Jimmy Kimmel Roasts Bob Iger, Offers Baby Naming Rights at Disney Upfront


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When it comes to Jimmy Kimmel’s closing monologue at Disney’s upfront event, no one’s safe. And, yes, that means you, too, babies.

On Tuesday, the Jimmy Kimmel Live host once again closed out Disney’s annual upfront event, initially joining the event virtually from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he was awaiting the birth of his first grandchild.

Kimmel then proceeded to offer the baby’s naming rights to the advertisers in the room, even bringing in Dr. Dre for the bit and adding a Lion-King-inspired jingle full of brand names as examples. (Because when it comes to emotional childhood trauma from being named after a brand, Hakuna Matata, right?)

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Of course, the late-night host was just joking about being virtual. After the baby-naming bit, he stepped onstage and said the virtual segment was almost cut after Seth Meyers offered naming rights to his kid at the NBCUniversal upfront earlier in the week.

“I thought about killing [the segment], but then I also thought about Dr. Dre killing me for making him drive to Hollywood and put on makeup for no reason,” Kimmel said.

The Jimmy Kimmel Live host then proceeded to roast everyone, including legacy broadcasters, competitors like Netflix, and even Disney CEO Bob Iger, who helped kick off the Disney upfront for the second year in a row.

“Bob Iger has passionately led Disney for 20 years, and reluctantly for three,” Kimmel joked in his monologue, later adding, “You think Bob gives a shit about The Rookie Season 8? Bob doesn’t care if this whole room turns into Avengers Endgame dust!”

Kimmel also set his sights on ABC, which ordered only one new show for broadcast, 911: Nashville.

“At least CBS and Fox are making shows. ABC—we ordered one new show, and it’s a spinoff of an old show. Which really begs the question, ‘What are we doing here?’” Kimmel said. “We risked our lives flying into Newark for this?”

See more of Kimmel’s best jokes below:

On NBCU ad sales chief Mark Marshall saying his company had “the greatest collection of content that has ever been assembled”:

“I guess Mark has never heard of Pornhub. Although…,” Kimmel said, zooming in on a photo of Marshall smiling as Glinda from Wicked. “Based on the expression on his face … I feel like he has.”

On Dick Wolf getting a new NBC show:

“Dick Wolf, the Michael Jordan of character actors getting murdered in the park.”

On Disney beating Netflix in ad-supported viewers:

“Disney has 164 million active users per month across our ad-supported platforms, more than twice the number Netflix has. I don’t have a joke for that … I just want you to know that we finally beat those motherf****rs at something.”

On CBS winning the broadcast season:

“CBS was the most-watched network again for the 17th year in a row. Led by their hit comedy ‘Ghosts.’ Which is also what most of their viewers will be soon.”

On ABC not having new shows:

“Our fish is not fresh. But you know what we do have? Season grand-mother-f***ing two of The Golden Bachelor! Say what you will about ABC, we are still the only network where you can see pop-pop get a squeezer in a hot tub!”

On ESPN’s new streaming service being called “ESPN”:

“So what will this mysterious new streaming service be called? Well, you know, they had a conclave. And a little puff of white smoke came out of Jimmy Pitaro’s ass … And the new service bringing live content to millions of fans around the world will go by the name ‘ESPN.’ And that’s why they call us ‘Imagineers.’”

On ESPN getting a new streamer but keeping ESPN+:

“You will get less content on ESPN+. The ‘plus’ is now, in many ways, a minus. If you want the plus, you have to pay less for it. It’s all part of our plan to confuse you until you hand us the debit card of everyone in your family.”

On ABC’s audience shrinking, but CPMS going up:

“Every year, our audience gets smaller, and we tell you it’s bigger, and we want more, for less. And it’s exhausting. I know. We are annoying and unreasonable, and you have shitty jobs because of it. But at least you have the shitty jobs! All those kids we saw graduating this weekend … some of them might have to date Bill Belichick to make ends meet.”

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