Before becoming the host of Donald Trump’s least favorite late-night show, Jimmy Kimmel ran a talk show specifically to “counteract” the influence of daytime TV’s biggest star.
“I didn’t get the whole Oprah thing for much of my life. In fact, I did a show called The Man Show that was designed specifically to counteract Oprah," Kimmel told SNL alums David Spade and Dana Carvey in Wednesday’s episode of their podcast Fly On The Wall.
Kimmel, 58, said he would frequently return home from work to his ex-wife yelling at him because of something Winfrey said on her enormously popular The Oprah Winfrey Show. Kimmel remembers wondering, ”Who is this Oprah? Why is she ruining my life?"
“It became personal for me,” Kimmel said.
Comedy Central’s The Man Show premiered in the summer of 1999 with Adam Carolla as Kimmel’s co-host.
“We’re here because we have a serious problem in this country, and her name is Oprah,” Kimmel said in the show’s opening monologue. “Millions and millions of women are under Oprah’s spell. This woman has half of America brainwashed.”
By 1999, Winfrey, 71, was the preeminent talk show host in America, following the departure of Johnny Carson earlier in the decade. Her show regularly averaged more than 10 million daily viewers. Her influence was so great that her product and book recommendations led to sold-out shelves—dubbed the “Oprah Effect.”
Kimmel, whose talk show’s overexagerrated chauvanism served as a counterbalance to Oprah’s overtly women-oriented programming, didn’t pull punches in his mockery.
In a recurring sketch, Kimmel donned a wig, body prosthetics, and dark brown face makeup to become the character Oprah Jimfrey. As Oprah, Kimmel mocked her weight-loss and home-tips segments, as well as her appearance and voice.
Amid footage of Kimmel in blackface resurfacing in 2020, the comedian issued a statement apologizing to “those who were genuinely hurt or offended by the makeup I wore or the words I spoke.”
After more than a decade of feuding, the pair buried the hatchet when Winfrey appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live! in a special post-Oscars show in 2012. That year, Oprah had won an honorary Oscar for her charitable work.
Kimmel remembered being in awe of her on-set demeanor.
“I was like, ‘Oh, wow,’ because she was a presence, almost a religious experience, for everyone there. And she understood what she was to everybody, and she gave them that thing,” Kimmel said on the podcast.
Kimmel remembered the two spending the whole day together to film sketches for the episode.
“You’d expect after a 17-hour day that Oprah would hightail it the f--- out of there, but instead, Oprah got a couple bottles of very expensive tequila and gathered everyone on the crew together and gave this beautiful toast, and then took pictures with everyone,” Kimmel recalled. “And then, and only then, when she had interacted with every single person there, did she get in the car and leave. And I was like, ‘Now I understand.’”
Following his comedic beginnings, Kimmel’s talk show has shifted toward politics, with most of his monologues centering on President Trump. In September, Kimmel was indefinitely suspended by ABC following threats by Federal Communications Commission chairman Brandon Carr.
After three days, Jimmy Kimmel Live! was reinstated, and Kimmel went on to win a Critics’ Choice Award earlier this month.
