The most obvious story to feed into the late-night grist mill this week was George Santos. He’s been portrayed by around half a dozen actors across late night, and his new Cameo career offered countless options for comedy writers. You can pay Mr. Diva Down to say absurd things (which is the route Jimmy Kimmel took), but that arguably feeds into Santos’s whole thing more than mocking it. Kimmel said this week that he got his Cameos before Santos did a price hike, and they are some of the dumbest things I’ve heard a person say. But we already knew Santos is a bloviating liar who will say anything for money, clout, or attention. Does paying his Cameo fee add to the conversation? The Late Show did a supercut of Santos Cameos, cutting and pasting his words to suit their agenda. But again, we know he be saying dumb shit. I think Late Night’s “Amber Says What” did the most responsible job comedically by having someone pretend to be Santos and basically say “Don’t give me money because I am horrible” before switching gears to Taylor Swift vs. Beyoncé discourse.
As we lurch ever forward to the 2024 election, we as comedy connoisseurs really need to think about how we want to deal with a whole ’nother Trump election year. Do we feed the beast, or focus on other shit? Dear God, I hope the answer is the latter. But the best stuff on late night this week wasn’t even political. It was, if anything, oddly sentimental.
5. A Half-Executed “Day Drinking” With Seth
Poor Dula Peep took too many shots too fast and had to cut her “Day Drinking” segment with Seth Meyers short. We stan a self-care queen who knows when drinking to excess isn’t funny anymore. But a tip for the future: Know who’s safe to razz. Dua Lipa took so many shots in succession because she took shots rather than answer difficult questions about who she likes/dislikes. Meyers has people in his life he knows he can throw under that bus. What I’m trying to say is: When he says John Oliver is his least favorite guy on Strike Force Five, it really means he knows he and Oliver can weather the public diss. It’s a shame we didn’t see more of Ms. Peep, but we did get a perfect, earnest snippet of sweet sweet drunk talk from Meyers when he started a new conversation tangent with “Can I say something that I want you to hear?” That’s classic earnest drunk right there.
4. Hugh Grant Negates the Premise
On the opposite side of the content from “Can I say something that I want you to hear?” is Hugh Grant on The Tonight Show. Grant was in rare sourpuss form, calling Santa a pervert and continuing the “CGI acting is torture and I envy the dead” press tour he’s been on for all of Wonka. Side note: Did you see that French interview he did where he said “Je joue le Oompa Loompa” then dies inside? It’s more poignant than Cocteau’s version of La Belle et La Bête.
3. The Scouring of Sodor
It’s a good thing Last Week Tonight ended their freight-train episode with a Thomas the Tank Engine parody, because when thinking about derailments we need the distance of model trains — especially after Oliver & Co. made a very persuasive argument that, frankly, it’s weird we haven’t yet had a disastrous train derailment that kills dozens if not hundreds. Thank you Matt Berry for narrating the faux Thomas segment. You join all the greats in the train-narration field: Ringo Starr, George Carlin, and, uh, Alec Baldwin.
2. Stephen Colbert’s Appendix Travelogue
Stephen Colbert carried on the great Late Show tradition of oversharing medical information. David Letterman had his whole medical team take a bow when he got bypass surgery. Colbert didn’t go that far, but he did give a full breakdown of his appendectomy, including when José Andrés danced with him on camera and he accidentally popped his appendix like a water balloon. The best part was when Colbert’s wife, Evie, was celebrated for insisting that Colbert go to the hospital. “Evie! Evie! Evie!” the crowd chanted, as she took her well-deserved bow.
1. Zouks Unrated and Uncut
Jason Mantzoukas dropped a lot of effs and jeffs on Jimmy Kimmel Live! this week. But they were tastefully bleeped. With fart noises. Mantzoukas supplied his own fart noises by doing a big, fat raspberry into his lav mic, and Kimmel’s post team was kind enough to edit that “pffft” over every shit and fuck Zouks dropped while plugging Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Thank you, Mantzoukas, for giving that classic loosey-goosey late-night energy that keeps the whole machine going. Every story about melting a snowman’s snow dick you tell makes the rest of the chat-show machine worth while.
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