With a grin that might be mistaken for intoxication, Jimmy Kimmel spends most of Jimmy Kimmel Live seemingly bemused by all the corporate fuss made over his silly ideas (the now-prohibited open bar for the studio audience, his proposal to have a TV monitor on the desk so that he could flip over to competing shows should things become at all dull), and he hosts this talk show much the same way Al Pacino's suicidal ex-navy colonel waltzes through "Scent of a Woman": aware of his own encroaching demise, and free to be himself. The mortality rate of talk show hosts is not comforting to any young upstart, for every Leno and Letterman, there are Chevy Chases, Pat Sajaks, Lauren Huttons, Rick Deeses, Whoopi Goldbergs, Magic Johnsons, Keenan Ivory Wayanses, Chris Spencers, etc., but Kimmel seems to be downright tickled pink. Although defanged considerably since The Man Show and lacking an intrinsically hilarious writing team, he maintains (and relies on) a likeability that patches the often awkward holes well, like early Letterman without the memorable bits.
Review of Jimmy Kimmel Live!
