32 Great Jimmy Kimmel Jokes From His Monologues

Following his rise to fame as the co-host of Comedy Central’s Win Ben Stein’s Money and The Man Show in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Jimmy Kimmel would make the move from cable to network TV as the host of Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2003. Decades later, the comedian is one of the longest-serving late night TV hosts of his time, having accumulated a sizable resume of funny monologue jokes. The following are just a few of his greatest hits, in our opinion.

"I Spend A Lot Of Time Online And, You Know What The Most Dangerous Neighborhood In The Country Is Right Now? The Comment Section On Every Webpage"

Jimmy Kimmel speaks for us all with this bit that reflects on the way internet users tend to interact with each other by spewing the cruelest insults imaginable, no matter what website they may find themselves on.

"It's Hard To Tell When It's Halloween In Hollywood. We Have Crazy People Walking Around In Costumes Every Night Here"

Anyone who has ever gone sightseeing on Hollywood Boulevard and seen aspiring actors dressed as various pop culture characters knows that Jimmy Kimmel is speaking the truth here. Then again, he also makes it sounds like a fun place to spend Halloween.

“To Get Matt Damon To Deliver His Lines, They Put Peanut Butter In His Mouth To Make It Look Like He's Talking"

The most iconic recurring bit on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, which has even existed beyond the show, is Kimmel's rivalry with Matt Damon, which started when he began ending every episode by jokingly apologizing to the Oscar winner for not having enough time to include him on the show. Kimmel has since peppered in jokes at Damon's expense into his monologue at any given opportunity, such as this one that compares him to a canine actor.

"Netflix Is Cracking Down On Password Sharing. Their Plan Is To Limit Password Sharing Only To Family Members Who Live In Your Household... This Is Gonna Be A Huge Blow To Nick Cannon"

A classic move among late night hosts is finding ways to combine two or more relevant, but wildly disparate, topics in the same joke. Jimmy Kimmel demonstrates this here by alluding to the large number of children Nick Cannon has before adding that Netflix's password sharing rules could cost the Masked Singer host millions of dollars.

"If You Told Me We Were Going To Last Longer Than Blockbuster, I Would Have Sooner Believed I Would Be Working At Blockbuster In 20 Years"

While celebrating the 20th anniversary of Jimmy Kimmel Live! in 2023, the host holds up the actual Blockbuster card he had when he started hosting the show. He then admits his astonishment that the show managed to outlive the once-leading video rental store chain.

"Jimmy, A Big Chunk Of Your Audience Almost Left When I Walked Out"

Jimmy Kimmel is not the only modern late night TV "Jimmy" since Jimmy Fallon joined the club in 2009 as Conan O'Brien's replacement on Late Night before taking over The Tonight Show five years later. As part of a 2022 April Fool's Day prank, the two Jimmys decided to switch shows for the night and, during his monologue, spoke to Fallon via satellite to poke fun at himself.

"Snow Disrupted The Winter Olympics. It's Like Water Interrupting A Swim Meet. It Doesn't Make Any Sense"

Is it just us, or does this sound a bit like a Steven Wright joke?

"This Is The Kind Of Thing We Used To Be Interested In Before We Had Instagram"

On one Jimmy Kimmel Live! episode, the host acknowledged a phenomenon occurring that night called a "Supermoon," which occurs when the Moon's orbit comes closest to the Earth. Indeed, this does sound like something that more people would pay attention to if not for the invention of social media.

"I’m Not Going To Lie: I Feel Like A Huge Chin Has Been Lifted Off Of My Shoulders"

In 2008, with Jay Leno's (first) retirement from The Tonight Show on its way, there were rumors that he would move from NBC to ABC, which would mean that Jimmy Kimmel Live! would be moved to a later timeslot. Fortunately, as shared by Deadline, the rumors were untrue, and Kimmel expressed his relief in a manner that also served up some playful ribbing at his fellow comedian's expense.

"I Read The Other Day That... The Planet Is Facing A Shortage Of Sand... Which Means We'll Soon Have Nothing To Stick Our Heads In"

There is an old legend that claims ostriches, in a moment of fear, will bury their heads under the sand as a form of inconsequential protection, which led to the coinage of a term that means to cowardly ignore a situation. Considering the multitude of issues that the world has faced as long as Jimmy Kimmel Live! has been on air, this joke could have been timely no matter when the host made it.

"I Want Something I Can Take Out Of The Envelope, Look At, Ask My Wife 'Who Are These Kids?' Never Figure It Out Between Us And Then Throw It In The Garbage"

This is Jimmy Kimmel's way of describing his ideal holiday card after receiving many of them from his friends through text instead of traditional mail.

"What A Night! No Slaps, No Mixed Up Envelopes, No Matt Damon"

The night after Jimmy Kimmel hosted the 2023 Academy Awards, he acknowledged how the show, luckily, did not experience any controversial issues like the previous year when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock in the face or in 2017 when La La Land was accidentally announced as the Best Picture Oscar winner before it was corrected that the true winner was Moonlight. Of course, the host could not help but also throw some shade at his fake longtime rival.

"Was His Blood Type B Or Not B?"

Jimmy Kimmel dropped this clever pun after mentioning that the second person in the United Kingdom to receive the Covid-19 vaccine was an 82-year-old man who happened to be named William Shakespeare.

"We Call This 'The Reverse DiCaprio'"

Academy Award winner Leonardo DiCaprio has a reputation for dating women of a significantly younger age. Jimmy Kimmel referred to this topic in his monologue after acknowledging that then-40-year-old Britney Spears' husband, Sam Asghari, was in his 20s.

"My Daughter, Jane, Refuses To Eat Anything. She's Three Years Old. It's Hollywood. She's Concerned About Her Weight"

This joke starts off Jimmy Kimmel's story about how he managed to finally convince his young daughter to eat her dinner. His method was threatening to chuck a tray of chocolate chip cookies into their swimming pool if she did not eat their main course that night: risotto.

"I Made Fun Of O.J. A Thousand Times. He Hasn't Tried To Kill Me Once"

On this particular night, Jimmy Kimmel's monologue focused a lot on the efforts of certain political figures to censor him for the way he poked fun at them on his show. However, Kimmel gets the last laugh by comparing them to someone who might be less inclined to take a joke.

"This Was The Highest Rated Super Bowl... Tubi Scored A Record 13.6 Million Viewers... Which Beat Their Previous Record By 13.6 Million Viewers"

The day after Super Bowl LIX was held, Jimmy Kimmel acknowledged in his monologue that night how the Big Game was streamed on a free streaming service called Tubi, which typically does not get that amount of viewership.

"Coronavirus... As You Know, Was Started By Netflix To Get People To Watch More Of Their Television"

Before the public began referring to the Coronavirus as Covid-19, Jimmy Kimmel made a crack about the pandemic's effect on how people would consume media and relied on their Netflix subscription (or other great streaming platforms) more often than ever after being advised to stay indoors for their own safety.

"If You're Gonna Believe That A Band Is The Dead Kennedys In Disguise, Wouldn't You Assume That Band Was The Dead Kennedys, Or Is That Too Obvious?"

In 2021, conspirator group Q-Anon posited the theory that Keith Richards, the guitarist for The Rolling Stones, was actually the late John F. Kennedy Jr. In his monologue, Jimmy Kimmel brought up that it would make more sense that the supposedly deceased members of the family of politicians would more likely go undercover as punk rock group, Dead Kennedys.

"That's What's Known As An Irish Bidet"

During a week of shows broadcast from Brooklyn, New York, in 2022, Jimmy Kimmel showed a video of a Yankees player pouring a cup of ale down his teammate's pants from the back side and came up with the perfect nickname for it.

"It Turns Out The Only Bad Thing About Mother's Day Is Having Children"

Jimmy Kimmel once told a story about spending Mother's Day with his wife, Molly McNearny, and then-22-month-old daughter, Jane, who made their time dining out together a challenge by never giving the couple a moment to relax.

"We Were Chugging Along And Then, All Of The Sudden, Out Of Nowhere, It Turned Into One Of Those Maury Povich Paternity Test Shows"

After hosting the 2017 Academy Awards (his first time emceeing the prestigious ceremony), Jimmy Kimmel opened the following night's episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! with a full breakdown of a mishap that caused La La Land to be announced as Best Picture when the true winner was Moonlight. We suppose the producers of director Damien Chazelle's acclaimed musical must have felt like a Maury guest being told he is "not the father" when they learned of the mistake after already giving their acceptance speeches.

"It Sounds To Me Like Maybe Julie Kukenberger Couldn't Think Of A Fun Costume, So She Ruined It For Everyone"

Here, Jimmy Kimmel relays a story about a school district in Boston that decided to de-emphasize Halloween-related festivities as part of a policy enforced by its superintendent, Julie Kukenberger.

"The State Of California Said They Are Not Lifting The Mask Mandate... Until June 15th, Which Will Be Known As 'Please Stop Screaming At The Assistant Manager Day'"

Mask mandates during the Covid-19 pandemic proved to be a polarizing topic in the United States, which Jimmy Kimmel reflected on with this one-liner that imagines how some interactions in public places could have been like during that time.

"The IRS Currently Has 15,000 Employees Responsible For Handling More Than 240 Million Calls... The Current Wait Time To Speak With A Representative Is 27 Years"

Even without call volumes as unbelievably high as 240 million, sometimes it does feel like it takes years for a representative to finally get to your "very important call," whether you are trying to reach the IRS or a doctor's office.

"Stealing Puppies From The Amish? This Could Be The Crime Of The Century.... The 18th Century"

In February 2023, CNN reported that an anonymous dog breeder from an Amish village claimed that, in 2017, he was unwittingly paid by a man to purchase several puppies with phony checks by none other than Congressman George Santos. When acknowledging the ordeal on his show, Jimmy Kimmel could not help but also give the victim of the crime some ribbing.

"It Just Now Occurred To Me, No One Has Clapped For Me In Months"

After taking a long hiatus from Jimmy Kimmel Live!, the host returned to an enthusiastic standing ovation, which he remarked was the first time he had received such a reaction in a while.

"You Give A Kid A Box Of Raisins Or An Apple, You Deserve The Black Eye You Get When They Throw It Back At You"

While dressed as Smokey Bear (and not Smokey the Bear, which he previously assumed was the mascot's official name), Jimmy Kimmel comments on a recent poll to decide the worst Halloween candy. After admitting he enjoys some of the choices, such as Circus Peanuts or Candy Corn, he declares that the worst thing you can drop in a trick-or-treater's bag is fruit.

"This Was The Hollywood Equivalent Of Your Drunk Uncle Starting A Fight, Ruining The Wedding, And Then Standing Up And Giving A Long Toast"

This is Jimmy Kimmel's way of using a comical metaphor to describe Will Smith slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars before later accepting the Academy Award for Best Actor in 2022.

"Here's How I Knew That We Were Really Back To Work: Our Parents Are Texting Us Notes About The Show Again"

At the beginning of the first show after a five-month hiatus due to the 2023 Writers Strike, Jimmy Kimmel revealed that a staff writer received a message from his mother urging him not to make the monologue strictly political. Of course, the host followed this moment with nothing but jokes about the biggest news in the world of politics.

"Very Rarely Does An Idea Literally Push The Envelope And This One Did"

The night after his fourth time hosting the Oscars in 2024, Jimmy Kimmel reflected on a bit from the ceremony in which John Cena presented the Academy Award for Costume Design without any costume on and with only an oversized envelope to cover him.

"We're Gonna Do A Show Tomorrow, Too, If You Keep It Up"

In a Covid-era monologue, Jimmy Kimmel acknowledges that, lately, his audience has been his staff, who "love staying late on a Friday." When they erupt into a prolonged applause, this is his way of quieting the interruption.