people up,” he emphasized. “I think we find ourselves in the position almost every day of just clicking a box at the end of our Apple terms of service agreement, and going along with things we don’t know much about,” he said. “I just wanted to make sure people knew what was happening. Because that is the most dangerous part of this is that things become so complicated that you just kind of side with whichever team you’re on. And I don’t think that most Republican citizens—I’m not talking about politicians—agree with their representatives in this particular case. I wanted to point that out.” Landing Letterman During his week of Brooklyn shows last month, Kimmel became the first late-night host to interview David Letterman since he retired from The Late Show in 2015. How did he land him as a guest? “Well, I feel like I’ve been working all my life to have him on the show, even before I had a show,” Kimmel said, laughing. “But it was pretty easy. We called and asked and he said yes.” While the duo had a great rapport on the show, “make no mistake. We haven’t developed a friendship,” said Kimmel. “And out of respect for him, we probably never will, but he knows how I feel about him. I know him well enough to know that the last thing he needs is me asking him to go to dinner. While I would love nothing more, I respect his way, and I try not to pester him too much.” First was the worst Kimmel has only watched his first Jimmy Kimmel Live show (after the Super Bowl in 2003) once, for the show’s 10th anniversary—and he's not eager to do it again. “It was among the most painful experiences of my life,” he said, citing his “horrifying” hair and “clownish suits,” as well as his “ridiculous” set: “The fact that there were images moving behind me on the stage, I look back now and I go, how was that OK with any of us? It obviously looks terrible. It’s distracting. There are so many areas in which we’ve improved and refined the show. With that said, there was a rough charm to the show that I do miss. The show was live and so it was a lot sloppier, and sometimes it was flat out wild. And that was fun. It was stressful, but it was also fun.With that said, I much prefer the way the show looks now.” Pull the plug, ABC! While Kimmel said he’s “always optimistic,” he admitted that as the show was struggling in its early days, “there were times where I hoped the network would cancel the show, because it was so stressful. We could not get guests. The show was on live, from 9:05 p.m. [PT] until 10:05, five days a week. I had no semblance of a personal life. That’s why so many members of my family work here, because I would have never see them again if they didn’t! I had bunkbeds in my office where my kids slept. It was very, very difficult. And I would have been perfectly OK with cleaning out my office and heading home and going back to Comedy Central.” Oscars, the sequel When he hosted the Oscars in February, Kimmel only had two months to prepare, given that he wasn’t offered the job until the previous December. But he’ll have an entire year to plan his second go, as the Academy invited him back the day after the ceremony. However, Kimmel hasn’t started preparing yet. “There’s only so much that you can plan before the nominees are determined, or at least you have some kind of idea what the nominees might be. Because it is a movie awards show and you have to be focused on that. That’s why you’re there, to hand out awards and to celebrate the year in film,” he said. “So I think if you already know what you’re going to do in October, then you’ve already gone wrong.”

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Jimmy Kimmel on What Makes Integrations Great and Why He Hoped ABC Would Cancel His Show

The most noteworthy parts of our interview that didn’t make it into the cover story

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